Robert James Lee (30 October 1959 – 7 February 2010) was an English historian.
Life and work
Born on 30 October 1959, Lee was educated at
Thorpe Grammar School. He worked for
British Gas after leaving school, but was made redundant in 1995. He quickly decided to return to education, completing an undergraduate degree in English and history at
Keele University in 1998. He then earned a
Master of Arts degree in social history from the
University of Leicester, where he stayed to complete a doctorate;
[Matthew Reisz, "Robert Lee, 1959–2010", '' Times Higher Education Supplement'', 25 March 2010, p. 23.] his
PhD PHD or PhD may refer to:
* Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification
Entertainment
* '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series
* ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic
* Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group
** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...
was awarded in 2003 for his
thesis "Encountering and managing the poor: rural society and the
Anglican
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...
clergy in
Norfolk, 1815–1914".
After completing a postdoctoral research position at the
University of Durham (2003–06), Lee was appointed to a lectureship at the
University of Teesside. Lee became ill with
cancer and died on 7 February 2010, leaving a widow and two sons.
The ''
Times Higher Education Supplement'' said that Lee was a "historian who transformed the study of the English rural poor ... Despite the brevity of his career, he published many papers and three major books in as many years, work that greatly illuminated 19th-century regional history, particularly the relationships between the
Church of England, poverty and political resistance."
The three books were:
''Unquiet Country: Voices of the Rural Poor 1820–1880'' (2005), ''Rural Society and the Anglican Clergy, 1815–1914: Encountering and Managing the Poor'' (2006), and ''The Church of England and the Durham Coalfield, 1810–1926'' (2007).
[See reviews by Alan Heesom ('' History'', vol. 95, no. 320, 2010, pp. 512–513), Quentin Outram ('' Journal of British Studies'', vol. 49, no. 1, 2010, pp. 202–203), and James Jaffe ('' Journal of Ecclesiastical History'', vol. 60, no. 2, 2009, pp. 411–412).]
Selected publications
* ''Unquiet Country: Voices of the Rural Poor 1820–1880'' (
Windgather Press, 2005).
*
Rural Society and the Anglican Clergy, 1815–1914: Encountering and Managing the Poor', Studies in Modern British Religious History series (
Boydell Press, 2006).
*
The Church of England and the Durham Coalfield, 1810–1926: Clergymen, Capitalists and Colliers', Regions and Regionalism in History series (
Boydell Press, 2007).
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Robert
1959 births
2010 deaths
Alumni of Keele University
Alumni of the University of Leicester
Academics of Teesside University
Academics of Durham University
British social historians
English historians
Historians of England
People from Thorpe St Andrew