Norman Dennis (16 August 1929 – 13 November 2010) was a British sociologist.
Norman Dennis | |
|---|---|
| Born | 16 August 1929 Sunderland, Durham |
| Died | 13 November 2010 (aged 81) Sunderland, Tyne and Wear |
| Occupation | Sociologist |
| Education | Bede Collegiate Boys' School; London School of Economics |
| Spouse | Audrey Robson (1954–2010) |
| Children | John Dennis Julia Hodkinson |
Early life and education
editBorn one of four sons to a tram driver, Norman Dennis was educated at Bede Collegiate Boys' School. He was offered a place at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, but declined it in favour of the London School of Economics, where he achieved a first-class honours degree in economics.[1]
Academic career
editDennis held academic posts at the Universities of Leeds, Bristol and Birmingham before finally holding a long-term post as Lecturer, later Reader, in Social Studies at Newcastle University, where he worked for 35 years.
He was a lifelong Labour supporter and was a Labour councillor in Millfield, Sunderland, in the early 1970s. He was driven to do this by his disgust at the planned slum clearances in Sunderland at the time, which he opposed strongly. It was this that also inspired him to write about economic pressures and how they shape society.[2]
The Daily Telegraph news blogger Ed West described Dennis as "a key analyst of late 20th-century British society whose influence, I suspect, will stretch long into the 21st".[3]
Death
editDennis died of leukaemia on 13 November 2010 in Sunderland, at the age of 81.
Bibliography
edit- Coal Is Our Life - An Analysis of a Yorkshire Mining Community (1956)
- People and Planning (Society Today & Tomorrow) (1970)
- Public Participation and Planner's Blight (1972)
- English Ethical Socialism: Thomas More to R.H. Tawney (with A.H. Halsey) (1988)
- Families Without Fatherhood (1992)
- Rising Crime and the Dismembered Family (1993)
- The Invention of Permanent Poverty (1997)
- Racist Murder and Pressure Group Politics (2000)
- Cultures and Crimes: Policing in Four Nations (2005)
Notes
edit- ^ "Politics Obituaries – Norman Dennis". The Daily Telegraph. London. 24 January 2011. Retrieved 27 September 2011.
- ^ Hudson, Bob (28 November 2010). "Norman Dennis obituary – Sociologist known for his research into community, the family and housing". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 27 September 2011.
- ^ West, Ed (12 January 2011). "The death of an ethical English socialist". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 16 January 2011.