Charles Phythian-Adams Obituary

We are sorry to report that Charles Phythian-Adams passed away on Tuesday 13th May 2025. Although it was was not unexpected, his death is still very sad nonetheless

Charles Phythian-Adams’s time at Leicester coincided with the last years of W.G. Hoskins (1965-8), and continued with Alan Everitt, until Charles himself became head of the Department, later the Centre of English Local History. Before arriving in Leicester he had been a research student at Oxford, working on Coventry with a focus on the early sixteenth century. The result was a remarkable book, Desolation of a City, published in 1979, which revealed the severity of the urban crisis in Coventry, and underpinned the idea of general urban decline in the later medieval and early modern periods. The debate on this theme began in the late 1970s and continued through the 1980s; it was initially applied to England but sparked some interest among continental urban historians. It helped to stimulate a revival of interest in the urban history of the pre-modern period that still continues. The Coventry book was also important because it analysed an urban society in new ways, breaking away from the traditional obsession with guilds, and instead drew on anthropological approaches to examine families and households, life-cycle, social mobility, and mentalities. While defining social inequalities, Phythian-Adams also devoted chapters to servants and children, reflecting the stratification of society in age cohorts. An interest in anthropology has now become a commonplace among social historians, but he was a pioneer. He published a pamphlet entitled Local History and Folklore which gave historical meaning to the customs and festivities that had previously only been of interest to antiquarians. He ruefully acknowledged later that the strand of anthropological thought that had influenced him later fell out of favour, but that is a hazard for anyone engaging with other disciplines.

Although much of his work dealt with the late medieval and early modern periods, he had a long-term interest in the early middle ages, and wrote a study of the origins of Rutland, and of a Leicestershire village, Claybrooke Magna. His most ambitious project in this period was a study of the early history of Cumbria, emphasising its British origins in the post-Roman period.

In later years he devoted his work in teaching MA students as well as in publications, to new thinking about regional differences, which had always been a concern of the ‘Leicester school’ since the days of Thirsk and Everitt. He showed how regions were defined by well-defined boundaries, often coinciding with rivers, or with the high ground between river valleys. He explored the social, economic and cultural importance of the territories into which England was divided. The sources for defining the boundaries of ‘cultural provinces’ included marriage registers and bus timetables.

Phythian-Adams avoided clichés, received wisdom and repeating well-rehearsed ideas: he sought originality and achieved it.

Chris Dyer

The Phythian-Adams Award

Named in honour of Professor Charles Phythian-Adams the Friends provide up to 10 grants of £100 for undergraduate students entering their final year who are currently planning their dissertation research projects. The funding is intended to help cover the costs of research trips to local archives offices within the UK for research on any topic related to regional or local history, or the history of the family. The expectation is that this research would be undertaken over the coming summer vacation period leading into the final year. These grants are available to University of Leicester BA History or BA joint honours students. More details here.

Selected publications

Local History and Folklore: A New Framework, London : Bedford Square Press for the Standing Conference for Local History, 1975.
Desolation of a City: Coventry and the Urban Crisis of the Late Middle Ages, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
The Norman Conquest of Leicestershire and Rutland, Leicester, Leicester Museums, Art Galleries and Records Service, 1986.
Re-thinking English Local History, Leicester, Leicester University Press, 1987.
Societies, Cultures and Kinship, 1580–1850: Cultural Provinces and English Local History, Leicester, Leicester University Press, 1993.
Land of the Cumbrians: A Study of British Provincial Origins, AD 400–1120, Aldershot, Scolar Press: Ashgate Publishing Company, 1996.