The Royal Historical Society is deeply concerned by the scale and potential impact of further redundancies in the History department at Goldsmiths, University of London.
These latest cuts will reduce the department’s teaching and research capacity from eleven to six members of staff. This follows a previous, extensive round of redundancies imposed in 2022. If the current proposals go ahead, Goldsmiths—a member of the University of London—will suffer a 75% reduction in History staff between 2022 and 2024.
Cuts of this kind significantly reduce the options available to existing and potential students, many of whom are reliant on their local university to study the subject of choice. They also wreak havoc on the careers and personal lives of academic historians.
At Goldsmiths the present cuts hit even harder: threatening the very identity of the History department and, indeed, the UK’s provision of specialist historical teaching and research. This is especially so for Masters’ study which is a gateway to PhD work. Goldsmiths’ redundancy plans will see the loss of specialist historians and convenors, making high-profile degree courses impossible to continue. With this will come the loss of specialist training opportunities for current and future students.
To take one example of Goldsmiths’ distinctiveness and national role: Black British History.
Last month the Royal Historical Society published an Update to its 2018 report, Race, Ethnicity and Equality in UK History. As our Update states, this a pivotal moment in the provision of Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority histories in UK Higher Education. Welcome is the recent creation of dedicated lectureships in this field, principally at Russell Group universities. At the same time, we’ve seen the very unwelcome closure of a pioneering Masters’ programme in the History of Africa and the African Diaspora at the University of Chichester.
Cuts at Goldsmiths now threaten the UK’s sole Masters’ option in Black British History. As we argue in the Update: ‘This is exactly the profile of degree course, student body and department that UK Higher Education needs to exist and to champion’. Goldsmiths History is a department with high BME student intake from, and engagement with, its immediate community: 80% of students on the Black British History MA are Black and 95% are Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic—percentages far in excess of other History Masters’ programmes across the UK. The scale and focus of redundancies at Goldsmiths will significantly diminish, or close, dedicated Masters’ programmes that are training the next generations of historians to work in academia and related sectors.
The losses created and suffered will be wider still. Goldsmiths provides an entry point into higher education for many first-generation students. Of all London History departments, Goldsmiths admits the highest proportion of undergraduates with little or no previous family engagement in university education. The profile of Goldsmiths History—and the college as a whole—is notably broad, with high numbers of part-time and mature students. Close to 50% of Goldsmiths’ students are from BME backgrounds with a similar percentage from London, many of whom live at home and commute. Redundancies and the loss of courses hit hardest on those who, having chosen History for their degree, have far less choice on where they can afford to study.
There is a very great deal at stake here. The Royal Historical Society is deeply concerned for the positions and future of all historians and History students at Goldsmiths. As in 2022, the Society is writing directly to the college’s senior managers to express concern from our position of disciplinary expertise. We also continue our meetings with parliamentarians: to secure political action on the crisis affecting History in UK Higher Education, and enable universities to better fulfil their capacity for social mobility and training. History’s long-term popularity as a degree choice, along with the skills and opportunities it provides, mean our subject is central to this debate.
More immediately, we urge Goldsmiths’ managers to think again and protect—not further erode—the assets and talents integral to Goldsmiths History. The loss of any and all historical expertise will make the college poorer. The loss of distinctive courses, unique to the Goldsmiths, will also make History poorer—denying us the specialist knowledge, commitment and role models that we, and future historians, so desperately need.
The President, Officers and Council of the Royal Historical Society
