Dr Adrian Smith

Archival: This information was last updated in 2004.

With a PhD from the University of Kent, and currently a Lecturer at the University of Southampton, Adrian Smith’s research is currently focused upon a biographical and historiographical study of Lord Louis Mountbatten. A previous biography, of the First World War air ace Edward ‘Mick’ Mannock, echoed earlier work on the British Left and within the broad area of war studies/civil-military relations. The latter has prompted the Mountbatten project, as has my interests in the Commonwealth and British cinema. His original focus of research, namely the British press, has in recent years been overshadowed by a heavy involvement in sports history. A forthcoming volume, City of Coventry: essays on a twentieth century experiment, confirms a complementary interest in local history which, not surprisingly, now embraces Southampton and the wider region.

Most important publications:

• Sport and National Identity in the Postwar World Editor, ed. with Dilwyn Porter (Routledge, 2004)
• ‘Black against gold: New Zealand-Australia sporting rivalry in the modern era’ in Adrian Smith and Dilwyn Porter, ed., Sport and National Identity in the Postwar World (Routledge, 2004).
• ‘Humphrey Jennings’ Heart of Britain (1941): a reassessment’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 23:2 (2003)
• Mick Mannock, Fighter Pilot: Myth, Life and Politics (Palgrave, 2001)
• ‘The Fall and Fall of the Third Daily Herald, 1930-64’ in Peter Catterall, Colin Seymour-Ure and Adrian Smith, eds., Northcliffe’s Legacy: Aspects of the British Popular Press 1896-1996 (2000)
• Amateurs and Professionals in Postwar British Sport Editor, with Dilwyn Porter, (Frank Cass, 2000)
• ‘Introduction’ and ‘Civil war in England: The Clubs, the RFU and the Impact of Professionalism on Rugby Union, 1995-99’ in Adrian Smith and Dilwyn Porter, eds., Amateurs and Professionals in Postwar British Sport (Frank Cass, 2000)
• ‘The Coventry Factor: Philip Larkin and John Hewitt’, Literature & History, spring 1999, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 34-55.
• The New Statesman: Portrait of a Political Weekly 1913-31 (Frank Cass, 1996).
• Management of the MOD 1983-86 – the impact and legacy of Michael Heseltine, Bailrigg Memorandum 15 (1996)
• ‘Command and Control in Postwar Britain: Defence Decision-making in the United Kingdom, 1945-84’, Twentieth Century British History, autumn 1991, vol. 2, no. 3.
• ‘The difficulties of maintaining a non-nuclear defence policy – New Zealand in an election year’, British Review of New Zealand Studies, July 1988, vol. 1, no. 1.
• ‘Low and Lord Beaverbrook: the cartoonist and the newspaper proprietor’, Encounter, December 1985, vol. 35, no. 5.

Information taken from: http://www.history.soton.ac.uk/smith.htm