Robin Woolven
(Professor Patricia M. Thane) M.Phil.
The Regional System of Government in London 1938–1945
Dr
Robin Woolven’s first career was as a Specialist Navigator in the Royal
Air Force for 23 years then, following a B.Sc. in Politics at
Southampton in 1980 (dissertation Government Decision Making in Civil Aviation 1943–1948),
his second career was 17 years as an Intelligence Officer based in
London. Unable to take his work home, he completed part-time Birkbeck
MAs in Victorian Studies (1982) and London Studies (1988)
with dissertations were entitled Gladstone and the Question of National Defence 1867–1874 and Air Raid Precautions and London Government1935–1945. respectively. Retiring to the Cotswolds in1997, he completed a part-time PhD on Civil Defence in London 1935–1945 in the War Studies Department at King’s College, London (2002).
After contributing to the post 9-11 research of the Centre for Defence Studies at King’s College, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Mountbatten Centre for International Studies at Southampton University (2006–2008), contributing to the UK Nuclear History 1953–1975 project.
As his 2002 thesis merely scratched the surface of the workings of the regional government of London just before and during the Second World War, his current research returns to that neglected seven years of the administion of Greater London.
Recent publications
- London Topographical Society’s 2005 atlas The London County Council Bomb Damage Maps 1939–1945 which reproduces147 hand-coloured maps of London showing the degree of damage suffered by virtually all London properties. (IHR Library Ref BLL.247/Sau)
- Articles in The Social History of Medicine and the Journal of Risk Research on “Public Panic (in fact the lack of it) and Morale in the Light of the current anti-terrorist campaign”.
- Several other articles on wartime London have appeared in a range of national and local history journals including the London Journal.
