It was with great sadness that the School of History learned of the death of former colleague and friend Dr Julian Hurstfield, who passed away on the 6th May 2021.<\/p>\n
George Conyne, former Lecturer in the School of History, reflects on his friend and former colleague:<\/p>\n
My first academic meeting at the University of Kent considered the\u00a0academic progress\u00a0of certain\u00a0first year History students. My colleague Julian Hurstfield, who died on 6 May 2020 and taught American\u00a0History\u00a0and American Studies, 1976 to 1996, was in the chair. After many candidates, we considered one whose early\u00a0work was generally\u00a0 marked at the “pass” whilst\u00a0his later work was marked as consistently\u00a0at\u00a0the “merit” level. I suggested that the student was on the borderline\u00a0 but the recent\u00a0work was all of the higher standard, we ought to award\u00a0him a “merit” overall.\u00a0 There was no voiced opposition to this. Three candidates later, a candidate appeared with the exact same set of marks; Julian said, “George, do you want to do your Henry\u00a0Fonda impersonation again?”<\/p>\n
I could not repress a laugh because\u00a0he referred to Fonda’s role in the 1957 classic, 12 Angry Men,<\/em> in which\u00a0he is the only juror who isn’t ready to convict a defendant.\u00a0 In doing so, he demonstrated that we thought alike and started a friendship of thirty years. It was typical of a scholar who was closer to me in terms of what we studied and who had gone out of his way to be\u00a0 kind and supportive\u00a0to the newest arrival\u00a0in the Board of Studies.<\/p>\n History was a “natural” subject to study for someone whose father was the Astor Professor\u00a0in the University of London. That interest\u00a0continued through\u00a0his undergraduate\u00a0training at Oxford and the writing of his Ph.D. under the direction of Herbert Nicholas. It was published\u00a0as\u00a0America and the French Nation, 1939-1945<\/em>\u00a0(Chapel Hill, 1986) and is still a leading study of the difficulties\u00a0Franklin Roosevelt had with de\u00a0Gaulle and the other leading French politicians\u00a0 and generals.\u00a0 Whilst this subject\u00a0always\u00a0remained important to him, his interests ranged far and wide. He embraced the addition of\u00a0America Studies to the Kent curriculum. which\u00a0included two popular courses\u00a0he designed: America through Autobiography <\/em>which\u00a0introduced students\u00a0to that\u00a0 complex form and The Adamses and the James, w<\/em>hich looked in detail\u00a0at the contributions\u00a0to politics, government, diplomacy, scholarship, fiction and thought of those families over the generations.\u00a0 Not only were the\u00a0courses\u00a0blessed with a high quality of content, he taught\u00a0them with a warmth, an eagerness to encourage and wit that brought out the best in students.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n