Professor Eric Richards (1940-2018)
We are deeply saddened to learn of the sudden death in London on 21 September 2018 of Professor Emeritus Eric Richards. Born in 1940 in Denbighshire, Wales, Eric was raised in Shropshire, attended university at Nottingham, and moved in 1963 as a ‘£10 Pom’ to Adelaide. After a stint at Stirling University he was appointed in 1971 to Flinders University. He remained there for the next four decades, during which time he made enormous contributions to the history of the Highland Clearances, migration from Britain and Ireland, and migration to Australia. Eric retired from Flinders in 2012, though remained an active writer and lecturer as well as being a keen tennis player and cyclist.
Among Eric’s major books (including prize winners) are:
- The Genesis of International Mass Migration: The British Case, 1750-1900 (2018)
- Destination Australia: Migration to Australia since 1901 (2009)
- Debating the Highland Clearances (2007)
- Britannia’s Children: Emigration from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland since 1600 (2004)
- The Highland Clearances: People, Landlords and Rural Turmoil (2000)
- Patrick Sellar and the Highland Clearances: Eviction, Homicide and the Price of Progress (1999)
- A History of the Highland Clearances. Vol 2. Emigration, Protest, Reasons (1985)
- A History of the Highland Clearances. 1. Agrarian Transformation and the Evictions, 1745-1886 (1982)
Eric also edited the Visible Immigrants series of publications.
We were fortunate to have Eric visit Dunedin in January 2010. During his trip he gave a powerful public talk at Otago Settlers Museum about the Highland Clearances (on the anniversary of Robert Burns’ birth), held an erudite seminar on migration to Australia (held on Australia Day), and offered the Immortal Memory at the Dunedin Burns Club dinner.
In 2014 Eric was the Carnegie Trust Centenary Professor at the University of the Highlands and Islands. Two of his recorded seminars are available here and here.
In 2015 Flinders held a seminar in Eric’s honour. The proceedings, published the following year, included a tribute from Professor Philip Payton. It is available here (544KB).
A gentle, warm and kind man, Eric is much loved, deeply missed and never forgotten. Our sincere condolences to Ngaire and all Eric’s family, friends, and colleagues.
