Peter Liddle

{{short description|British historian}} {{for|the British landscape artist|Peter Liddle (artist)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox academic | honorific_prefix =  | name = Peter Liddle | honorific_suffix = {{Post-nominals|country=UK|size=100%|OBE|FRHistS}} | image = | image_size = | alt = | caption = | birth_name =  | birth_date = {{birth year and age|1934}} | birth_place = | death_date =  | death_place = | death_cause = | citizenship =  | other_names = | occupation = | period = | known_for = | title = | boards =  | spouse = | partner = | children = | parents = | relatives = | awards =  | website = | education = | alma_mater =  | thesis_title = | thesis_url = | thesis_year = | school_tradition = | doctoral_advisor = | academic_advisors = | influences =  | era = | discipline = Historian | sub_discipline = {{hlist|Military history|First World War|Second World War|oral history}} | workplaces = University of Sunderland <br /> University of Leeds | doctoral_students =  | notable_students = | main_interests = | notable_works = | notable_ideas = | influenced =  | signature = | signature_alt = | signature_size = | footnotes = }} '''Peter Hammond Liddle''' {{Post-nominals|country=UK|size=100%|OBE|FRHistS}} (born 1934) is a British historian and author specialising in the study of the First and Second World Wars. In the 1960s he developed the '''Liddle Collection''', a large collection of interviews and memorabilia mainly relating to the First World War that is now held at the University of Leeds.

== Career == Peter Liddle was born in 1934.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Hi-xCwAAQBAJ |title=Writers Directory |date=2016-03-05 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-349-03650-9 |pages=747 |language=en}}</ref>

In 1968 Liddle started interviewing people about their lives during and around the First World War, collecting oral history from the era. He founded the Liddle Collection and worked to expand in throughout the 1970s and 1980s, placing advertisements and recording many interviews. He also collected personal papers and memorabilia connected to the First World War<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last=MacDonald|first=Juliet|date=2014-09-01|title=Shelf lives: Drawing out letters from World War I|url=http://openurl.ingenta.com/content/xref?genre=article&issn=1753-5190&volume=7&issue=3&spage=359|journal=Journal of Writing in Creative Practice|language=en|volume=7|issue=3|pages=359–374|doi=10.1386/jwcp.7.3.359_1}}</ref> and the collection grew to be the "largest archive of personal documents from the first world war".<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|date=1988-10-10|title=Great War collection is saved from dispersal|pages=5|work=The Guardian|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/66267816/great-war-collection-is-saved-from/|access-date=2020-12-28}}</ref><ref>"'People's war' archive moves to new home." ''Yorkshire Post'' [Leeds, England], 29 Jan. 2002</ref> He developed a team of volunteers to handle the influx of materials.<ref name=":2" /> In 1974 Liddle visited New Zealand, where he interviewed 150 war veterans and took the diary of Hartley Valentine Palmer. Palmer and Liddle came into disagreement as Palmer requested the diary back, and Liddle refused, maintaining that it was his "unequivocally". He refused to return it after the New Zealand Police Association and federal government of New Zealand requested its return.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web|date=2017-03-21|title=Nelson woman's 42-year battle for return of father's lost Gallipoli diary|url=https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/last-post-first-light/90626282/nelson-womans-42year-battle-for-return-of-fathers-lost-gallipoli-diary|access-date=2020-12-29|website=Stuff|language=en}}</ref> In 2016 a museum in Leeds scanned images of the diary and sent them to Palmer's family.<ref name=":4" /> In 2017 it was reported that Liddle had taken 14 such diaries.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2017-04-22|title=Hope for families of Anzac heroes fighting for decades to retrieve World War 1 diaries|url=https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/91825007/hope-for-families-of-anzac-heroes-fighting-for-decades-to-retrieve-world-war-1-diaries|access-date=2020-12-29|website=Stuff|language=en}}</ref>

By 1986, Liddle was a senior lecturer of history at the University of Sunderland. That year, ''The Sunday Times'' reported that the collection was at risk of being "split up or moved to North America" because the collection had grown out of the facilities where it was being held at Sunderland. Liddle was paying £2,000 a year to house the collection and was forced to stop collecting new items.<ref name=":1">{{cite news |title=Cash squeeze risks all our yesterdays: threat to Peter Liddle's collection of personal memorabilia of World War I |work=The Sunday Times |date=9 February 1986 }}</ref> The University of Leeds had purchased the collection by 1988,<ref name=":0" /> where it was moved. Liddle then worked at Leeds for ten years as the "Keeper of the Collection" to develop the archive. While at Leeds, Liddle expanded the scope of the collection to include the Second World War. Many items from collected relating to that war were instead placed at Walton-on-Thames in the Second World War Experience Centre.<ref name=":2" /> Fred Ratcliffe, the director of Cambridge University Library, considered the collection "one of the most important private collections of 20th century papers".<ref name=":1" /> In 2014 the collection had over 4,300 records in 2500 boxes,<ref name=":2" /> and in 2011 it was written that 7,000 people had their stories documented with 4,000 interviews. After his retirement he was president of The Second World War Experience Centre, which had 6,000 accounts of the war in 2011.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal|last=Parotti|first=Philip|date=Fall 2011|title=Voices of War|journal=Sewanee Review|volume=119|issue=4|pages=lxiii-lxvii|doi=10.1353/sew.2011.0104|s2cid=162311546 }}</ref>

Liddle's publications include ''Facing Armageddon: The First World War Experienced,''<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Peterson|first=Agnes F.|date=October 1997|title=Facing Armageddon: The First World War Experienced: Cecil, Hugh, and Peter H. Liddle, eds.: London: Leo Cooper/Pen and Sword, 936 pp., Publication Date: 1996|url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03612759.1997.10525251|journal=History: Reviews of New Books|language=en|volume=26|issue=1|pages=8|doi=10.1080/03612759.1997.10525251|issn=0361-2759|url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Peterson |first=A. F. |year=1997 |title=Facing Armageddon: The First World War Experienced: Reviews of New Books |journal=History |volume=26 |issue=1 |page=8 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Glenn |first=R. W. |year=1998 |title=Facing Armageddon: The First World War Experienced |journal=Military Review |volume=78 |issue=1 |page=112 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|last=Howard|first=Michael|date= 11 October 1996|title=Peoples in arms|work=The Times Literary Supplement}}</ref> ''D-Day, by Those Who Were There'',<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Harrison|first=K. C. |date=October 2004|title=D-Day, by Those Who Were There2004402Edited by Peter Liddle. D-Day, by Those Who Were There . Barnsley: Pen & Sword Books 2004. 256 pp., {{text|ISBN}}: 1 84415 079 8 £19.99 $26.62|url=https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/09504120410559870/full/html|journal=Reference Reviews|language=en|volume=18|issue=7|pages=50–51|doi=10.1108/09504120410559870|issn=0950-4125|url-access=subscription}}</ref> and ''The Great War 1914–1945: Lightning Strikes Twice''.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Bernstein |first=L. |year=2002 |title=The two world wars that shaped the 20th century |journal=Military Review |volume=82 |issue=2 |pages=107–108 }}</ref> In 2011 he published ''Captured Memories 1990-1918: Across the Threshold of War'', an edited collection of twenty-nine interviews.<ref name=":3" />

Liddle was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2023 Birthday Honours for services to heritage and public understanding of the World Wars.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=64082|supp=y|page=B13|date=17 June 2023}}</ref>

==Selected works== * ''Men of Gallipoli: The Dardanelles and Gallipoli Experience, August 1914 to January 1916'' (Allen Lane, 1976) * ''Testimony of War 1914-1918'' (Michael Russell, 1979) * ''Aspects of Conflict, 1916'' (Michael Russell, 1985) * ''Home Fires and Foreign Fields: British Social and Military Experience in the First World War'' (Brassey's, 1985) editor * ''Gallipoli, 1915: Pens, Pencils and Cameras at War'' (Brassey's, 1985) * ''The Sailor's War, 1914-18'' (Blandford Press, 1985) * ''The Airman's War, 1914-18'' (Blandford Press, 1987) * ''The Soldier's War, 1914-18'' (Blandford Press, 1988) * ''Voices of War 1914-1918: Front Line and Home Line'' (Leo Cooper, 1988) * ''The 1916 Battle of the Somme: A Reappraisal'' (Leo Cooper, 1992) * ''The Worst Ordeal: Britons and Home and Abroad 1914-1918'' (Leo Cooper, 1994) * ''Facing Armageddon: The First World War Experienced'' (Pen & Sword, 1996) co-edited with Hugh Cecil * ''Passchendaele in Perspective: The Third Battle of Ypres'' (Leo Cooper, 1997) editor * ''At the Eleventh Hour: Reflections, Hopes and Anxieties at the Closing of the Great War, 1918'' (Leo Cooper, 1998) co-edited with Hugh Cecil * ''For Five Shillings a Day: Personal Histories of World War II'' (Collins, 2000) co-authored with Dr. Richard Campbell-Begg * ''The Great World War 1914-45: Lightning Strikes Twice'' (Vol. 1) (Collins, 2000) co-authored with John Bourne and Ian Whitehead * ''The Great World War 1914-45: Who Won? Who Lost?'' (Vol. 2) (Collins, 2001) co-authored with John Bourne and Ian Whitehead * ''D-Day: By Those Who Were There'' (Pen & Sword, 2004) * ''Captured Memories 1900-1918: Across the Threshold of War'' (Pen & Sword, 2010) * ''Captured Memories 1930-1945: Across the Threshold of War. The Thirties and the War'' (Pen & Sword, 2011) * ''The Gallipoli Experience Reconsidered'' (Pen & Sword, 2015) * ''The 1916 Battle of the Somme Reconsidered'' (Pen & Sword, 2016) * ''Britain Goes to War: How the First World War Began to Reshape the Nation'' (Pen & Sword, 2016) editor * ''Britain and the Widening War, 1915-1916: From Gallipoli to the Somme'' (Pen & Sword, 2016) editor

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== *[https://www.war-experience.org/patrons-and-honorary-fellows/ Patrons and Honorary Fellows] at War Experience.org *[https://library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-liddle-collection The Liddle Collection at the University of Leeds]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Liddle, Peter}} Category:Living people Category:People associated with the University of Leeds Category:Fellows of the Royal Historical Society Category:20th-century British historians Category:1934 births Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire

Peter Liddle

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