W. G. Hoskins

W. G. Hoskins (22 May 1908 – 11 January 1992) was born in Exeter, Devon. The Hoskins family had lived in Devon for some 500 years and his fierce pride in descent from Devon yeomen was one of the strongest forces shaping his personality. He attended school in Exeter and continued his education at the University College of the South West where he completed his degree at the age of 19. He went on to complete an MSc on ‘The Rise and Decline of the serge industry in SW England’ by the age of 21.

As well as writing many books, the most well known being The Making of the English Landscape, he also made a series for BBC television entitled Landscapes of England.

As founder of the Department of English Local History (now the Centre for English Local History) at the University of Leicester, his achievements are commemorated by the Friends of the Centre for English Local History each year in the annual W. G. Hoskins lecture, and another at St Anne’s College, Oxford.

In 2004 the Devon History Society erected a blue plaque on his birthplace in Exeter with the inscription: “W. G. Hoskins CBE FBA Dlitt 1908–1992 Historian of Devon, Exeter and the English Landscape Born Here ‘Hic Amor, Haec Patria Est‘.”