Part 2 (Obituaries) - King's College - University of Cambridge

The success of Hugh’s first book made it possible for him to write a study of
the Third Duke of Bridgewater, The Canal Duke (1961), who had built the first
true British artificial canal, which opened in 1761. During this time Hugh was
also working as an editor at the National Christian News, and then in 1962 he was
appointed as Director of Studies at Brasted Place Theological College
in Kent.
Towards the end of the 1960s Hugh was longing to get back to his Mary Ann,
berthed near Waterford, Ireland, where his first voyage had ended.This time he
was together on the dory with his wife, Kay (Patricia Morris), whom he had
married in 1959 and who had also participated in parts of the first trip. Hugh
and Kay travelled on the waterways of Ireland and visited the holy places of the
island.The result was the book In theWake of the Gods, published in 1970, which
helped to promote popular interest in the canals of Britain and Ireland.
Hugh returned to academia in 1973 when he was appointed Lecturer in Local
History and Fine Arts at the University of Salford. The post gave him the
opportunity to continue his research on not only the Duke of Bridgewater,
about whom he published a much-revised biography in 1977, but also on an
array of other topics in local industrial history. Hugh and Kay lived together at
Bartington Hall, near Northwich, a building by the Bridgewater Canal, which
the couple saved from demolition. Kay died in 1983, and after Hugh’s
retirement from the University of Salford in 1985 he moved to the Somerset
coast, a place to which his own ancient family had many links. In Somerset
Hugh revived the historic pilgrimage to a chapel in Blue Anchor established
by Cleeve Abbey, and wrote the book Blue Anchor Pilgrimage published in 1993.
The idea of pilgrimage summed up both his love of slow pensive travel and
his deep-seated spirituality.
Like his favourite, the Duke of Bridgewater, Hugh was a progressive and
driven man with something of an eccentric bent. He lived through his passion
for the place of the canals in the early industrial history of the British Isles, and
made an important contribution to the study of industrialisation by
documenting the role of a part of the 18th-century aristocratic elite in this
development. Hugh died on 13 March 2005 and is survived by his daughter
Phoebe Jane and son Durant.
161
OBITUARIES