It is with great sadness that we report the death on October 21, 2019 of Emeritus Professor Dennis Austin at his home in Colchester. Born at the Grove Hospital, Tooting on 14th March, 1922, he was the son of Henry Edmund Austin. After wartime service with the Royal Air Force, he obtained his B.A. degree from King’s College (University of London) in 1949, and that same year was appointed an extra mural tutor at the new University College in the British Gold Coast dependency in West Africa.
Professor Austin in August 2019
Professor Austin was to remain there for what was to prove a highly eventful decade, as the rapid growth of African nationalism saw the Gold Coast achieve its independence as the new state of Ghana in 1957. This period was also to see the launch of what was to become an impressive scholarly career. With his colleague William Tordoff, he produced among the first studies of electoral politics in West Africa, and he then went on to chart the evolution of nationalist politics in Ghana into the first years of independence with his landmark Politics in Ghana: 1946-1960. He was to write or edit 12 further books during an extended career that were to establish his international reputation as an astute and measured observer of postcolonial politics in Africa and indeed elsewhere (including India and Sri Lanka as well as South Africa, Malta, and the Commonwealth).
In 1959 Professor Austin received a three-year Rockefeller research fellowship, and following this a joint post at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and the Royal Institute of International Affairs; the University of London subsequently awarded him a readership. In 1967 Dennis Austin joined the Department of Government at the University of Manchester as a professor. He served there and then at the closely linked Institute for Development Policy and Management (now the Global Development Institute) for over thirty years, becoming Pro Vice Chancellor of the University while also having a term as Dean of the then Faculty of Economic and Social Studies.
He was a stimulating and authoritative teacher, highly popular among his undergraduate students and the diploma and MA candidates at IDPM – not least with his considerable fund of entertaining stories from a long career. For his fellow members of staff (and especially those at earlier career stages), Dennis could be a wise, older brother, explaining the way in which universities could be unwise and sometimes unfair…but also excellent places to work!
Many of the doctoral students who developed under his supervision have gone on to distinguished careers at British, African and West Indian universities.
Dennis Austin’s wife Margaret passed away in 2010, while a son died in Ghana when young. He is survived by his son Stephen and three daughters, Catherine, Elizabeth and Florence, five grand children, and four great grandchildren.
–David Hulme and Ralph Young
I was very sad to read this obituary. Dennis taught me on the MA (Econ) degree in the early 70s in the Department of Government and he subsequently supervised my doctorate. In a Department that contained Sammy Finer, Ghita Ionescu and Brian Chapman government and politics at Manchester really packed a punch. A great place to be a post-graduate and an experience that has shaped my life thereafter. Dennis Austin was my role model and mentor, everything I aspired to be as a scholar, writer and teacher. Latterly we co-edited a book on the political management of cultural diversity for OUP. There are many students of more than one generation around the world who owe Dennis a great deal. We have lost some-one of great note and (to use the contemporary jargon) impact.
I am very very sad to read about his death. Dennis was a very good friend of Ghana. He and my father Joe allan were very good friend. I visited him in Macclesfield on two occasions. I met his son Stephen on one occasion but did not take his contact. I will let daddy know of his person. I will like to contact Stephen or any of the children. They can reach me