Obituary: Professor Howard Elcock*
| Author | Joyce Liddle,John Fenwick |
| Published date | 01 January 2018 |
| Date | 01 January 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0952076717731257 |
| Subject Matter | Obituaries |
Obituary
Obituary: Professor
Howard Elcock*
Joyce Liddle and John Fenwick
Howard Elcock has passed away, aged 75, while at his holiday retreat in Tolo,
Greece, in early summer 2017. He was Professor Emeritus of Government at
Northumbria University, UK. He was educated at the Priory School for Boys,
Shrewsbury and The Queen’s College Oxford, gaining a BA in Philosophy,
Politics and Economics in 1964 and a B Phil (now M Phil) in Politics in 1966.
He took his MA in 1968. He lectured in Politics at the University of Hull between
1966 and 1981, being promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1977.
He served as a member of Humberside County Council between 1973 and 1981,
becoming Planning Committee Chairman in 1975 until 1977, his tenure corres-
ponding to sometimes difficult work on the iconic Humber Bridge. He moved to
Newcastle upon Tyne in April 1981 to become Head of the School of Government
at the then Newcastle Polytechnic, later to become Northumbria University. He
was a Visiting Scholar at Fredonia State College, New York, USA between
September 1993 and July 1994 and again between September 1997 and May
1998. While in the USA, he also famously fought off the attentions of would-be
muggers in a pedestrian underpass in Chicago. Nothing ever seemed to overcome
his work ethic and his positive attitude to life. Howard retired from full time work
in April 1997 but remained an active researcher and writer.
Howard was the author of numerous books and articles, including a study of
administrative tribunals and public inquiries, which was reported in Administrative
Justice (Longman, 1969), followed by a study of the Paris Peace Conference:
Portrait of a decision: The Council of Four and the Treaty of Versailles
(Routledge, 1972). Later books included Local Government (3 editions,
Routledge, 1982, 1986 and 1994), Change and Decay? Public Administration in
the 1990s (Longman, 1991) and Political Leadership (Edward Elgar, 2001). In
1987, Howard established, along with Professor John Fenwick and the late Ken
Harrop, the Northern Network for Public Policy which served as a vehicle for
public sector management development in the region. His more recent research
Public Policy and Administration
2018, Vol. 33(1) 118–120
!The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0952076717731257
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*The final, definitive version of this paper was first published in Teaching Public Administration on 17 August
2017, http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0144739417726402, by SAGE Publishing. All rights
reserved.
Corresponding author:
Joyce Liddle, Honorary Chair, London, UK JUC, UK.
Email: joyce.liddle@univ-amu.fr
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