Dickins, Bruce, 1889-1978 (Professor of English Language and captain in the Leeds area Home Guard)
Dates
- Existence: 1889 - 1978
Biography
Bruce Dickins (1889-1978) was educated at Nottingham High School and Magdalene College, Cambridge, and served with the Hampshire Regiment during the First World War. He became successively Lecturer and Reader in English Language at the University of Edinburgh, and in 1931 Professor of English Language at Leeds. From 1940 to 1943 he was a captain in the Leeds area Home Guard. He advised Captain E.V. Tempest in the writing of the latter's History of the West Yorkshire Regiment, published in 1941; and it was probably at this time that he became interested in Francis Skelly Tidy (1775-1835), who commanded the 14th Foot (afterwards the West Yorkshire Regiment) at Waterloo. His account of Tidy's life and career appeared in the Proceedings of the Leeds Philosophical Society during 1946. In January of that year Bruce Dickins left Leeds, and returned to Cambridge as Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon.