A Short History of a Long Collaboration
We started to work together in 1974 when Bob came to Manchester University to do graduate work. In 1981 John Hughes joined our collaboration and from then until 1989 when Bob joined Xerox, we worked on a range of research projects as well as producing a number of introductions to Ethnomethodology and Sociology. From 1992, Bob became more involved in management tasks and our collaboration was put on hold, though we did still manage to meet regularly. Bob retired from management in 2010 and our work together re-started.
Wes was born in Billinge hospital in 1943 and grew up in the most rural bit of Upholland (which was identified as Nr. Wigan). School was Crawford Primary followed by Upholland Grammar School (which was not one of those grammar schools people get nostalgic about), Wigan Technical College (which provided an exceptional social science education), Leicester University (which was in 1962-5 a wonderful place to study sociology) and then Manchester University for a PhD. A lectureship at Manchester, followed by movement up the rungs to a Professorship kept him there until Wes ended that happy and rewarding time with retirement in later Summer of 2017.
Bob was brought up near Staines in what is now Surrey, went to school in Chertsey and did his undergraduate degree at Southampton University. After period teaching in schools, Bob did postgraduate work at Manchester with Wes as his supervisor. In 1974, he joined Manchester Polytechnic (now Manchester Metropolitan University) where he remained until 1989 when he moved to what was then Xerox EuroPARC. In 1991, he became Director of Eurparc, a post he held untill 1999. From then until his retirement in 2010, he was, first, Pro Vice Chancellor for Research at Sheffield Hallam Universrsity and then CEO of University Campus Suffolk. He now is an Associate in the Horizon Digital Research Institute at Nottingham University
