Albert Sloman

Sir Albert Edward Sloman (1921 – 28 July 2012) was the founding and longest serving Vice Chancellor of the University of Essex, UK.

[1] After two years’ study he fought with the RAF as a night-fighter pilot, returned to Oxford in 1945 to finish his degree and begin a doctorate.

He went on to work at Trinity College Dublin and held the chair in Spanish from 1953 to 1962 at Liverpool University, latterly becoming the Dean of the Faculty of Arts.

[4][5] He outlined plans for "radical innovation" - a high level of research and scholarship, with an inter-disciplinary curriculum.

He recruited young academics to establish the new departments, including the economist Richard Lipsey, the sociologist Peter Townsend, the political scientist Jean Blondel and the literary critic, Donald Davie.

In 1966 the UGC, antagonised by the university's commitment to research, savagely cut the planned expansion of student numbers.

In 1968, six years of political protest began on campus, detailed by sporadic student unrest, supported by many staff.