Colin Platt
Colin Peter Sherard Platt, was a British historian, archaeologist and academic, specialising in the Middle Ages. In 1991, he was awarded the Wolfson Prize. He taught at the University of Leeds and then at the University of Southampton, rising to become Professor of History.
Early life and education
Platt was born on 11 November 1934 in Canton, China. He was one of twin boys born to Jimmy Platt, a Shell executive, and his wife, Hope. His twin, Christopher, went on to become Professor of the History of Latin America at the University of Oxford. He was educated at Collyer's School, then a grammar school in Horsham, West Sussex. He studied history at Balliol College, Oxford, graduating with a first class honours Bachelor of Arts degree in 1958. He then undertook his national service as a "Coder Special", a Royal Navy sailor specialising in cryptography, during which he leant Russian. He undertook a Doctor of Philosophy degree at the University of Leeds, which he completed in 1966 with a doctoral thesis titled "The monastic grange: a survey of the historical and archaeological evidence".Academic career
In 1960, Platt became a research assistant at the University of Leeds, and, in addition, undertook his Doctor of Philosophy degree. He became a lecturer in medieval archaeology from 1962. In 1964, he moved to the University of Southampton, joining its Department of History. He was then successively promoted from lecturer to senior lecturer to reader. He was awarded a personal chair in 1983 as Professor of History. Platt had a stammer which meant that his teaching was focused on small group tutorials, supervisions and field trips; his lectures, on the other hand, were read out by an actor with associated slides or played from a pre-recording. He retired from full-time academia in 1999 or 2001, and was appointed emeritus professor.Platt's research interests in addition to medieval archaeology, ranged from ecclesiastical history to urban history to the architecture of castles and monastic granges. He drew on both archaeology and history in his research: he lamented "archaeologists' all too frequent failure to read, engage with and give due weight to historical evidence", and historians' focus on "academic theory over empirical research".
In 1991, he was awarded the Wolfson Prize for The Architecture of Medieval Britain: A Social History. He was also an elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. A Festschrift was published in 2014, titled "A Fresh Approach: Essays Presented to Colin Platt in Celebration of His Eightieth Birthday 11 November 2014".