My husband, Don Hartley, who has died aged 85, rose from impoverished circumstances to become a popular and inspiring sociology lecturer, adult education teacher and “eternal student”.
Born in a back-to-back home in Stacksteads, Lancashire, the son of John Hartley and his wife, Edith (nee Fowle), cotton workers at the local mill, Don was eight when his father died. He gained a place at Bacup and Rawtenstall grammar school, where he much later described himself as “a very naughty boy” – skilful at sports, interested in history, but uninterested in studying. He planned to get a job as early as possible, but his English teacher, aware of his potential, persuaded him to resit his school certificate, placing him in the most academic stream.
He went on to sit A-levels, then, in 1951, took up a trainee accountancy position at Bacup town hall, while running two local youth clubs. This led to a job as a sports and activities organiser with the YMCA in Worcester, and to running hostels in Cheltenham, Southampton and London.
Social work became a mission for Don, who took a certificate in social studies at Birmingham University (1959-61) and probation training at Rainer House, London. He became the first trained officer with the Nottingham probation service in 1962. Alongside this he studied for an external London School of Economics degree in sociology. He had married Ulla Drawin in 1957 and they had three children. They divorced in 1978.
An opportunity to lecture in social work at Nottingham Regional College of Technology (now Nottingham Trent University) led to a full-time lectureship, then to a focus on sociology and later a specialisation in criminology. He also fitted in research for a doctorate, gained in 1985.
Don was an inspiring, well-liked and respected lecturer. He served as an exchange professor on two occasions on a Fulbright scholarship, at MacMurray College, Illinois (1986-87), and Kent State University, Ohio (1989). We had met in Nottingham in 1980 and married in the US in 1987.
Following his official retirement at the age of 64, Don continued lecturing and supervising postgraduate students at Nottingham, Loughborough and Leicester universities for another 13 years.
Don became passionate about learning, enjoying involvement in a wide variety of courses “just for fun”, and also encouraged others as a teacher in Workers’ Educational Association, Nottingham University and Open University summer schools. He was one of the earliest OU students in the 1970s with his arts degree, later achieving a first-class degree in history with the same institution at the age of 80. At the time of his death, Don was writing a book on the history of empires.
He is survived by me, and by his children, Christopher, Connie and Adrian, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
