My former colleague Stephen Humphrey, who has died unexpectedly of a heart attack aged 64, was a distinguished and popular London historian. He lived near the Elephant and Castle, south London, all his life and, in 1979, became the archivist at Southwark council’s local history library.
History, in particular that of Southwark and of its churches, was central to Stephen’s working life and his private interests. Through his publications, talks and walks, and in helping thousands of readers at the library, he did more than anybody to bring Southwark’s history to a wider audience.
Stephen was born in London and attended John Ruskin primary school and Westminster City grammar school, and then went on to study history at Clare College, Cambridge. He held the post of Southwark archivist until 2010, when a reorganisation forced him to leave. Despite this unsettling experience, he continued assisting researchers, writing, speaking and becoming even more involved in local societies. He was made a freeman of Southwark in 2012.
Stephen had an incisive and critical mind. His books on Southwark found his widest and warmest audience, including four titles in the Old Photographs series and his finest and his most recent, Elephant and Castle – A History (2011). It was long in the making and his most personal, lamenting a vanished landscape and community.
He was involved with numerous societies including the Ecclesiological Society, the Surrey Record Society, the Southwark and Lambeth Archaeological Society (for more than 45 years) and the Southwark Pensioners Centre.
These achievements were complemented by Stephen’s warmth, generosity, kindness, modesty and humour. This was partly concealed by a certain formality and his quiet personal life – he rarely alluded to his Roman Catholic faith and lived with his mother until her death in 2002.
In particular he was extraordinarily generous with his time, offering to help other researchers and writers. He influenced and improved many more words than he actually wrote himself. He generated affection in those who came across him and gratitude from Southwark historians present and future.
