N. H. Gibbs - Chichele Professor

Chichele Professor

Gibbs's election to the Chichele Chair at the age of 42 marked a turning point in the study of military and naval history at Oxford. All of his predecessors had been career military men, self-trained historians, or journalists. Not only was Gibbs one of Oxford's own academic historians, he was one of the few already established historians in Britain to have direct experience of the most recent historical research and writing within the British armed forces. His appointment marked a very important change by which war history became a respectable academic field and allowed Oxford to play a major role in the development of military and strategic studies throughout the Cold War era, providing additionally an important academic link between Oxford and the armed forces.

Gibbs's tenure in the chair developed on three lines: First, he continued the research and writing that he had begun in the Cabinet Office. Second, he promoted closer and more direct educational relationships between Oxford and the armed forces, contributing to better civil-military relations. Third, while primarily interested in military history and naval history, he promoted the development of the new field of strategic studies.

Norman Gibb's Inaugural Lecture as Chichele Professor of the History of War was devoted to The Origins of the Committee of Imperial Defence. It quickly became a basic reference for generations of his graduate students.

In his work with the uniformed services, he established with a series of courses for officers of the Royal Air Force to qualify them for further studies at the staff college level. Gibbs's success in this, led him to expand his teaching to include senior officers and to encourage the services to second officers from their regiments to read for undergraduate degrees at Oxford. This led the Admiralty to appoint Gibbs to its Naval Educational Advisory Council, which saw him rise to become its vice-chairman and then chairman.

In 1965, Gibbs established an annual series of NATO conferences at St. John's College, Oxford, which brought academics together with senior NATO officials and the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe each summer.

With Professor Max Beloff, Gibbs began a series of seminars that were the earliest contributions to strategic studies in the United Kingdom. With Piers Mackesy, he taught the undergraduate special subject in military history and took on the supervision of a wide range of graduate students. In addition, he managed the newly established Visiting Fellows programme at All Souls College, Oxford.

He served on the council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the council of the Royal United Services Institute and was a Research Associate, Center for International Studies at Princeton University in 1965-66. He was Visiting Professor in the Department of History at the University of New Brunswick in 1975-76; the United States Military Academy in 1978-79, and the National University of Singapore in 1981-82.

In 1979, the Superintendent of the United States Military Academy, General Andrew Jackson Goodpaster awarded Gibbs the U.S. Army's Outstanding Civilian Service Medal for the superb quality of his teaching and in recognition of his many contributions as Chichele professor to military education.

Among his graduate student pupils who later become well known were Colin S. Gray, John B. Hattendorf, Robert S. Jordan, Malcolm Murfett, Robert J. O'Neill, George C. Peden, N.A.M. Rodger, Charles S. Townshend, and Jehuda L. Wallach.