Robert Wilkinson 1951-2025

The founding figure of the Waltham Forest Oral History Workshop, Robert Wilkinson has died after suffering from dementia for some time.

Using his training in social and community work, it was his idea to run an evening class on oral history back in 1983. This taught a group of interested people, brought together through work and other contacts, the basics of our craft and formed the basis of the Workshop which still endures after so many years. 

Robert’s recordings and research constitute the core of the Workshop’s archive, and many of our publications were driven by his interests and hard work. Robert was a natural interviewer: his sympathetic and empathetic personality allowed his many interviews to draw out hidden, and sometimes difficult, themes in the narrative, and always carried out with his warmth and good humour. Without him the biography of Tom Atkins would not have been produced and discovery of the school strike at Winns School would not have been revealed. His thorough and exhausting research into pubs and breweries in Waltham Forest, carried out over more than 15 years, and brought together in ‘Behind the Bar’, would not have seen the light of day.

Robert’s oral history contribution nationally saw him as a Trustee and Treasurer of the Oral History Society, and he worked on a number of regional projects including recordings for the British Library.

Locally he was involved in developments in Leytonstone, including the Hitchcock mosaics at the station.

All in all life well lived.