Harry Goulbourne, a pioneering scholar and one of the first black professors in the UK, recently passed away at the age of 73. He was highly regarded for his work in qualitative social science and authored or co-authored a dozen books, such as Ethnicity and Nationalism in Post-Imperial Britain (1991), Race Relations in Britain Since 1945 (1998), and Caribbean Transnational Experience (2002). Harry’s research focused not only on the black community but also on individuals who shared similar experiences of migration or exclusion, regardless of race or ethnicity. His main interests included politics, race and ethnicity, transnationalism, migration, and Caribbean families.
The fifth of seven children, Harry was born in Clarendon, Jamaica to Lucy (nee Mickell), a market trader, and Albert Goulbourne, a small-scale farmer and tailor. In the 1950s, his parents migrated to Britain and settled in Camberwell in south London, where his father worked at the Woolwich Arsenal. Harry joined them in 1959 and experienced the racial politics of the playground at Peckham Manor school before being taken under the wing of enlightened and progressive teachers who developed his curiosity and intellect.
As an undergraduate at Lancaster University, Harry co-founded a group known as Contemporary Blacks, which was influenced by Marxism and Black Power. Later, he organized (with John La Rose) one of the first summer schools for black children. After obtaining a history degree in 1971, he spent a year teaching at his old school before pursuing a doctorate at Sussex University. In 1978, he became a politics lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, which was then a center for many of the intellectuals of the liberation movements around the world.
In 1980, Harry became a senior lecturer in politics and subsequently dean of the faculty of social sciences at the Jamaican campus of the University of the West Indies (1980-86). Following this, he returned to Britain to be principal research fellow at the Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations at the University of Warwick (1986-1994). He then became director of research for social sciences and arts at (now) the University of Gloucester (1994-98). Finally, in 1998, he became the chair of sociology at London South Bank University, where he set up and was director of the Race and Ethnicity Research Unit, which he ran until retiring in 2011.
Harry was known for his generosity and passion, and encouraged young people, especially black scholars. He was a kind, gentle, intelligent, and loving man with a passion for literature, music, and art. Additionally, he was an accomplished poet. Harry is survived by his wife, Selina (nee Rebelo), an academic lawyer whom he married in 1973, their sons, Hugh and Neil, and three grandchildren.
