ABSTRACT

It is appropriate that Derek Aldcroft's Festschrift should begin with a chapter on British transport for it was this topic that first caught the attention of Aldcroft's fertile mind and established him as a leading scholar of economic history. Although his most recent research work has emphasized human capital, employment and industrial relations, it was in the field of transport history that Aldcroft's research first flourished. In the quarter century from the early 1960s to the mid-1980s he wrote a flurry of articles for leading journals, together with nine authored and edited books on British transport. This chapter will assess Aldcroft's contribution to British transport history, examine how the topic has developed more recently and suggest some further research agendas that might be addressed by future scholars.