Carl Steven Alfred ChinnMBEDL (born 6 September 1956) is an English historian, author and radio presenter whose working life has been devoted to the study and popularisation of the city of Birmingham. He broadcast a programme on the BBC from the mid-1990s focusing on Birmingham's history.
In 1990, he was contracted to lecture[2] at the University of Birmingham, where he subsequently became a full professor in 2002. During this year he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for his "services to local history and to charities".[3][4]
Chinn initially followed his father and grandfather into bookmaking before entering academia, gaining his PhD in 1986.[7]
His work in the community made him a popular figure, and in 1994 he was invited by the Birmingham Evening Mail to write a two-page feature on local history. This proved extremely popular and Chinn wrote a weekly column for the paper until 2016.[7]
Chinn held the position of Professor of Community History at the University of Birmingham until 2015 and is now Emeritus Professor.[5] He was also Director of the Birmingham Lives multimedia archive at UoB (formerly at South Birmingham College).[7] He is the author of over thirty books on the history of Birmingham and the urban working class in England. He often appears on local television programmes such as Midlands Today; and wrote a weekly local history column for the Express & Star.[7] He presented a weekly radio programme on BBC WM from 1994 until it was axed in 2013. He has made three videos and provided spoken links on two CDs of songs about Birmingham.[7]
In 2000 Chinn was a leading figure in the temporarily successful, but eventually doomed, campaign to save the Longbridge car factory from closure. In the 2001 Birthday Honours, he was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) "for services to the community, especially Local History, in the West Midlands."[5][8] When the rebuilt Bull Ring was opened in 2003 Chinn criticised it for the lack of concern its developers and planners had shown towards market traders who had been the mainstay of the Bull Ring for the 800 years up to 1964, when the much-criticised previous shopping centre was built on the site.[9] Chinn has also been prominent in the campaigns to save the last back-to-back houses in Birmingham, now a National Trust museum in Inge Street; and for a memorial to the victims of the Second World War Blitz on the city, sited in Edgbaston Street in the Bull Ring. In October 2007 he became patron of the St John's Church Preservation Group, which is[needs update] campaigning for the reopening of St John's Church, Dudley.[10]
In December 2010 he appeared on Ian Hislop's BBC television show Age of the Do-Gooders, in which he championed George Dawson; a "non-conformist preacher, and a bit of a showman". He has also appeared on the BBC's Question Time. In 2020 appeared in 'Britains' Biggest Dig' in BBC 4 television mini series exploring HS2 archaeology dig in Birmingham.
They Worked All Their Lives: Women of the Urban Poor in England, 1880–1939 (1988). Manchester University Press. ISBN0-7190-2437-4.
Homes For People: Council Housing and Urban Renewal in Birmingham 1840–1999 (1989). Birmingham Books. Expanded and revised edition (1999). Brewin Books. ISBN1-85858-138-9.
Keeping the City Alive: Twenty-one years of Urban Renewal in Birmingham (1993). Birmingham City Council.
Birmingham: The Great Working City (1994). Birmingham City Council.
Poverty Amidst Prosperity: Urban Poor in England, 1834–1914 (1995). Manchester University Press. ISBN0-7190-3990-8.
Brum Undaunted: Birmingham During the Blitz (1996). Birmingham Library Services.
Our Brum (1997). Birmingham Evening Mail.
The Cadbury Story: A Short History (1998). Brewin Books. ISBN1-85858-105-2.
