of historians, having in common a wish to write accessible, broad-based work for the public: a generation of scholars that includes Roy Porter, Simon Schama, Linda Colley, David Cannadine and others who came to prominence in the 1990s. He was champion of a 'social history' in a wide sense; he backed this up with a connoisseur's knowledge of some fields of the fine arts, such as Flemish painting and porcelain. This approach rubbed off on those he influenced, while he clashed unrepentantly with other historians (notably Cambridge colleague Geoffrey Elton) with a perspective from constitutional history whose emphasis was on more traditional scholarship. Friends from his early life, C. P. Snow and William Cooper, portrayed him in novels; he also is known to be the model for a character in an Angus Wilson short story The Wrong Set. Works England in the Eighteenth Century (1950), Pelican Books, London, Chatham (1953) Studies in Social History (1955) The First Four Georges (1956) Sir Robert Walpole (1956, 1960) in two volumes, sub-titled The Making of a Statesman and The King's Minister The Italian Renaissance (1961, 1987, 2001), American Heritage, New York, Men And Places (1963) Crisis in the Humanities (Ed., 1964) Penguin, Harmondsworth & Baltimore (responses to Snow's Two Cultures) The Growth of Political Stability in England 1675–1725 (1967) The Death of the Past (1969) In The Light of History (1972) The Commercialization of Leisure (1974) Royal Heritage: The Treasure of the British Crown (1977) New Light on the Tyrant George III: The Second George Rogers Clark Lecture (1978) The Making of a Historian (1988) essays The American Experience (1989) essays. References Black, Jeremy, "Plumb, J.H." in Neil McKendrick's obituary in the Guardian: Simon Schama's obituary in the Independent: 1911 births 2001 deaths Alumni of the University of Leicester Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge Fellows of the British Academy Knights Bachelor Masters of Christ's College, Cambridge Members of the University of Cambridge faculty of history Bletchley Park people People educated at Alderman Newton's School, Leicester People from Leicester 20th-century British historians