ProfFred Gray
Emeritus Professor (Centre for Community Engagement)
University of Sussex Business School
- Emeritus Professor (Centre for Community Engagement)University of Sussex Business School
BIO
Since the 1990s Fred Gray's primary academic focus has been on the architectural history and social and cultural geography of seaside resorts in Britain and other Western countries.
In the 1990s he was the curator of a national touring exhibition, Resorts of Delight: A Celebration of England's Seaside Architecture. Books authored by Fred include Walking on Water, a history of Brighton's West Pier; Designing the Seaside. Architecture, Society and Nature (Reaktion, 2006); a cultural history of the signature plant of the tropics called simply Palm (Reaktion 2018); and, most recently, The Architecture of British Seaside Piers (Crowood Press, 2020).
Among Fred’s other research interests are lifelong learning and continuing and higher education. He edited Making the Future: A History of the University of Sussex published in celebration of the University's fiftieth anniversary in 2011.
A student at the universities of Hull and Cambridge (where he completed a geography PhD) he came to the University of Sussex in 1974 as Frederick Soddy Research Fellow in the School of Cultural and Community Studies.
Fred then moved to be a lecturer in Urban Studies in the university’s Centre for Continuing Education (CCE). He was Director of CCE for over a decade until 2001. CCEs role at the university was to organise a diverse continuing and community education and widening participation programme throughout Sussex for people wishing to study part time.
In 2002 Fred became the Dean of the Sussex Institute, one of the University's then six schools of study and including CCE and the departments of Education, Law and Social Work. From 2009 to 2011 he was the University's Academic Director of Local and Regional Relationships.
He has served on the boards of various local and regional organisations, including Brighton Dome and Festival, the Gardner Arts Centre, Varndean College in Brighton, Brighton West Pier Trust and Brighton Fishing Museum.
Fred became Emeritus Professor of Continuing Education in 2011.
In 2012 he was awarded a University of Sussex 50th Anniversary Fellowship.
In the 1990s he was the curator of a national touring exhibition, Resorts of Delight: A Celebration of England's Seaside Architecture. Books authored by Fred include Walking on Water, a history of Brighton's West Pier; Designing the Seaside. Architecture, Society and Nature (Reaktion, 2006); a cultural history of the signature plant of the tropics called simply Palm (Reaktion 2018); and, most recently, The Architecture of British Seaside Piers (Crowood Press, 2020).
Among Fred’s other research interests are lifelong learning and continuing and higher education. He edited Making the Future: A History of the University of Sussex published in celebration of the University's fiftieth anniversary in 2011.
A student at the universities of Hull and Cambridge (where he completed a geography PhD) he came to the University of Sussex in 1974 as Frederick Soddy Research Fellow in the School of Cultural and Community Studies.
Fred then moved to be a lecturer in Urban Studies in the university’s Centre for Continuing Education (CCE). He was Director of CCE for over a decade until 2001. CCEs role at the university was to organise a diverse continuing and community education and widening participation programme throughout Sussex for people wishing to study part time.
In 2002 Fred became the Dean of the Sussex Institute, one of the University's then six schools of study and including CCE and the departments of Education, Law and Social Work. From 2009 to 2011 he was the University's Academic Director of Local and Regional Relationships.
He has served on the boards of various local and regional organisations, including Brighton Dome and Festival, the Gardner Arts Centre, Varndean College in Brighton, Brighton West Pier Trust and Brighton Fishing Museum.
Fred became Emeritus Professor of Continuing Education in 2011.
In 2012 he was awarded a University of Sussex 50th Anniversary Fellowship.