Carl Steven Alfred Chinn,MBE is an English historian, writer and broadcaster 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 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 for his "services to local history and to charities."
Early life
Chinn was born at Sorrento Hospital in Moseley, Birmingham. His father, Alfred, was known as "Buck" and was a notable football supporter and local activist from Sparkbrook. His mother, Sylvia, was known as "Sylvie" and was from Aston. Chinn grew up in Birmingham and was educated at Moseley School and the University of Birmingham.
Career
Chinn initially followed his father and grandfather into bookmaking before entering academia, gaining his PhD in 1986. 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. Chinn held the position of Professor of Community History at the University of Birmingham until 2015 and is now Emeritus Professor. He was also Director of the Birmingham Lives multimedia archive at UoB. 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. 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. In 2000 Chinn was a leading figure in the temporarily successful, but eventually doomed, campaign to save the Longbridge car factory from closure. In 2001 he was awarded the MBE for services to local history and charity. 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. 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 campaigning for the reopening of St John's Church, Dudley. In December 2010 he appeared on Ian Hislop's BBC television showAge 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.
Chinn married Kathleen Doyle in 1978: they have a son and three daughters, one of whom, Tara, has sung professionally on stage with her father. Chinn is a supporter of Aston Villa FC and has a season ticket at Villa Park.
