Austin Gill

Who was Austin Gill?

Austin Gill CBE was a British scholar of the French language and culture. He was the Marshall Professor of French at the University of Glasgow from 1966 to 1971.

Gill’s family was of Irish extraction, but he was born in Stockport, England, which is just southeast of Manchester proper. Gill matriculated at the University of Manchester where he studied French and played football. After graduation, he went on to study first at Grenoble, where he played centre-half for FC Grenoble, and then in Paris. In France, Gill was a Faulkner Fellow from 1930 to 1931 and a then back in Manchester a Langton Fellow from 1931 to 1933. In 1933 he accepted a lecturer position at the University of Edinburgh. In 1943 he was sent to North Africa as the British Council's Representative, and in August 1944 was sent to France to reopen the Paris office.

In 1945 Gill left the British Council, and was hired at Magdalen College, Oxford, as a tutor in modern languages. From 1950 to 1954 he returned to the British Council and was director of the British Institute in Paris. In 1955 he was honored by being made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. That year he returned to Magdalen College where he continued to teach until 1966, when he accepted the Marshall Chair of French at the University of Glasgow.