100. Brains for Industry: Dr Richardson’s Campaign for Technological Universities

In 1943, Dr Harry Richardson, Principal of the Bradford Technical College, sensed an opportunity.  Since his appointment as Principal in 1920, Dr Richardson had persisted with the ongoing quest for university status for the College (see Object 49).  However, by 1930, complete discouragement meant he had put the matter aside to await fresh developments.

Dr Harry Richardson with students at Bradford Technical College, from Frank Hill’s Lecture on “Careers in the Wool Industry” 1955 (Univ/HIL)

In 1943, the British government was thinking about plans for improving society once the Second World War was over.  Education was key.  The progress of the War had highlighted the need for “brains for industry”: a skilled and well educated workforce who could create and manage new technologies.  This could not be supplied by the existing ramshackle educational system, which was radically overhauled in the resulting legislation, the Education Act of 1944.

Technical education was of particular concern.  Colleges (like Bradford’s) had grown up to train workers in local industries but there was no central planning to enable the country to develop university level technological “brains”.  In April 1944, the Education Minister (R.A. Butler) appointed a Special Committee, chaired by Lord Eustace Percy, “to consider the needs of higher technological education in England and Wales”.

Bradford Technical College Engineer Cadet Course, 10 months, RAF, first group, c1942 (BTC 8/3)  This illustrates how the College was supporting the war effort by providing training.

Harry Richardson was not just concerned with enhancing Bradford’s status.  He understood the growing gap between the needs of industry and what technical colleges could offer while in local authority control.  He argued the best way to improve technical education was for some such colleges to become university colleges, allowing them to specialise, develop their own curricula and form better links with industry.

Cover of correspondence file of Dr Richardson, Bradford Technical College (BTC 1/107).

Special Collections holds Dr Richardson’s files of correspondence and press cuttings documenting his campaigning activity from 1943: writing memoranda and letters to newspapers and contacting key people (the Privy Council, the Ministry, the University Grants Committee, Percy Committee members, such as Dr Lowery of the South-West Essex Technical College).  Crucially, he also nurtured support for his ideas among Bradford businessmen, councillors and the local newspapers.

Letter from Hopkinson of the Bradford Dyers’ Association, 1 October 1943, praising Richardson’s recent letter to The Times newspaper and agreeing with the need for the country to invest in technological education (BTC 1/107)

The Percy Committee published its report, addressed to the new Minister of Education (Ellen Wilkinson), in 1945.  Among its recommendations, the report called for the setting up of a limited number of technical colleges “in which there should be developed technological courses of a standard comparable with that of University degree courses”.

Ten years later, this proposal became reality: in 1956 following the publication of the White Paper on technical education, a small number of technical colleges which would “concentrate entirely on advanced studies” were designated.  Bradford was one of these eight Colleges of Advanced Technology (CATs).

Percy had argued that advanced colleges would be more adaptable to industry needs if they were not set up as universities.  In practice this caused problems for the CATs: they were universities in all other ways but lacked the power, autonomy and funding that the new “plateglass” universities had from the outset.  The Robbins Committee addressed this concern, reporting in 1963 that the CATs should become “technological universities”; Bradford received its Charter in 1966.

Retirement presentation to Principal Richardson, 1957, of a solid silver reproduction George I coffee service and salver. Richardson is the central figure (BTC 8/3),

Richardson retired shortly after the CATs were announced and died four months before the University came into being.  He had played a vital role in these developments.  He and his colleagues had maintained the high academic standards that were needed for the institution to be recognised as a CAT and his indefatigable lobbying maintained local support and ensured the city’s claim to a University could not be forgotten by those in power.

Sources: “Brains for industry” is a quotation from a Times Higher Education leading article of 10 November 1945 which endorsed Richardson’s call for technical colleges to become university colleges.  McKinlay covers in detail the long and complicated story of Richardson’s campaigns and the development of technological universities.

99. Man – A Million Years Old? Minute-books of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia

In 1908 this circular was sent out to over 100 people in East Anglia inviting them to join an “East Anglian Society of Prehistorians”. The Hon Secretaries pro tem (W.A. Dutt and W.G. Clarke) had had the idea three years earlier, while flint-hunting in Thetford, but had decided to wait until they felt there was sufficient enthusiasm to sustain a Society.

Circular advertising the proposed East Anglian Society of Prehistorians, 1908. From the Prehistoric Society minute-books (ref PRE 1).

Their timing was right.  After the inaugural meeting, at the Norfolk and Norwich Library on 26 October 1908,  over seventy members signed up, paying a subscription of 1/6.

East Anglia was the ideal place for the Society to begin.   The region is rich in flint, which occurs in bands in chalk, and was used by early humans for tool-making.  The people who joined the Society, like Dutt and Clarke, were driven by their enthusiasm for collecting such flint tools.  Most were not professional archaeologists, who were few at this time, but amateurs, from the leisured classes.  Among them, the first President, Dr W. Allen Sturge, who bequeathed 100,000 flints to the British Museum, and Miss Nina Layard, who was well-known for her work at Foxhall Road in Ipswich.

Advertisement for excursion to Brandon Saturday 17 July 1909. From the Prehistoric Society minute-books (ref PRE 1).

The Rules of the Society, created in 1909, changed its name to the “Prehistoric Society of East Anglia” and outlined its objects: “the study of prehistoric man in East Anglia, facilitating friendly intercourse between prehistorians, disseminating knowledge and preserving records and remains”.  As our minute-books show, the Society had regular meetings in which members gave papers and invited comments on their finds.  There were also annual excursions, ending with a visit to Icklingham Hall for tea and a chance to see Dr Sturge’s wonderful collection.

It is noticeable how many press cuttings have been pasted into these minute-books.  The Society’s members were media-aware and confident in promoting their activities.  Their first volume of Proceedings was published in 1911.  Its ambitious print run (500 – there were about 100 members at the time) allowed them to send out many review and complimentary copies, bringing the Society to audiences beyond East Anglia.

Press cutting Man, a million years old. Daily Chronicle 17 October 1911. From the Prehistoric Society minute-books (ref PRE 1).

What interested readers of the newspapers and the Proceedings was the great question: when did “Man” come into existence?  Society members believed they could prove modern humans lived in East Anglia much earlier than previously thought.  Their evidence?  “Eoliths”, stones which appeared to be crudely shaped by humans.

The most famous eoliths linked to the Society were flints found on 3 October 1909 by James Reid Moir beneath a “Red Crag” layer of shelly sand in an Ipswich brickworks.  This “Sub-Crag” location suggested that humans able to make tools lived in East Anglia during the Tertiary period – over a million years ago.

A tailor from a humble background, Reid Moir was a combative and ambitious character.  He publicised his ideas widely, writing to the Times and other newspapers, lecturing, seeking support from eminent scholars such as Sir Edwin Ray Lankester, and, of course, publishing in the Proceedings.

In proclaiming these eoliths as proof of “Tertiary Man”, Moir and other Society members were engaging with a great controversy of the late 19th and early 20th century.  Were eoliths actually shaped by Men or were the markings the result of natural processes?  The press cuttings in the minute-books show us how people were keen to believe that eoliths were man-made, partly out of national and regional pride: how exciting to think that the first “Men” were English when prehistorians overseas, especially in France, were claiming them.  (This was also a factor in the ready acceptance of “Piltdown Man” in 1912).

However, many contemporaries were not convinced by Moir’s flints, or by “Ipswich Man”, a modern-looking skeleton he found in strata pre-dating the Ice Ages.  The heated debate continued well into the 1930s.  It is now accepted by most archaeologists that Moir’s eoliths were created naturally  and cannot be used as evidence of early humans in Norfolk and Suffolk, while his modern human skeleton was just that: an “intrusive burial” which had slipped by the shifting of soils into a far older deposit.

Nevertheless the involvement of the Society in the eolith controversy brought it to new academic and popular audiences.  The debate expanded the scope of ideas about prehistory, moving human existence much further back into the past.  It also helped archaeologists and geologists develop modern scientific practice in seeking to understand sedimentary deposits and the processes affecting them, and how to distinguish artefacts from geofacts.

After the First World War, the Society began to attract the new generation of professional archaeologists. Its wider membership and national interests were recognised in 1935 by the dropping of “East Anglia” from its name. The Prehistoric Society remains a focus for all prehistorians in Britain and worldwide. We are delighted to have acquired their wonderful archive – this is just one of the stories it has to tell.

Postscript. Their evidence may have been flawed, but Moir, Sturge et al. appear to have been right about the timescale of human occupation in East Anglia: finds at Happisburgh lead archaeologists to conclude that early humans lived there 800,000-1 million years ago …

Sources
This account is based on the early minute-books themselves (PRE 1) plus extensive research in secondary sources. The story of the Prehistoric Society has been told in many articles and papers.  I found the following particularly useful in writing this post:

“The Prehistoric Society: from East Anglia to the World”, by Grahame Clark and “The Prehistoric Society, Prehistory and Society”, by Robert Chapman, in vol. 51 (1985) of the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society.

Stuart Piggott’s Presidential Address in vol. 29 (1963) of the Proceedings is insightful on the milieu of the East Anglian flint collectors and their connections with late 19th century romanticism.

Many contemporary articles by and about members of the Society are readily available online or via electronic subscriptions (I recommend University of Bradford staff and students use Summon to find these – we have access to a fantastic range of material concerning this story).  Several modern scholars have examined the eolith controversy and the work of James Reid Moir e.g.  Anne O’Connor in Finding Time for the Old Stone Age, David Matless in Written on Stone and works by Roy Ellen and Marianne Sommer.

98. Seven Years is Enough! The Free Vanunu Benefit at the Hackney Empire, 1993

This week, archives telling the story of a benefit concert supporting the nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu.

Fax of sample poster for the Free Vanunu benefit Hackney Empire 3 October 1993 (archive reference Cwl VAN 4/1)

The concert, on 3 October 1993 at the Hackney Empire, was billed as “an evening of readings, music and comedy”.  It was organised by the British Campaign to Free Vanunu.  Mordechai Vanunu had been abducted in 1986 by Israeli government agents after speaking to the Sunday Times about Israel’s nuclear weapons programme and had later been sentenced to 18 years imprisonment for treason and espionage.   The British Campaign was founded by his brother Meir with a small group of activists soon after, establishing the Mordechai Vanunu Trust in 1991.

With limited resources, the group sought to raise awareness of Vanunu’s plight and of nuclear issues in the Middle East via lobbying, picketing and vigils, using political and media networks.  The Campaign understood the power of the news media and tried to find stunts and angles which would ensure press coverage, such as  mock kidnappings and “cage-ins”.

Advertisement for the Free Vanunu benefit Hackney Empire 3 October 1993 (archive reference Cwl VAN 4/1).

The benefit was timed to coincide with and highlight the eighth anniversary of Vanunu’s solitary confinement in Ashkelon Prison. It was a new venture for the Campaign, which hoped to gain publicity and new supporters as a result.   The concert was publicised around London with “1000 bold and imaginative posters”.   We have not found a colour version of these posters in the archive, but here’s one from 1996 in a similar graphic style.

From the programme for Free Vanunu benefit Camden Centre 28 September 1996 (archive reference Cwl VAN 4/1).

Tickets for the 1993 event cost £8 and £12 with 100 specials at £30, which offered the chance to meet the artists at a buffet afterwards.

The evening was compered by the comedian Arthur Smith.  Susannah York read a poem by Vanunu reflecting on the experiences of a whistleblower, “I am your spy”.  Harold Pinter spoke Vanunu’s words in a specially-commissioned dramatic reconstruction written by Michael Rosen, also featuring Julie Christie, Roger Lloyd Pack, and Jenny Stoller, and accompanied by Rivka Gottlieb on the harp.

Postcard featuring image of Vanunu in green under his poem I am your spy. (Archive reference: Cwl VAN 5/11).

The evening also featured comedians Mark Steel and Arthur Brown, readings by Sarah Dunant, Paul Eddington and Patricia Scott, poets Christopher Logue and Benjamin Zephaniah, and journalist Paul Foot, music from Dave Gilmour, and many more.

Hilary Westlake, the director, reflected on the programme in a fax she sent to the Campaign afterwards.  Generally she felt it had gone well and ran smoothly, though it was too long, over three hours, and most acts could have been a song or poem shorter.  She singled out Susannah York, Benjamin Zephaniah and Paul Foot in particular as “excellent”.

“Successful benefit at the Hackney Empire”. Report in Campaign Bulletin Spring 1994 page 8 featuring image of Benjamin Zephaniah, Arthur Smith and Arnold Brown. (Archive reference: Cwl VAN 5/1).

The event seems to have been seen as a success.  A piece in the Campaign’s bulletin the following spring pointed to considerable press coverage, the impact of the posters, and the way that the event had “brought home the passionate support for Mordechai. It was a great show of strength and a morale-booster for all his supporters”.  The Campaign would go on to held a similar event every year until they wound down their activities following Vanunu’s release from prison on 21 April 2004.

Sources and credits: all images and quotations from the Archive of the Campaign to Free Vanunu and for a Nuclear-free Middle East.  This archive, which we have only recently received and not yet fully catalogued, spans the 90s and 00s, from campaigning via print media and fax into the age of the internet.

 

News Update: two new exhibitions

We’ll be back with the final three Objects soon!  We put them on hold to get our archives accreditation sorted out – and not to mention working on two exhibitions which readers of this blog may enjoy …

Pots Before Words.  Kate Morrell created artworks inspired by Jacquetta Hawkes.  Gallery II, University of Bradford, until 22 May 2014.

Artwork by Kate Morrell, part of Pots Before Words at Gallery II. Credit: Kate Morrell.

J.B. Priestley soldier writer painter – a rare chance to see the fragile surviving objects from Priestley’s time in the First World War trenches.  Bradford Industrial Museum until 19 August 2014.

We’ve also been busy with the Peace Studies 40th anniversary conference. We’re contributing two elements to this international conference: a display (A Concern for Peace) telling the story of the department and a paper about our wonderful collections of peace-related archives.  1-3 May 2014.  If you aren’t going to the conference, you can find similar information by exploring our Objects!

 

97. To the Caverns of Castleton: the Bradford Technical College Staff Outings

On 14 July 1933, 29 members of staff of Bradford Technical College had a grand day out in the Peak District!  They travelled to Castleton, Dovedale and Buxton in a “chara” (charabanc) provided by Bullock & Sons of Wakefield.

Charabancs – we don’t have an image of J. Bullock’s coaches; these similar ones were advertised by S. Thompson of Sutton-in-Craven (BTC 3/12/2)

The morning featured a trip to the Great Peak Cavern, followed by a roast lunch at the Castleton Restaurant.  The coach then took the staff via Hathersage and Chatsworth, dropping them at Dovedale for a three mile walk, and tea at the Peveril of the Peak hotel: bread and butter, paste and cucumber sandwiches, jam, lettuce, and “plain and fancy cakes”.

Menu for the Castleton Restaurant, where the 1933 Bradford Technical College Staff Outing had luncheon (BTC 3/12/2). We don’t alas know which menu they chose!

We discovered the Castleton day out while enhancing the old catalogue of the Bradford Technical College Archive.  Among our finds was a delightful set of papers about the Staff Outings of the 1930s and 1940s, full of details about routes, menus, attendance etc. The trips were organised for the Staff Association of the College, by its Hon. Secretary.   In 1933 this was Mr R.G. Oversby, who observed in his report to the General Meeting, that “all taking part had a most enjoyable time”.  29 was a good turnout: previous trips had fewer numbers or even had to be abandoned through lack of interest, which rather irked Mr Oversby.

Flyer advertising The Great Peak Cavern in Castleton, visited by the 1933 Bradford Technical College Staff Outing (BTC 3/12/2)

The trips were part of a long tradition within the Technical College, taking advantage of the many beauty spots and heritage sites within easy reach of Bradford, such as the Lake District, Whitby and Malham.

Group photograph Bradford Technical College. We think this was taken on a Staff Outing, probably circa 1908 or 1909 (BTC 2/35)

The College had a small, close-knit (and overwhelmingly male) teaching staff.  The activities of the Staff Association helped build this sense of community.  As well as organising Outings and other social activities, they supported members (and their widows and orphans) and negotiated with management.

The material concerning the Staff Association is a wonderful and little-tapped source, not just about the College, but about education, leisure, and above all Bradford itself. The College had come into being to meet the training needs of local textile industries and its staff and students were part of the rich social, cultural and industrial life memorably portrayed in J.B. Priestley’s Bradford writings.

The Outings illustrate this well: local connections and family members often came along (witness the children in the above photograph, probably sons of the staff).  Typically, the Secretary of the Bradford Teachers’ Association, Mr Foster Sutherland, was part of the 1933 trip.  He seems to have been an influential local official and Mr Oversby observes that “many were able to profit by private conversations” with him during the day …

Look out for a new edition of the Bradford Technical College Archive catalogue later this year, which will make it much easier for researchers to discover this important historical resource.

Menu for afternoon tea at the Peveril of the Peak hotel in Thorpe, Derbyshire, visited by Bradford Technical College staff.  (BTC 3/12/2)  Presumably one of the “Trust Houses”, country inns managed as a group to ensure their survival, with emphasis on food rather than alcohol.

96. A Pattern of Invasions and Occupations: Jacquetta Hawkes and the Archaeology of Jersey

The Channel Island of Jersey is extraordinarily rich in archaeological remains.  Key sites include La Cotte de St Brelade (a cave filled with Neanderthal stone tools and the bones of mammoths and rhinos) and La Hougue Bie, a prehistoric grave mound topped by a medieval chapel.  Jacquetta Hawkes explored this heritage in her first book: The Archaeology of the Channel Islands: Volume II The Bailiwick of Jersey.

Pen drawings of flints from Les Quennevais and Le Pinacle (The Pinnacle), Jersey, published in The Bailiwick of Jersey, by Jacquetta Hawkes, pp 66 and 168. Archive reference HAW 1/14.

Volume I, covering the archaeology of Guernsey, had been published by Methuen in 1928.  Its author, Thomas Kendrick, worked at the British Museum, as did Jacquetta’s husband Christopher.  Kendrick had done much of the research for a second volume, on Jersey, by 1934, but “an increase in other work, and a growing distaste for the stones and bones of prehistory” meant that he was glad to put the task into Jacquetta’s “capable hands”.

Jacquetta had recently married Christopher; both were becoming known as exceptional young archaeologists.  Jacquetta was particularly well placed to take on the Jersey project. As J.G.D. Clark pointed out, “Her cave experience in Palestine  … made her sympathetic to one of Jersey’s chief glories, the Cotte de Brelade, while her own distinguished researches into the Neolithic pottery of France … equipped her to deal with the megalithic backbone of the island’s pre-history”.

From left, Christopher & Jacquetta Hawkes, with unknown man (possibly a Jersey connection?), 1930s. Archive reference: HAW 18/3/46/1.

Part IV of The Bailiwick of Jersey, detailed descriptions of individual archaeological sites, was largely Kendrick’s work.  However, Parts I-III were written by Jacquetta herself and reflect changes in archaeological thought since the original volume: she took a more hypothetical and conceptual approach to the subject.  Although this volume was her first publication, she already demonstrated qualities that were to distinguish her writing in the future, bringing together a huge range of sources and ideas to create a coherent, clear and readable account.  Jacquetta’s biographer Dr Christine Finn observes the clarity and ambition of the green exercise book, “Jersey arch. Notes”, in which the book took shape, and the “lyrical” introduction.

Detail from the front cover of “Jersey Arch. Notes” the exercise book in which Jacquetta Hawkes planned The Bailiwick of Jersey. Archive ref HAW 1/11

The Jersey volume is a fine example of Jacquetta collaborating with other archaeologists, as she did later on for the Festival of Britain.  In particular, she drew on the efforts of the Société Jersiaise (who published the book).  Jacquetta’s Archive documents her extensive correspondence with key researchers including Emile Guiton, responsible for the photographs in the book, N.V.L. Rybot, who created most of the line drawings, R.R. Marett, H.L. Stapleton, and Arthur Mourant.  She also gathered older research material which is now part of her Archive, notably an important collection of 1870s letters by Philippe Langlois on Jersey antiquities.

The Bailiwick of Jersey was well received by archaeologists.  It made Jacquetta’s name and enabled her to become a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.  The book remains an essential resource for anyone interested in the Island’s prehistory.

The flints illustrated above lead us to another aspect of Jacquetta’s first book and of Jersey’s archaeology, which has been explored by Dr Finn.  The top row of flints came from “… a considerable piece of ground in the sandy terrain of the Lower Quennevais [which] is still scarred by the last traces of the Prisoners-of-War Camp which was established there during the Great War” and were revealed by “the disturbance of the occupation and dismantling of this camp, followed by a severe storm”.

The story of the flints and their finding exemplifies Jersey’s own turbulent story.  Its closeness to mainland Europe led to easy contact with other communities, often resulting in invasion, occupation and the presence of refugees.   Jacquetta paid particular attention to this narrative in her sections of The Bailiwick of Jersey.  Her approach seems horribly prescient given what was to come soon after the long-delayed publication of the volume, in 1939.  The Nazis invaded Jersey in June 1940 and it was occupied until the end of the Second World War.

Jacquetta’s book thus has an added value and resonance as the record of a landscape about to change forever, where (as at La Hougue Bie and many other sites) “gun emplacements, bunkers and other observation posts” were built on the same “exceptional vantage points” chosen by the prehistoric peoples for their buildings.

Quotations.  The Bailiwick of Jersey, Clark’s review in Man, Vol. 40 (July 1940), pp. 107-108 (available via JSTOR), Christine Finn’s article “Artefacts of Occupation” in Artefacts Consortium Publications Vol. 5 and her online biography of Jacquetta.

Note on dates: The Bailiwick of Jersey has no publication date.  Jacquetta’s Preface is dated April 1937, hence library catalogue records and bibliographies may give the date as 1937 or 1938.  The date of 1939 is correct, as far as I can ascertain.

Note on creator of drawings: In the absence of information on the flint drawings themselves, we have in the past attributed them to Jacquetta.  The pencil annotations are certainly hers.  However, the phrasing of her Preface to Bailiwick now leads me to think that the drawings might be by Rybot, but the sketchy nature of other drawings on the same graph paper brings me back to Jacquetta.  I will continue to investigate this.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Special Collections is closed for the Christmas break from 23 December-3 January inclusive.   Join us then to meet the last 5 Objects in this exhibition.  Meanwhile, we’d like to wish everyone a very merry Christmas and a happy 2014.

Our Christmas greeting, featuring a Poinsettia from one of our favourite books.

In Object no. 41 we glimpsed some Christmas fun at Bradford Technical College.

95. A Letter to the Lancet: the story of the Medical Association for the Prevention of War

On 20 January 1951, at the height of the Korean War, seven distinguished doctors published a letter in the Lancet expressing concern about the arms race, the impact of arms spending on healthcare (“each pound spent on bombs means … more dead babies now”) and the apathetic drift towards another world war.

Signatories to letter of 20 Jan 1951 in the Lancet

The signatories (Richard Doll, Alfred Esterman, Ian Gilliland, Horace Joules, Duncan Leys,  Lionel Penrose, and Martin Pollock) argued that doctors could use their unique expertise and authority to work towards disarmament:

“We appeal to all our fellow doctors who think there may yet be an alternative to merely providing treatment for casualties ; we ask them to join us, in the spirit of our chosen profession of healing, in doing all in their power to halt preparation for war …”

The letter provoked many responses, to the Lancet and privately.  Not all agreed with its perspective.  Doll et al. summed up and tried to refute those arguments in a further letter in February.

Typescript of first paragraph of letter to the Lancet 17 February 1951

Some respondents had argued that war and peace were political matters which should not be discussed in a medical journal.  The seven profoundly disagreed: “Doctors have a social responsibility as well as a personal one to their patients ; they have an ethical tradition and an international allegiance.  War is a symptom of mental ill health.  Its results include wounds and disease.  Doctors are therefore properly concerned in preventing it”.

The February letter called for a forum to discuss how doctors could put these ideas into action.  The resulting event, held in London on 16 March and chaired by Dr Joules, was attended by 130 doctors and led to the founding of the Medical Association for the Prevention of War (MAPW).

Detail from cover of MAPW Journal June 1983

Over its forty year lifespan, MAPW brought the expertise and authority of doctors and, later, other medical professionals to many issues via its publications, conferences and advocacy: nuclear weapons, chemical and biological warfare, radiation, terrorism, the medical needs of developing countries, even expressing concern about the bellicose lyrics of national anthems.  It was explicitly politically independent, though accused of being a communist front and proscribed by the Labour Party during the 1950s.

In 1992, MAPW merged with the Medical Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons (MCANW), which had been founded in 1980. A merger had been discussed since the mid-1980s but, as Dr Alex Poteliakhoff observed in a position paper in 1990 “the changing international and global scene, namely the collapse of the cold war, hesitant moves towards nuclear disarmament” and increased public concern about environment and quality of life meant both organisations needed to rethink their missions to survive and be useful.

Medact logo, from press release of April 1992

Given their long-term collaboration on joint conferences and projects such as the Medical Educational Trust (not to mention shared office and fax machine!), a merger made sense.   The result was Medact, which continues to bring together health professionals working for a “fairer, better and safer world”.

I decided to write about medical campaigners this week as I recently learned that the Wellcome Library plan to catalogue the substantial and hitherto inaccessible MCANW and Medact archives they hold.   I look forward to working with the Wellcome to promote the distinctive archives of medical professional campaigns to researchers in many disciplines.

Sources: quotations and images from MAPW Archive (references H2, M3, M10.  Note that we are about to release a new edition of the Archive catalogue).  I am indebted also to Physicians and the Peace Movement, by Nick Lewer (Cass, 1992) and many published and unpublished articles in the Archive concerning the history of the association.

Postscript (18 December 2013): the catalogue of this Archive is now online as part of our Quick Wins programme.  Find it on the MAPW webpage in PDF and Word format.

94. Pioneering Pacifist Journalism: the Peace News Story

This week, two little pamphlets which tell the story of a unique newspaper: Peace News.  The history of  Peace News is that of the peace movement in Britain.  Written, edited and read by activists, it reflected and shaped campaigns and debates.

The Peace News Story was written by Harry Mister.  This particular issue dates from around 1951 or 1952, just after Allen Skinner became editor.  It begins with a potted and very positive account of the early years of the paper.

The paper’s first editor, Humphrey S. Moore, a young Quaker journalist, believed that existing peace publications did not reach out to ordinary people.   A popular newspaper-style weekly could explain and promote pacifism more effectively.  On 6 June 1936, with the support of the Wood Green Study Group (who became the Peace News Group), the first issue was published.

The Peace Pledge Union quickly saw the potential of this new publication to share pacifist ideas.  The PPU was born in 1934 from the mass response to a letter by clergyman Dick Sheppard.  In this famous letter, Sheppard renounced war and called on others who felt the same to join him.  The Union had recently taken a more organised form.  Peace News became the official newspaper of the PPU.

From the first print run of 1,500 copies, the paper grew quickly as it tapped into concern about the threat of war.  Peak circulation of 35-40,000 was reached during the late 1930s.

The Second World War saw circulation drop considerably, for several reasons, including the varying responses of pacifists to the war and the refusal of printers and newsagents to handle the paper.  Peace News survived (and actually made a profit) thanks to dedicated street sellers and other volunteers.  Given these difficulties and restrictions on the use of newsprint, the paper concentrated on supporting conscientious objectors rather than reporting on general peace issues.

A similar yet intriguingly different version of the pamphlet appeared in 1962.  Much of the history section in the 1952 version came from a PPU source.  The version in the 1962 pamphlet was based on another Peace News Story by Margaret Tims* and has a different, more candid tone.

Tims shows how from the explosion of the first atomic bombs in 1945, Peace News helped to create “a new movement against nuclear war based on the idea of unarmed resistance to tyranny”.

From about 1948 we see (and the newspaper reports on) pacifists studying Gandhian ideas of nonviolent resistance and considering how these might be used to campaign against the Bomb.   Hugh Brock, who became editor of Peace News  in 1955, played a key role in these groups.  Although very small, these organisations were exploring ideas and methods which came into their own from 1957, when (as we have seen) the testing of Britain’s H-Bomb led to mass protest and the founding of CND.  There was great overlap between Peace News people and the Direct Action Committee (who organised the first major Aldermaston march in 1958).

Non-Violent Resistance Group demonstration against colonial policy (Cwl HBP 1/19). Photographer and date unknown.

Alongside campaigning against nuclear weapons and exposing the dangers of nuclear tests, Peace News encouraged struggles for colonial freedom and campaigned against apartheid in South Africa.  Gene Sharp, the American campaigner, joined the staff in 1955 and began to cover the black civil rights movement.  Increasingly the paper, like the peace movement of which it was part, sought to address the causes of conflict by calling for changes in society.

These developments worried some absolutist pacifists such as the PPU’s Sybil Morrison.  She complained in I Renounce War (1962)  of the paper’s “all-out support and advocacy of the CND” and that Peace News “appeared to be the organ of the Movement for Colonial Freedom”.   The paper became independent of the PPU in 1961.

However, this split, like those amongst CND’s leaders, was perhaps less relevant to activists.  There were not really two sides: traditionalist PPU versus the new campaigns.  Individuals involved in the latter were active in the PPU too; indeed the first studies of Gandhi’s ideas in Britain were PPU initiatives.

This continuity at the grassroots can be seen in the “practical guide for propagandists” in the pamphlets.  The text changes little between the two editions, offering  advice to activists on getting Peace News read: ask your local librarian to take it, advertise at the railway station, write to the press, leave old copies where they will be seen … The main differences between 1951 and 1962 are technological (in 1962 you can get colourful green and yellow posters and a Peace News sticker for your car).

*A small mystery: I have never encountered a copy of this work or seen it on a library catalogue.

5 Caledonian Road soon after it was acquired for Peace News and Housmans bookshop in 1959. It is still home to both paper and bookshop. Image from Articles of Peace.

Sources and credits. Quotations are from the pamphlets, unless otherwise noted.

Peace News created a huge published and archival presence which can be seen in Special Collections and Commonweal Library.  Two key books from 1986, the paper’s anniversary year: the short history Against All War and the more reflective discussions in Articles of Peace.  In Special Collections, most of our peace archives, but in particular  Peace News Archive, the papers of Hugh Brock, our pamphlet and ephemera collections and the artworks of Peggy Smith who sold the newspaper on the street for most of her life.   Commonweal has a complete run of Peace News.

Recent editions of Peace News are freely available online on the paper’s website and a welcome initiative to digitise historic issues is under way.

And finally, thank you to our PaxCat Project archivist, Helen Roberts, who catalogued the Peace News and Hugh Brock archives and to my colleague Martin Levy who has been cataloguing the pamphlet collection.

93. Your Starter for Ten: Bradford’s University Challenge

On 28 January 1979 a team of students from Bradford University triumphed against Lancaster University in the final of University Challenge, 215 points to 160.

Bradford University’s University Challenge winning team: Watt, Lee (reserve), Bradford, Simkin and Cooter

University Challenge is a notoriously difficult and fast-moving television quiz.  Produced by Granada Television, the original programme was presented by Bamber Gascoigne and ran from 1962 to 1987.   It was revived by the BBC in 1994 with presenter Jeremy Paxman (an honorary graduate of Bradford University) and is still running today.  Contestants are usually university students although there have been series which used different formats.

The Bradford University team of 1979 boasted three postgraduate computer science students (John Watt, Mike Bradford, John Simkin).   The other team members were Maxwell Cooter, an Interdisciplinary Human Studies student, and a reserve, Martin Lee, a postgraduate in Social Sciences.

The dominance of computer scientists apparently “amused and bemused” Bradford’s opponents, though in fact the three were studying conversion courses.  Along with their colleagues, they had excellent general knowledge spanning key subjects such as classical music, literature, sport and art.

The team actually criticised the University Challenge format, which they felt “tested school rather than at university learning” and called for “fast recall of fairly shallow or even trivial knowledge, rather than the analysis or coherent pattern which University education should develop.”   They emphasised that it was no measure of intellectual ability, and might even mislead the public about the nature of students and university life.

Bradford University’s University Challenge winning team reunited for a special series in 2002: Lee, Bradford, Simkin and Cooter

The University of Bradford’s Corp Comms managed to track down three members of the team for a 2002 series celebrating forty years of the programme: University Challenge Reunited.  Bradford, Simkin and Cooter were joined by the reserve, Martin Lee.    The team lost narrowly to their 1979 final opponents, Lancaster, but enjoyed the experience.   John Watt saw the event on television and got in touch later on.

A Bradford University team who took part in the 2003/04 season were less successful, scoring a mere 35 points in their first-round match on 15 December 2003 against Queen’s University Belfast, who scored 280.

Whatever the scores though, the programme has provided plenty of entertainment.  As Bradford’s winning team observed,  “It seems that this sort of quiz would be best approached in a mildly egotistical mood, as a load of laughs, proving nothing in particular!”

Notes and queries.  There is some confusion around the years of wins, partly caused by inconsistencies in listing styles by the programme makers.  Bradford’s win is often attributed to 1980, as can be seen in the 2002 image above.   Mr Cooter’s first name is “Steve” in the News Sheet article, but “Maxwell” elsewhere.

Sources. Quotations from News Sheet March 1979 p.3-4 and 21 and News and Views May 2002 p.7.  (also online, the 2002 press release seeking the 1979 team).  I have also found many other sources useful, including the BBC site and sites by enthusiasts Blanchflower (useful on statistics and the issue of the varying years of wins) and UK gameshows.