British Communism and the Politics of Education, 1926-1968

240 Pages·2016·1.476 MB·English

by  Matthew Kavanagh

BRITISH COMMUNISM AND THE POLITICS OF
EDUCATION, 1926-1968

A thesis submitted to The University of Manchester for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in the Faculty of Humanities
2015
MATTHEW R. KAVANAGH
SCHOOL OF ARTS, LANGUAGES AND CULTURES
Contents
Abbreviations 3
Abstract 5
Declaration 6
Copyright Statement 7
Acknowledgements 8
Introduction 9
Chapter One: A Long and Difficult Third Period , 1926-1934 25
Chapter Two: Against Fascism, War and Economies, 1935-1939 62
Chapter Three: Unwelcome Allies? 1939-1941 93
Chapter Four: The ‘People’s War’ and Educational Reconstruction, 1941-1944 108
Chapter Five: ‘A Focal Point in the Struggle’, 1945-1956 134
Chapter Six: Crisis, Democratic Centralism and Dissent, 1956-1957 171
Chapter Seven: New Trends and New Schisms, 1957-1968 187
Conclusion 212
Bibliography 221

Final Word Count: 87, 893.
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Abbreviations
ACE Advisory Committee on Education
ARP Air Raid Protection
AMA Assistant Masters’ Association
BCRGT British Committee for the Relief of German Teachers
BCTA Buckinghamshire County Teachers’ Association
CACE Central Advisory Council on Education
CCCS Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (University of Birmingham)
CEA Council for Educational Advance
CND Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Comintern Communist International
CPGB Communist Party of Great Britain
CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union
EWI Educational Workers’ International
EWL Educational Workers’ League
IAAM Incorporated Association of Assistant Masters
LBC Left Book Club
LCC London County Council
LEA Local Education Authority
LTA London Teachers’ Association
LW Lawrence and Wishart
NALT National Association of Labour Teachers
NAS National Association of Schoolmasters
NCC National Cultural Committee (Communist Party of Great Britain)
NCCL National Council for Civil Liberties
NCLC National Council of Labour Colleges
NEAC National Education Advisory Committee (Communist Party of Great Britain)
NMM National Minority Movement
NUT National Union of Teachers
NUWT National Union of Women Teachers
3
RILU Red International of Labour Unions
TAWM Teachers’ Anti-War Movement
TCND Teachers’ Committee for Nuclear Disarmament
TLL Teachers’ Labour League
TUC Trade Union Congress
USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

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Abstract
This thesis provides an analysis of British communist attitudes to education in English schools
between 1926 and 1968. Although the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in many
ways remained a marginal force in British politics throughout its life (1920-1991), historians
have acknowledged that it made a contribution to cultural and industrial politics in Britain
which far exceeded its membership figures and electoral success. Surprisingly, given that the
Party produced several teacher trade union presidents and Britain’s foremost post-war
educationalist, scholars have largely overlooked British communism’s role in the politics of
education in schools – a field which straddles both areas in which the Party is widely regarded
to have punched above its weight. Researchers into the Party’s internal life have also paid little
attention to its schoolteachers’ group, despite the fact that it was one of the CPGB’s largest
occupational groups, and the fact that leading communist teachers and educationalists also took
up prominent positions inside the Party.
Although some existing work has discussed CPGB attitudes to the education of children during
the 1920s, 1940s and 1950s, to date there has been no PhD-length study which covers the
period between 1926 and 1968 and has British communism and the politics of education as its
sole focus. This study fills this gap by identifying individuals and institutions central to CPGB
discussions and policy-making on education in schools, namely the leading figures in and
around the Party schoolteachers’ group, and exploring how they anticipated, reflected or
resisted the wider Party line in their work throughout several pivotal shifts in the CPGB’s
position.
Drawing upon source material unused by or unavailable to previous researchers, the thesis
complicates existing arguments about the extent to which Party teachers and educationalists
subordinated questions of educational content, method and theory to trade union work between
1926 and 1968. Furthermore the study also contextualises and illuminates the notable
communist contribution to broader educational politics on the Left in Britain, particularly
during World War Two and in the campaign for comprehensive education in the two decades
which followed.
5
Declaration
No portion of the work referred to in this thesis has been submitted in support of an application for a
degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning.

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Copyright Statement
i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns
certain copyright or related rights in it (the “Copyright”) and he has given the University
of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes.
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may be made only in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as
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thesis, for example graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in the
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University’s Policy on Presentation of Theses.
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for the Collaborative Doctoral Award which
funded this PhD. I would not have been able to embark upon a doctorate without it. To that end I must
also thank Professor John Callaghan, Lynette Cawthra, and Dr Ben Harker for selecting me for the
Award. Lynette and the whole team at Salford’s Working Class Movement Library also get my gratitude
for their assistance, encouragement, knowledge and cups of tea during my many hours spent there. Ben
too gets a second round of thanks for supervising this thesis to its completion. Without his expertise,
encouragement, patience, kindness and understanding I am certain I would not have lasted the distance.
Nor would I have made it without my wife, Fiona. She may have frequently rued the day that she told
me “just do it” when I kept prevaricating over whether or not to do a PhD, but from the moment she
uttered those words to the moment I am writing these, her love for, belief in, and patience with, me has
sustained me in a way I do not have not the words to describe. I owe a huge amount also to my family
and friends (too numerous to mention by name) whose advice, company, kindness, love and good
humour has made a highly challenging period that bit more comfortable. Finally, I would like to
dedicate this thesis to the memory of David McKendrick, who taught me what it means to be a socialist,
a teacher and a father.

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Introduction
Brian Simon (1915-2002) is acknowledged as Britain’s foremost post-war educationalist for his
contribution to the history, theory and practice of education.1 Yet when he published the third volume
in his Studies in the History of Education series in 1974,2 a “major criticism” of the book came from
one quarter:
[O]ne would have liked more of the history behind the history (as it were) of the TUC and
NUT and other public top-level reactions ... The political ‘left’ for example, appears
nowhere apart from the Labour Party ... Did no-one else, for example the Communist Party,
play any part in the politics of educational reform in this period?3
The question was nakedly rhetorical, for by 1974 Brian Simon had been a member of the Communist
Party of Great Britain (CPGB) for nearly four decades. Indeed, Simon’s reviewer had been in the CPGB
for the same amount of time,4 and in that time had risen, alongside Simon, to its Executive Committee.
He was also a head teacher and had recently finished his term as President of the National Union of
Teachers (NUT). His name was Max Morris, and the point he made in the posing of his question was a
relevant one. Almost half a century on, its relevance has only increased, since the absence of communist
teachers and educationalists from the historiography of the politics of educational reform – and, indeed,
the historiography of the CPGB itself – remains.5 That was the initial spur to this inquiry, but the choice
requires further justification.
Rationale
Admittedly the CPGB remained but a marginal force in British politics throughout its 70 year existence
(1920-1991). The high water mark of its electoral achievements was the return of 2 MPs and 215

1 Clyde Chitty, in ‘Book Reviews’, History of Education, 21, 2 (1992), p. 219. See also D. Reeder, ‘Brian
Simon: A Tribute’, History of Education, 31, 4 (2002), pp. 307-310.
2 Brian Simon, The Politics of Educational Reform 1920-1940 (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1974).
3 Max Morris, in ‘Books’, Labour Monthly, 57, 2 (February 1975), p. 88.
4 Francis Beckett, obituary of Max Morris, Guardian, 9 September 2008.
5 The terms ‘education’ and ‘educational reform’ will be used in this study to refer to the education of children
in schools.
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councillors in 1945-6, whilst individual membership peaked at 56,000 in late 1942.6 Yet academic
interest in the Party endures, for the CPGB is acknowledged to have made a significant contribution to
cultural, intellectual and industrial politics on the Left in Britain, one which far outweighed its numerical
size and electoral success.7
CPGB schoolteachers and educationalists were active in both of these spheres of influence and
also made highly noteworthy contributions. A few preliminary examples will suffice at this stage. As
well as Simon being “undoubtedly the chief intellectual influence on the comprehensive school
movement”,8 and Morris being “probably the best known and most influential President the National
Union of Teachers ever had”,9 communist Margaret Clarke was head teacher of one of the first
experimental comprehensive schools in England in 1947.10 Fellow Party members Nan McMillan and
G.C.T. Giles served as national presidents of teacher trade unions during the Second World War, a
pivotal time in the history of educational reform in England, and Party teachers held positions on
national and local trade union executives from the 1930s onwards.
In fact, as will be shown, on a number of occasions throughout the period selected for study,
alarm about communist influence in schools and in teacher trade unions prompted speeches in
Parliament, newspaper splashes, campaign groups, local authority clampdown and even attracted the
attention of the security services. Thus, a full knowledge and understanding of the CPGB’s contribution

6 Andrew Thorpe, ‘The Membership of the Communist Party of Great Britain, 1920-1945’, The Historical
Journal, 43, 3 (2000), p. 781.
7 See John Callaghan and Ben Harker (eds), British Communism: A Documentary History (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 2011), particularly pp. 4-5, 117-122, 113-143 and 164-184; Geoff Andrews, Nina
Fishman and Kevin Morgan (eds.), Opening the Books: Essays on the Social and Cultural History of the British
Communist Party (London: Pluto Press, 1995); Andy Croft (ed.), A Weapon in the Struggle: The Cultural
History of the British Communist Party (London: Pluto Press, 1998); Neal Wood, Communism and British
Intellectuals (London: Gollancz, 1959); Eric Hobsbawm, ‘The Historians’ Group of the British Communist
Party’, in M Cornforth (ed.), Rebels and Their Causes (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1978), pp. 21-47; Bill
Schwarz, “‘The People’ in History: The Communist Party Historians’ Group, 1946-56”, in Richard Johnson,
Gregor McLennan, Bill Schwarz and David Sutton (eds.), Making Histories: Studies in History Writing and
Politics (London: Hutchinson, 1982), pp. 44-95. For the trajectory of individual CPGB members in this sphere,
see Nancy Bush, Alan Bush: Music, Politics and Life (London: Thames, 2000); Andy Croft, Comrade Heart: A
Life of Randall Swingler (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003); Ben Harker, Class Act: The Cultural
and Political life of Ewan MacColl (London: Pluto Press, 2007); Charles Hobday, Edgell Rickword: A Poet at
War (Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1989).
8 Reeder, ‘Brian Simon: A Tribute’, p. 308.
9 Francis Beckett, obituary of Max Morris, the Guardian, 9 September 2008.
10 ‘Pioneer of Comprehensive Schools’, Morning Star, 16 December 1975.
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