The first meeting of the Joint Standing Committee of the RCOG and RCM took place on 11 May 1988. The objectives of the Committee were to "consider and make recommendations on matters of common interest to parent bodies". It did not have an executive function and reported to the Councils of the RCM and RCOG; meetings took place at least twice a year.
A first RCOG report in 1994 on minimum standards of care in labour attempted to establish guidelines for staffing, equipment and general facilities on the labour ward. Following acceptance of the increased involvement of the consultant obstetrician in the labour ward, the Joint Working Group of the Royal College of Midwives and the RCOG aimed to produce guidance about the essential minimum midwife and medical staff numbers required to support women in labour. The final report was published in 1999 and acknowledged the value of multidisciplinary involvement, making recommendations to improve organisation, practice and result in safer childbirth.
This joint working party was established to explore key issues affecting students' clinical learning experiences and to identify strategies to address them. Their remit was to:
- Review the clinical learning environment in maternity services with particular respect to the recruitment of doctors and midwives.
- Gather national and international research and evidence pertaining to the development and support of a good clinical learning environment.
- Identify and propagate examples of good practice relating to the clinical learning environment and recruitment.
- Develop a collaborative strategy for the development of professional support within the clinical learning environment and enhanced recruitment.
The working party comprised a group of professionals with relevant expertise and experiences encompassing the academic, clinical, practical and organisational aspects of learning environments. The group met on five occasions, from January to September 2006.
The RCOG established this working party, representing the Royal Colleges of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Midwives, Anaesthetists, Paediatrics and Child Health as well as other stakeholder organisations, to develop national standards for maternity care. It had the following remit:
- To review current evidence-based published standards in the area of maternity practice.
- To derive from these documents agreed standards for maternity care, from prepregnancy through to the postnatal period.
- To complete the work within one year.
The final report was published in June 2008.
An international liaison committee of professional organisations and national associations of gynaecologists and obstetricians, UPIGO was formed in 1955. Its objectives were:
- to study, represent and defend the ethical, professional and material interests of obstetricians and gynaecologists before all international authorities,
- to study and to explain the ethical, legal, professional and social problems which occur in these disciplines, according to the particular interest they arouse,
- to establish relations with any appropriate national or international organisation,
- to provide exhaustive literature on the profession of gynaecologist-obstetrician to each member or delegation of members, in order to stimulate progress in the policy of each country in the fields of training of practitioners and the safety of women, as well as that of unborn children,
- to promote the harmonisation of qualifications and conditions of practice for specialists in obstetrics and gynaecology, in order to justify professional migration within the framework of international regulations,
- to promote products or services which will satisfy ethical considerations as well as the Association's expectations of quality.
In July 1988 the College established a working party 'to review current post-graduate activities of the College and to consider the need, feasibility and the format of assessment of the individual's maintenance of skills'. In 1991 this reported that the majority of consultants were not taking advantage of the existing educational opportunities offered by the College. It recommended that the College develop a programme of mandatory Continuing Medical Education (CME) for all its Fellows and Members in active specialist practice. This began in January 1994. The RCOG was the first of the UK Colleges to establish such a programme and also the first to offer it (from January 2000) to overseas members. The programme catered for consultants and other members of career grade staff not in training posts. The scheme was developed and overseen by the CME Committee, which held its first meeting in July 1992, and reported to the Education Board. It was administered by the Postgraduate Education Department. The first 5-year CME cycle was completed in December 1998. In 1998 CME became part of the wider sphere of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and in 1999 the CME Committee changed its name to the CPD Committee. In January 2002 the CME programme also changed its name to the CPD programme. At this date the programme was expanded to take into account not just the continuing medical education needs of obstetricians and gynaecologists, but also their broader professional development (i.e. non-clinical or non-specialist clinical activities). The Postgraduate Education Department was disbanded in October 2003 at which point the CPD Office was transferred to the Clinical Governance and Standards Department.
This area was traditionally the responsibility of the Director of Corporate Affairs. The College employed freelancers for occasional press work until 2000 when they decided to appoint a permanent Press Officer. In 2006 the College set up a Department for Communications and External Affairs, reporting to the Directorate of Corporate Affairs.
William Blair-Bell (1871-1936) was co-founder (with William Fletcher Shaw) of the College and its first President. The second son of William and Helen Bell, he was born in Wallasey in 1871 and educated at Rossall School, King's College London and King's College Hospital. In 1905 he left general practice in Wallasey and was appointed to the post of Assistant Consultant Gynaecologist to the Liverpool Royal Infirmary. In 1918 he became senior surgeon and in 1921 was appointed to the Chair of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Liverpool University, a position he held until 1931. In 1929 he married his cousin, Florence.
Blair-Bell was President of the Obstetric Section of the Royal Society of Medicine and of the North of England Gynaecological Society and the Liverpool Medical Institution. In 1911 he founded the Gynaecological Visiting Society (GVS). He was co-founder of the College in 1929 and presented the College with its first headquarters at 58 Queen Anne Street. He established the money for the William Blair-Bell memorial lectures and for other research projects. He was President of the College from its inception until 1935, the year before his death.
William Blair-Bell (1871-1936) was co-founder (with William Fletcher Shaw) of the College and its first President. The second son of William and Helen Bell, he was born in Wallasey in 1871 and educated at Rossall School, King's College London and King's College Hospital. In 1905 he left general practice in Wallasey and was appointed to the post of Assistant Consultant Gynaecologist to the Liverpool Royal Infirmary. In 1918 he became senior surgeon and in 1921 was appointed to the Chair of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Liverpool University, a position he held until 1931. In 1929 he married his cousin, Florence.
Blair-Bell was President of the Obstetric Section of the Royal Society of Medicine and of the North of England Gynaecological Society and the Liverpool Medical Institution. In 1911 he founded the Gynaecological Visiting Society (GVS). He was co-founder of the College in 1929 and presented the College with its first headquarters at 58 Queen Anne Street. He established the money for the William Blair-Bell memorial lectures and for other research projects. He was President of the College from its inception until 1935, the year before his death.
Morris Myer Datnow (1901-1962), MB, ChB (Liverpool) 1924, MD 1928, FRCS (Ed) 1932, FRCOG 1939, was born in South Africa and trained at Cape Town University. He completed his medical training in Liverpool, where he became a member of the Liverpool university staff in 1925. There he served successively as Ethel Boyce research fellow, Samuels memorial scholar, demonstrator and sub-curator of the museum and lecturer in clinical obstetrics and gynaecology. He was appointed to the staff of the Women's Hospital, Liverpool, the Liverpool Maternity Hospital and the Royal Southern Hospital. He was married with two children. Morris Datnow became closely associated with William Blair-Bell in the research work which was going on at that time in the department, and was one of the team undertaking basic research into the nature of cancer and the place of chemotherapy in its treatment. He was to become a close friend of Blair-Bell's and was elected to deliver the third Blair-Bell Memorial Lecture in 1940 at the RCOG.
John Martin Munro Kerr (1868-1960), Regius Professor of Midwifery at the University of Glasgow from 1927-1934, was a Foundation Fellow of the College and its first Vice President from 1929-1932.
Bethel Solomons (1885-1965) MB, BCh, BAO (Dublin), MD, FRCP(I), FRCOG, Hon FACS was born in Dublin and spent most of his professional life there. He was master of the Rotunda Hospital and organised the first sterility clinic in Dublin. He was a founder fellow of this College and an honorary fellow of the American Association of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. He was elected President of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland in 1946. He died in 1965 of heart failure. The papers relate to Bethel's survey of pathology treatments of the fallopian tube. He delivered his findings at the 10th British Congress of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in Belfast, 1936, and published them in `The Conservative Treatment of Pathological Conditions of the Fallopian Tube', in Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the British Empire, 43 (1936), pp 619-633.
At the inaugural meeting of the Obstetrical Society of London in December 1858 the Chairman and first President, Edward Rigby, stated that the meeting was for the purpose of inaugurating a society to be devoted to advancing the knowledge of obstetrics and of the diseases of women and children. Membership was open to all practitioners in London and the provinces. During its lifetime the Society published annual volumes of Transactions of its meetings. It met for the last time in July 1907, in which year it was absorbed into the Royal Society of Medicine.
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the Gynaecological Visiting Society (GVS) first met on 24th April 1911. It was the inspiration of William Blair-Bell, Assistant Physician at Liverpool Royal Infirmary. Its aims as set out in its first meeting (ref: S26/1/1) were:
The encouragement and demonstration of scientific research, and the study of methods employed in gynaecological duties.
Two centres to be visited each year in the Spring and Autumn.
A brief record of the meetings to be kept in a book belonging to the Society.
Although other gynaecological societies existed at this time, Blair-Bell felt there was a need for a peripatetic group that could discuss and disseminate information with fellow professionals. The annual visits allowed members to see other hospital departments and view at first hand their colleagues' research activities. With this cross-fertilisation of ideas it was hoped that the appalling statistics of maternal mortality could be tackled.
At a GVS meeting on the 2nd February 1925 several members of the society discussed the founding of a College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. The College came into existence in 1929, with Blair-Bell as President. The GVS has continued to work closely with the College and today senior officers of the now Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecology are also members of the GVS.
For further information see The Gynaecological Visiting Society 1911-1917 by John Peel, Dorset Press, 1992 (copy at S26/9/17).
John Harold Peel KCVO, MA, BM BCh (Oxon), FRCP, FRCS, Hon FRCOG, Hon DSc (Birm), Hon FRCS(C.), Hon FCOG (SA), Hon FACS, Hon FACOG, Hon NMSA, Hon DM (Soton), Hon SCh (Newcastle) served as the College's Honorary Treasurer from 1959-1966 and as President from 1966-1969. He was elevated to the honorary fellowship of the College in 1989. On retiring as President of the College in 1969, John Peel was asked by Council to undertake the task of preparing a history of the lives of the Fellows, along the same lines as volumes published by the two older Royal Colleges (the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Surgeons of England). The completed work was published in 1976 as The Lives of the Fellows of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists 1929-1969 (Whitefriars Press Ltd, 1976).
These rolls of lottery tickets were printed in Dublin in 1753-1754 to raise money for the building of a new hospital in Great Britain St, Dublin, for poor lying-in women. The lottery was later abandoned.
Alban Henry Griffith Doran (1849-1927), MRCS, FRCS, LSA received his medical training at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he served as House Surgeon, House Physician and Assistant Demonstrator of Anatomy. He gave up teaching after a year to become, in 1873, Assistant in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. After his retirement from private practice in 1909 he devoted his energies largely to the compilation of the above catalogues.
Hugh Cameron McLaren (1913-1986) MD, FRCPGLAS, FRCSED, FRCOG graduated from Glasgow University in 1936. He specialized in obstetrics and gynaecology early in his career and in the years before the war he worked in Glasgow, Aberdeen and, for a short spell, Berlin. During his service with the Royal Army Medical Corps during World War Two, his surgical experience fitted him to work in an army field surgical unit, While campaigning in Germany he came upon the horrors of the concentration camps, including Sandbostel, which he entered in May 1945 as a surgical specialist, 10th (British) Casualty Clearing Station, British Liberation Army. After the war he became first assistant to Hilda Lloyd in Birmingham, succeeding her as Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in 1952. He also served the RCOG as a member of the Scientific Advisory and Pathology Committee from 1950-1967, the Examination Committee from 1951-1955 and as a Fellows' representative on Council from 1969-1975. An inveterate traveller, he helped to found the gynaecological club The Travellors.
James Alexander Chalmers (known as Hamish) was born in Inverness in 1912 and qualified in medicine in Edinburgh in 1934. Following service in the Air Force Medical Branch during the Second World War and posts at Bath, Birmingham, Inverness and Edinburgh, he was senior consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at Ronkswood Hospital, Worcester from 1951-1977. He obtained his MRCOG in 1940 and became an FRCOG in 1954.
Chalmers is best known for introducing the vacuum extractor (ventouse) to British obstetric practice, as an alternative to forceps. He was introduced to the method by Professor Snoeck during a visit to Belgium in 1957 and went on to undertake vacuum deliveries at Worcester and to become an advocate for the apparatus.
He also researched widely on the history, development and current use of the procedure and accumulated a collection of publications from around the world on the topic. He visited key practitioners abroad, including V Finderle in Yugoslavia and T Malmstrom in Sweden. In 1971 he published a key work on the technique: The Ventouse-The Obstetric Vacuum Extractor (London: Lloyd-Luke, 1971).
Chalmers died in 1998.
Solomon Bender MD, FRCS (Ed), FRCOG, wrote an article on this case for the British Medical Journal in 1965.
Alexander Simpson was born in Bathgate, Scotland in 1835. He was the nephew of Sir James Young Simpson, Professor of Midwifery at the University of Edinburgh. Simpson studied at Bathgate Academy and later at the University of Edinburgh where in 1856 he received his M.D. He worked for seven years with his uncle in Edinburgh before moving to be a general practitioner in Glasgow. He succeeded to the Chair of Sir James Young Simpson following the latter's death in 1870. In 1872 he married a Miss Barbour. In 1905 he retired at the age of 70, and a year later he was knighted. He was killed in a road accident during a wartime blackout in 1916.
Alexander Gray McIntyre graduated as Bachelor of Medicine and Master in Surgery, Edinburgh, 1893; member of the Royal Medical Society, Edinburgh; Medical Officer, Glasgow Convalescence Home, Lenzie; Assistant Physician, Crichton Royal Institution, Dumfries; died [1939].
John Haighton was born, Lancashire, about 1755; pupil of Else at St Thomas's Hospital; Surgeon to the guards; Demonstrator of Anatomy, St Thomas's Hospital, resigned, 1789; Lecturer in Physiology, [1788], and Midwifery with Dr Lowder, St Thomas's and Guy's Hospitals; conducted numerous physiological experiments; M D; Fellow, Royal Society; presided at meetings of the Physical Society at Guy's Hospital; joint editor of Medical Records and Researches, 1798; assisted Dr William Saunders in his Treatise on the Liver, 1793; silver medal of the Medical Society of London, 1790; his nephew, Dr James Blundell began to assist him in his lectures, 1814, and took the entire course from 1818; died, 1823.
Publications include: 'An Attempt to Ascertain the Powers concerned in the Act of Vomiting,' in Memoirs of the Medical Society of London (ii. 250) (1789); A syllabus of the Lectures on Midwifery delivered at Guy's Hospital and at Dr Lowder's and Dr Haighton's Theatre in ... Southwark (London, re-printed 1799); A case of Tic Douloureux ... successfully treated by a division of the affected nerve. An inquiry concerning the true and spurious Cæsarian Operation, etc (1813).
William Lowder graduated doctor of medicine, Aberdeen, 1775; licentiate of the College of Physicians, 1786; practised midwifery; lectured at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals; died, 1801.
Chelsea Hospital for Women was founded in 178 King's Road, 1871; moved to Fulham Road, 1883; moved to Dovehouse Street, 1916; in co-operation with Queen Charlotte's Maternity Hospital formed a combined postgraduate teaching school, 1946, this subsequently became the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynaecology; Chelsea Hospital for Women was closed in 1988.
The Bristol Royal Infirmary was founded by Paul Fisher, a wealthy city merchant, 1735; in 1904, Sir George White saved the hospital from a major financial crisis; in 1948 it was acquired by the National Health Service.
The Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Legal Education and Conduct (ACLEC) was established in 1991 under the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990. The Committee had the general duty of assisting in the maintenance and development of standards in the education, training and conduct of those offering legal services. In the field of legal education and training, its brief was as follows:
- to keep under review the education and training of those who offer to provide legal services.
- to consider the need for continuing education and training for such persons and the form it should take.
- to consider the steps which professional and other bodies should take to ensure that their members benefit from such continuing education and training.
ACLEC was abolished by Statutory Instrument 1999 No.3296. Its functions were taken over by a new Legal Services Consultative Panel within the Lord Chancellor's Department.
The Committee of Inquiry was established in March 1993 "to conduct a wide-ranging investigation into the policies and practices of the Council of Legal Education (CLE) and the Inns of Court School of Law (ICSL). The creation of the Committee was partly in response to a large disparity in pass rates between black and ethnic minority students and white students on the Bar Vocational Course (BVC), uncovered by ethnic monitoring of the 1991/1992 intake, and partly in response to the large body of complaints about the course which had been lodged with the General Council of the Bar, and the CLE itself." (Final Report, Apr 1994, Introduction 3.1 p.8). The Inquiry was chaired by Dame Jocelyn Barrow (Deputy Chairman, Broadcasting Standards Council), from whom the short title "Barrow Inquiry" derives. Its members were Ruth Deech (Principal, St Anne's College Oxford), Jo Larbie (Director of Legal Education and Training of the Legal Resources Group), Rajeev Loomba (course leader for the Legal Practice Course, University of Northumbria) and David J Smith (Senior Fellow, Policy Studies Institute). The Inquiry's terms of reference were to identify the reasons for disparities in the level of performance of ethnic minorities on the BVC from 1991/92, to investigate allegations of racial discrimination and to investigate and make recommendations on teaching, assessment and pastoral care of students and for the further development of an equal opportunities policy by the CLE. The Inquiry employed a number of research methods as follows: 1. Statistical analysis, using as a starting point Dr Christopher Dewberry's 1991/1992 analysis of disparities between white and ethnic minority student pass rates; the Inquiry conducted further similar surveys and analyses; 2. Qualitative research, including oral hearings of evidence such as interviews with students, staff, assessors, CLE and General Council of the Bar members, written submissions from interested parties, and comments from students, followed by an analysis by Dr Robin Oakley; 3. Direct observation of teaching and assessment; 4. Collection and analysis of teaching materials relating to the BVC; 5. Following the Interim Report of September 1993, provision of a formal submission from the ICSL/CLE on teaching, assessment and pastoral care; 6. Consideration of the complaints of 29 individual students; 7. Comparison of the BVC with other jurisdictions, in the UK and abroad.
Publications: Equal Opportunities at the Inns of Court School of Law: the Final Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Equal Opportunities on the Bar Vocational Course (April 1994).
The Commonwealth Legal Education Association (CLEA) was founded during the Fourth Commonwealth Law Conference in New Delhi in 1971. The idea was initiated by Indian lawyer Dr Laxmi Singhvi, CLEA's first chairman. The Association's objects were to foster high standards of legal education and research in Commonwealth countries, to build up contacts between interested individuals and organizations, and to disseminate information and literature concerning legal education and research. CLEA established its headquarters in the offices of the Legal Division of the Commonwealth Secretariat in Marlborough House, London, and with the Legal Director as its Honorary Secretary and Treasurer. In 1973 it obtained a grant from the Commonwealth Foundation; this funding, plus subscriptions from members, enabled the CLEA to embark on the projects planned on its establishment. It has received further long term grants from the Commonwealth Foundation to continue its activities. CLEA's structure, objectives and functions are set out in its Constitution, adopted soon after its foundation. Membership is open to individuals, schools of law and other institutions concerned with legal education and research. Patrons are appointed from various Commonwealth countries. The affairs of the Association are managed by an Executive Committee, drawn from the Commonwealth regions, which meets annually; its actions are reviewed at 5 yearly General Meetings, the first of which was held in Edinburgh during the Fifth Commonwealth Law Conference in 1977. There is an Advisory Panel in the United Kingdom. The administration of the Association was carried out by a chairman and two secretaries, one in London and one abroad. In 1990 the office of chairman was replaced by a president and executive chairperson (since renamed vice president). The President may be elected from any part of the Commonwealth; the Vice President must be established in the UK. In 1994 a South Asian regional chapter was formed.
Working records of the Library were produced in the conduct of business. Gate signing-in books were created at a rate of about 1 per month from 1975 to 1998.
Directors of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, 1947-1988, have been Sir David Hughes Parry MA, LLD, 1947-1959; Sir Norman D Anderson OBE, MA, LLD, 1960-1976; Professor A L Diamond LLM, 1976-1986; Sir Jack Jacob QC, LLD, Dr Juris, 1986-1988. The Director's functions are as follows: to lay down policy directions for IALS; to give academic leadership; to ensure efficient management; to represent IALS within the University and outside; and to participate on behalf of IALS in the direction and management of the School of Advanced Study.
This series originally comprised four account books dated 1947-1950, located and listed during the 1997 survey to find items of historical interest.
The files listed below comprise primarily the files of J A Boxhall, Secretary from 1971-1986, when he retired due to ill-health. He was replaced temporarily by H F Patterson. In 1987 a new Administrative Secretary, D E Phillips, was appointed.
The Records of Legal Education Project (RLEP), funded by the Leverhulme Trust, ran from October 1994 to May 1998. It was based at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (IALS), and its brief was to: investigate records of legal education housed in selected institutions, primarily in the Greater London area, and report on their availability, accessibility and significance; create a Guide to Records of Legal Education and Law Schools to enable researchers to trace the location of documents of relevance; publish and disseminate its findings to assist researchers in law, the humanities and the social sciences; exceptionally, collect, maintain and make available for research records of legal education where the creating/controlling agency was unable to make any alternative archival provision. This material was placed in a Records of Legal Education Archives located in the IALS Library. Research was concentrated on institutions and records in the Greater London area, since this is a) where the highest proportion of legal education material was to be found; b) where the project was physically located. The project's resources were too limited to go further afield. The project was co-ordinated by Clare Cowling, an Archivist employed on a part-time basis, under the direction of an Advisory Committee comprising Jules Winterton, the IALS Librarian, Avrom Sherr, Woolf Professor of Legal Education at IALS, David Sugarman, Professor of Law at the University of Lancaster and William Twining, Quain Professor of Jurisprudence at University College London until 1998. The Project was based in the IALS Library and was granted use of its facilities.
Marian Henrietta Hewlett (1843-1915) decided to begin art and domestic science classes for girls in Harrow in 1887. Under the auspices of the Harrow Band of Mercy, premises were rented at no 102 High Street in 1888, and public funding (for technical education) was received from Middlesex County Council from 1890 (and from 1894 its Technical Education Committee). Boys were also admitted. Students were drawn from Harrow and the surrounding districts. A new building for Harrow Technical School opened at Greenhill, in Station Road, in 1902 (extended in 1907 and 1932). Teaching included art, photography, commercial and domestic subjects, particularly in evening classes. The School of Art was increasingly important. Many of the instructors were part-time. The name was changed to Harrow Technical College and School of Art in 1948. The first building on a 25-acre site at Northwick Park (acquired in 1936) was begun in 1954, completed in 1959 and formally opened in 1961. It housed the technical and commercial departments (Engineering, Science, Photography, Commerce, and Domestic Studies) - the School of Art did not move from Station Road until later. Following the White Paper on Technical Education in 1956 (Cmnd 9703) Harrow was designated an area college. From the 1960s alterations were made in Harrow courses and status under the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA), with more degree-level courses and an increased number of full-time and part-time day students and staff. Links were formed with polytechnics including PCL (the Polytechnic of Central London, formerly Regent Street Polytechnic). Harrow specialisms included photography, fashion and ceramics. Additions were made to the buildings at Northwick Park in the 1970s. In 1978 the college was renamed Harrow College of Higher Education. In 1990 Harrow merged with PCL, which in 1992 became the University of Westminster. The Harrow campus was re-developed to house Harrow Business School, Harrow School of Computer Science, and the Schools of Communication and Design and Media (now the School of Communication and the Creative Industries). It was formally opened in 1995.
In 1885 Quintin Hogg (1845-1903), founder of the Polytechnic Young Men's Christian Institute (later Regent Street Polytechnic), announced the founding of a day school there, a response to the fact that so many rooms in its premises at no 309 Regent Street were left empty during the day (much of the teaching and activities taking place in the evenings). The school opened in 1886 with 130 boys, aiming to provide professional, commercial (including Civil Service) and industrial secondary education at moderate fees. It was run by the Polytechnic President, Director of Education, and Governing Body, with its own Headmaster. It catered for boys aged 7 to 17 and soon had over 500 pupils; there was also, from 1888, a school for girls in Langham Place, which may have survived into the 1930s. Hogg himself undertook some teaching. The school used the Polytechnic sports and laboratory facilities. It pioneered educational trips abroad with a visit to Belgium and Switzerland in 1888. A club, the 'Old Quintinians', was formed in 1891 for former pupils to keep in touch with the Polytechnic after leaving the school, and a supplement added to the Polytechnic's magazine for them. The school was known variously as the Polytechnic (Boys') Day School, the Polytechnic Middle Class School, and the Polytechnic Intermediate Day School. Due to growing numbers of students, the Technical School (originally the Industrial Division) and Commercial School (which included the Professional Division) were divided in 1892. They came to operate largely as separate schools, despite occupying the same building. 'Aided' status under the London County Council was attained in 1911. The Commercial Day School and the Technical Day School were reunited as the Polytechnic Secondary School in 1919. Conditions in Regent Street were cramped owing to the expansion of the adult Polytechnic. The school was evacuated to Minehead in 1939. On the return to London it was again apparent that the Regent Street Polytechnic building was overcrowded and lacked facilities such as a playground. A proposed alternative site near Regent's Park was bombed, and other proposals also proved abortive. Boys who had returned to London were taught in St Katherine's House, Albany Street, and additional space was found at the LCC Institute for Distributive Trades in Charing Cross Road. Most of the classrooms in Regent Street were in use by the Polytechnic, although some school laboratories remained in the Great Portland Street extension (Little Titchfield Street). This accommodation was unsuitable for the bulk of the pupils returning from evacuation in 1945 and the Pulteney School (originally an elementary board school, founded in 1881) in Peter Street, Soho, provided further premises. Under the Education Act (1944) fees were abolished. The school moved from aided status to become a voluntary controlled school, under closer control by the London County Council. Renamed the Quintin School in 1948, when it became a grammar and instituted its own governing body, the school continued to operate on the split site until 1956, when it moved to new accommodation in St John's Wood, designed by Edward D Mills & Partners and opened in 1957, neighbouring the newly-relocated Kynaston Technical School (formerly Paddington Secondary Technical School). The two schools merged in 1969 to form Quintin Kynaston School, a boys' comprehensive, which became co-educational in 1976. For further information see L C B Seaman, The Quintin School 1886-1956: a brief history (London, 1957).
Wilfred Goddard Bryant was born in September 1872, the son of John (a schoolmaster) and Hope Bryant. In 1901 they were residing in St Marks Buildings Polytechnic Annexe School. Hope died in June 1901. Wilfred had two brothers and two sisters, and married in 1910 to a lady whom he met on a trip to Switzerland. In the 1891 census he is shown as a bankers clerk and in 1901 as a Clerk-Bank of England. Subsequent enquiries at the Bank of England confirmed that Wilfred Goddard Bryant was employed at the Bank's Branch Office from November 1890 until August 1937, reaching the position of cashier.
Paddington Technical College (which originated in 1903) took over the Chelsea School of Chiropody in 1957 and in 1967 moved into new blocks on the north side of Paddington Green. The Biological Science Department of Paddington Technical College joined the Polytechnic of Central London as the School of Biological and Health Sciences in 1990, following the abolition of the Inner London Education Authority. The School moved from the Paddington campus in 1993.
The Polytechnic Institution was opened in August 1838 to provide the public with (in the words of its prospectus of 1837) 'a practical knowledge of the various arts and branches of science connected with Manufactures, Mining Operations, and Rural Economy'. The idea was that of Charles Payne, former manager of the Adelaide Gallery in the Strand. William Mountford Nurse, a builder, provided the initial capital. Sir George Cayley (1773-1857), landowner and aeronautical scientist, became chairman of the provisional committee and later of the directors. His influence helped to raise the necessary share capital. A house at no 5 Cavendish Square was purchased, and a new gallery building (designed by James Thompson) added, with an entrance on Regent Street. The Institution received its charter of incorporation in 1839. The Gallery housed a large exhibition hall, lecture theatre, and laboratories. Public attractions included exhibitions, working machines and models, scientific lectures, rides in a diving bell - a major attraction - and, from 1839, demonstrations of photography.
In 1841 Richard Beard opened the first photographic studio in Europe on the roof of the building. The Polytechnic became known for its spectacular magic lantern shows, pioneered by Henry Langdon Childe (d 1874), and a new theatre was added in 1848. John Henry Pepper (1821-1900) was appointed lecturer and analytical chemist in that year. He was its most famous showman, also expanding the teaching role of the Polytechnic, which began evening classes in 1856 under the auspices of the Society of Arts. By the 1870s these were formalised under the Polytechnic College. By 1841 the Institution was calling itself the Royal Polytechnic, probably due to the patronage of Prince Albert. Expansion gradually gave way to financial difficulty, reflecting a long-standing tension between education and the need for profit. A fatal accident on the premises in 1859 caused the first company to be wound up and a new one formed. Various regeneration schemes were considered, but in 1879 a fire damaged the roof, precipitating the final crisis. By 1881 the Royal Polytechnic Institution had failed, the assets sold at auction and the building (no 309 Regent Street) put up for sale. It was purchased by the philanthropist Quintin Hogg (1845-1903), and the RPI succeeded by his Young Men's Christian Institute (later known at the Regent Street Polytechnic), which opened in 1882. Hogg lived for some years in the house in Cavendish Square. See also Richard Altick, The Shows of London (1978); and, on the Polytechnic and the history of photography, Helmut Gernsheim and Alison Gernsheim, The History of Photography (1969); Brenda Weeden The Education of the Eye (2008).
The Coton Collection originated in the personal library of the late Edward Haddakin (1906-1969), the eminent ballet and dance critic who wrote under the name of A V Coton. This library, consisting of the books, periodicals, programmes, souvenir items, and photographs collected by Edward Haddakin during his career as a ballet and dance critic from 1938-1968, was donated to Royal Holloway by his wife, Dr Lillian Haddakin (1914-1982), formerly Senior Lecturer in English at University College, London. The Collection also includes some additional programmes that were donated by Lorraine Williams, a former employee of Westminster Music Library.
The following biographical note about A.V. Coton is extracted from Writings on Dance, 1938-68, by A. V. Coton, (selected and edited by Kathrine Sorley Walker and Lillian Haddakin and published in London by Dance Books in 1975).
";A. V. COTON (EDWARD HADDAKIN) was born at York on 16 February, 1906; son of a railwayman; of mixed Irish and English extraction. He was educated at St. Michael's College, Leeds. From 1922 to 1924 he was a merchant seaman, and he served in the Metropolitan Police Force from 1925 to 1937, mainly in Bethnal Green. He began writing ballet criticism in 1935 and became a full-time freelance writer in march 1937. He published his first book, A Prejudice for Ballet (Methuen) in 1938; in the same year he married Lillian Turner. He was also active in the organising and management of Antony Tudor's London Ballet, which was launched in 1938; and he worked with Peggy van Praagh and Maude Lloyd when the company was revived in 1939-40. From 1940 to 1945 he served in the Civil Defence (Light Rescue Division) in the City of Westminster, (Light Rescue workers went into action during air raids, rescuing as many still-living persons as they could). After the war he returned to freelance writing, diversified by lecturing (mainly evening courses in the London area) and by radio and television work; he was a founder-member of the London freelance branch of the National Union of Journalists. He published The New Ballet: Kurt Joos and His Work (Denis Dobson) in 1946. From 1943 to 1956 he was London correspondent for the American Dance News. He was best known in journalism as dance critic of The Daily Telegraph, a position he held from 1954 to 1969; but he also acted as assistant drama critic for the same newspaper from 1957, and throughout his career he was deeply interested in drama and the theatre generally. He was part author of Ballet Here and Now, published by Denis Dobson in 1961, and in the same year, President of the Critics' Circle, London. He travelled extensively in Europe and North America for the purpose of seeing ballet and other forms of dance, in performance and in teaching; he visited the U.S.S.R. in 1960. He died of cancer on 7 July, 1969."
Barking Abbey was founded in the later part of the seventh century by St. Ethelburga. The earliest charter of the Abbey, relates to a gift of land being made by Hodilred, King of Essex. Although all the places mentioned in this charter cannot be identified with certainty, it is fairly certain that it is referring to all the land between the River Roading and Dagenham Beam River. Barking is not appears to be identified as Beddanhaam or Budinhaam, while Dagenham is called Deccanhamm. It is not known when Dagenham became a separate parish. Although it is likely to be fairly early due to the date of the dedication of the Parish Church St. Peter and St. Paul's.
For secular purpose the land granted by the charter remained in the hands of successive abbesses of Barking, and formed part of the large Manor of Barking until the Dissolution. It remained a royal manor until 1628, when it was mortgaged to Sir Thomas Fanshawe. On his death it was passed to his daughter who sold it to Sir Orlando Humphreys in 1717. In turn it was brought by Smart Lethuillier and then inherited by the daughter of his brother Charles, who was also the wife of Sir Edward Hulse.
The parish of Barking, included parts of Ilford, as well as Barking. These two areas were separated for ecclesiastical purposes in 1830, but remained one civil parish until 1888. Before this division, the parish was about thirty miles in diameter. It is probable that the early inhabitants would have worshipped at Barking Abbey and then St. Margaret's Church, which was located on the southern edge of Barking Parish. Those that lived north of this towards Ilford, would have attended the Chapel of the Leper Hospital, and later the Chapel at Aldborough Hatch, built in 1653.
The rapid urbanisation during the beginning of the nineteenth century caused problems in the administration of public health and welfare, which the vestries of such districts were incompetent to deal with. The bad name of the town vestries, meant reformers ignored the spirit of local patriotism and the historic descent of local government. After the Poor Law of 1834, ad hoc bodies were continually being created to carry out different tasks that were previously undertaken by the local vestry. Barking, for example found itself within the Romford Poor Law Union. The maintenance of the highways was taken over by the 6th Highway District in 1867. In addition to this the provision of education was put into the hands of an elected School Board in 1889. Barking also had its own Board of Health from 1853 to 1855.
However unity was restored with the establishment of the Barking Urban District Council under the Local Government Act of 1894. The vestry of the parish of Barking, continued to meet despite its diminished power in order to discuss church and secular business, as well as to receive charity accounts after 1895. The overseer also remained in office until the introduction of the Rating and Valuation Act in 1925.
This administrative history was largely based on a book by J. E. Oxley, entitled Barking Vestry Minutes (1955).
Becontree Heath was the meeting place of the Becontree Hundred, which was a court that governed on local matters until 1465. The Lord of the Manor had some jurisdiction also and Manorial Courts for the Dagenham Manors were held regularly here or in the Leet House at Barking. The Poor Law Act of 1601 set up the 'Vestry', the first unit of Local Authority. The members of the Vestry, later known as the Parish Council, were responsible for a number of local affairs put principally the care of the poor.
Ecclesiastical and secular affairs came under the same body, and were carried on in this war for two hundred years. There were also other special bodies, such as Trustees of the Turnpike Roads and the Commissioners for the Levels. In 1836 the union of Parishes was enforced for the care of the poor and Dagenham elected members to the Romford Board of Guardians and ceased to keep a village workhouse. The poor rate was collected by the Vestry, and the earliest surviving rate book dates back to 1839.
In 1840, the parish became part of the Metropolitan Police Area. The Local Board of Health was established in 1851. This body was responsible for local sanitary matters. Dagenham School Board was founded and five schools erected under the new compulsory Education Act of 1872. In 1902 the School Board was abolished and the management of schools in Dagenham was taken over by Essex County Council. During the same year a drainage scheme was undertaken, and then enlarged in 1910.
The parish remained mainly rural until 1921, when the London County Council started to build the great Becontree Estate. Modern industries, notably the Ford Motor Works, soon followed the new population. Dagenham became an urban district in 1926 and a borough in 1938.
Born, 1923; as a Roman Catholic he was educated at St Brendan's Grammar School, Bristol; St Edmund's Seminary, Ware, 1938; ordained priest, 1946; Gregorian University, Rome, licentiate in sacred theology, 1948; taught fundamental theology and apologetics, St Edmund's, 1949-1952; Professor of Dogmatic Theology, St Edmund's, 1952-1964; Heythrop College, 1964-; attended the third session of the Second Vatican Council, 1964; first Roman Catholic to present the Maurice lectures at King's College, London, 1966; announced publicly that he had resolved to break with the Roman Catholic church, 1966; Clare College, Cambridge, -1967; head of a new religious studies department at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, 1967-1970; Professor of Religious Studies, Concordia University, Montreal, 1970-1991; editor of the periodical Studies of Religion / Sciences Religieuses, 1977-1985; Principal of Lonergan University College in Montreal, 1987-1991; retired, 1991; returned to Britain, 1993; died, 1999.
Publications: A Question of Conscience (1967)
Theology and Political Society (1980).
Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts was opened on 10 January 1898 in premises adjoining the South London Art Gallery. It was established by the Technical Education Board of the London County Council in a building provided by the Vestry of Camberwell, and aimed 'to give the best artistic and technical education to all classes in the district', 'supplement knowledge gained by craftsmen in workshops' and 'help the craftsman become the designer of his own work'. The philanthropist John Passmore Edwards gave a substantial sum of money for the erection of the building in memory of Lord Leighton. The school and gallery were the fruition of a movement for the foundation of an artistic centre in Camberwell, supported by Edward Burne-Jones, Lord Leighton, Walter Crane and G F Watts. The school enrolled 198 students, mostly part-time, for the first session. The school offered evening technical classes in architecture, cabinet design, embroidery, wood carving, wood block and stencil cutting; trade classes in masonry and stone carving, plasterwork, house painting and decorating and an evening art school giving classes in elementary drawing and design, life classes and modelling. A day art and technical school was also held from 10 to 4, offering life classes, preliminary drawing, painting and design, modelling, wood carving and embroidery. The demand for places in the school grew continuously and an extension was opened in 1904 enabling further courses to be added including brickwork, plumbing and typography. A further major extension was completed in 1913 providing rooms and studios for a wide range of courses, including sculpture, pottery, drawing and painting and a new library.
Between its foundation and the Second World War the school provided a wide range of courses, mainly for those employed in the building and printing trades and in the manufacture of pottery and furniture. By 1913 courses offered by the school were divided into four, mainly vocational areas, comprising printing and book production, construction and decoration of buildings, embroidery and dressmaking and jewellery, silversmithing and enamelling. All the trade courses were taught with the co-operation of the relevant trade organisations, and afternoon and evening courses for apprentices were established by the 1920s. After 1913 there was a gradual movement away from the trade courses (with the exception of printing and typographical design) to an increasing emphasis on the fine arts and design, with the establishment of the Fine Art Department in the inter-war years. A number of building trade subjects were dropped from the curriculum between 1913 and 1930, and under Stanley Thorogood, Principal from 1920 to 1938, the study of drawing and painting, commercial art and crafts such as pottery, dressmaking and embroidery was extended.
A Junior Art School (later known as the Secondary Art School) was established in 1920, providing preliminary training courses for students from the ages of 14 to 16 before moving to full-time senior courses. As well as teaching trade, technical and art subjects students were given instruction in English, science and physical training. It was closed in 1958 when the policy of separating secondary and further education was established.
During the Second World War the Junior Art School was evacuated to Chipstead and later to Northampton along with other students from the school. Printing continued at Camberwell throughout the war. The number of full-time students (apart from the Secondary Art School) increased from about 40 before the war to nearly 400 by 1948. After the war the school concentrated on providing courses on fewer subjects, with the main fields of study being painting, sculpture, illustration, graphic design, printed and woven textile design, pottery, printing and bookbinding. A new sculpture building was opened in 1953, providing new workshops for modelling in clay, bronze casting, plaster casting, stone and wood carving. By 1963 the work of the school was organised into three departments, Painting and Sculpture, Design and Crafts and Printing and Bookbinding. A course in foundation studies was begun in 1962, and in 1963 the former courses for the National Diploma in Design were superseded by those for the Diploma in Art and Design. These were approved in 1974 as leading to the BA honours degrees of the CNAA, with main studies in painting, sculpture, graphic design, printed and woven textiles and ceramics. Courses in paper conservation were started in 1970.
By 1968 the School was organised into eight departments, Painting, Sculpture, Graphic Design, Ceramics and Metalwork, Textiles, Foundation Studies, Art History and Printing. Between 1966 and 1971 additional accommodation was opened in Meeting House Lane and Lyndhurst Grove, and a purpose-built sculpture annexe was completed in 1969. A new building on an adjoining site was opened in 1973, providing a further 42 studio workshops and classrooms, new assembly and lecture halls, library and common rooms. In 1976 the former premises of Wilson School was taken over by the school, allowing a number of smaller annexes to be relinquished. Degree courses in silversmithing and metalwork were introduced in 1976. The vocational courses in printing and typographical design were discontinued in 1981 and the department closed, and in 1983 the textiles degree course was closed. In 1982 a new Department of Art History and Conservation was established, offering Higher Diploma and BA honours degree courses.
In January 1986 the school became a constituent college of the London Institute, formed by the Inner London Education Authority associating its art schools and specialist colleges of printing, fashion and distributive trades into a collegiate structure. In 1989 Camberwell was renamed Camberwell College of Arts, and the courses were organised into two schools, one of Applied and Graphic Arts and the other of Art History and Conservation. In 1993 the London Institute was granted the right to award degrees in its own name, and in 1998 the college launched a new framework for its BA courses, offering students the opportunity to focus on a specialist discipline supplemented by chosen elective subjects.
Teachers at Camberwell have included William Coldstream, Rodney Burn, Lawrence Gowing, John Minton, W T Monnington, Victor Pasmore, Claude Rogers, William Townsend, Nigel Walters, Edward Ardizzone, Martin Bloch, Norah Braden, Helmut Ruhemann, Gilbert Spencer, Karel Vogel, Berthold Wolpe, John Buckland Wright and Dennis Young.
Born in Nassau, Bahamas, 1925; returned to Scotland as a child; educated at boarding school; poverty in Glasgow; education ended at the age of thirteen with the outbreak of war and evacuation to the Orkneys; briefly attended Glasgow School of Art; army service, 1942-1945; sergeant in the RASC, saw service in Germany; became friendly with the artists Colquhoun, MacBryde, Hohn Minton; worked as a shepherd in the Orkneys, 1945; agricultural labourer; wrote short stories and plays, some broadcast by the BBC; moved to Edinburgh, 1950s; labourer in the Orkneys, working on rhyming poems; founded the Wild Hawthorn Press with Jessie McGuffie, 1961; produced the periodical Poor. Old. Tired. Horse., 1962-1968; produced the broadside Fishsheet for concrete poetry, 1963; publication of Rapel, collection of concrete poems, and of Standing Poem I, 1963; Canal Stripe Series 3, first published booklet-poem, 1964; settled at Stonypath, 1966, and began work on the 4 acre garden; Scottish representative on the Comité International of the concrete poetry movement, 1967; contributor to the International concrete poetry exhibition, 1967 Brighton Festival; first one-man exhibition at the Axiom Gallery, London, 1968; published the Weed Boat Masters Ticket booklet, first question booklet, 1971; retrospective exhibition, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 1972; started a series of works for the Max Planck Institute Garden, Stuttgart, 1974; ceramic works in collaboration with David Ballantyne, 1975-1976; Collaborations exhibition, Kettle's Yard, Cambridge, 1977; exhibited at the Silver Jubilee Exhibition of Contemporary Sculpture, Battersea Park, London, 1977; exhibited at the Serpentine Gallery, London, 1977; cancelled exhibition in Edinburgh as a protest against actions of Scottish Arts Council officials, 1978; Stonypath renamed Little Sparta, 1978; corresponded with Albert Speer, 1978; beginning of the 'Free Arts' project, 1978; worked on Japanese Stacks with John R Thorpe, 1978-1979; Nature Over Again After Poussin travelling exhibition, 1980-1981; exhibited at the Sculpture Show, Hayward Gallery, London, 1983; collaboration with the architect Andrew Townsend, 1983-1984; garden and temple at Little Sparta reopened to visitors, 1984; exhibitions at Merian-Park, Basel, Graeme Murray Gallery, Edinburgh and British Council's British Show in Australia; touring exhibition organized by Southampton Art Gallery, 1984; exhibitions with Sarkis at the Espace Rameau-Chapelle Sainte-Marie, Never, France and at the Eric Fabre Gallery, Paris; outdoor sculpture exhibitions at Geneva, and Wageningen, Holland, 1985; shortlisted for the Turner Prize, 1985; exhibited Osso in Paris, 1987; honorary professorship, University of Dundee, 1999.
Born, 1942; educated bath Academy of Art, Corsham, 1960-1963; member of 'Systems' group of artists, 1968-1975; taught, Department of Art, Bulmersche College, Reading, 1969-1988, head of department, 1980-1988; member of 'arbeitskreis' international workshop for systematic constructive art, 1977-1998; member, Southern Arts Regional Arts Association Art Panel, 1981-1983; Tutor and Secretary, Slade School of Fine Art, 1988-; one-person exhibitions 1965-, including at London, Paris and Amsterdam; died 1998.
A British Museum expedition to collect dinosaur bones from Tendaguru in Tanganyika was first proposed in 1918 as a result of information received from the geologist C W Hobley. The site had been discovered by a German palaeontologist in 1907 and systematically excavated from 1909 until 1912. A S Woodward, Keeper of Geology, pressed the case, suggesting that the German work had been poor, and that important material must remain to be discovered. Final approval for the expedition was given by Trustees in October 1923. The costs were paid by the Trustees, the Treasury and by a public subscription, which raised enough to buy one motor lorry. William Edmund Cutler, a Canadian with experience of collecting dinosaurs, was appointed leader, and he travelled to Africa in February 1924, accompanied by an undergraduate from Cambridge, L S B Leakey. Leakey returned at the end of the year, and Cutler worked largely on his own until his sudden death from malaria in August 1925.
Frederick William Hugh Migeod, 'an intrepid and experienced traveller', replaced Cutler as leader of the expedition, with Major T Deacon as his assistant. Neither of these two men had any geological or palaeontological training, and some alarm was expressed in London at the lack of proper scientific control over the collecting. A team of forty labourers worked on the site and 431 boxes or packages of bones were sent back to the Museum during 1926 alone. Migeod and Deacon returned to England at the end of 1926, leaving G W Parrett and W Kershaw, two big game hunters, in charge of the site.
A geologist, Dr John Parkinson, replaced Migeod in May 1927, but results during 1928 were disappointing, partly due to illness. Migeod resumed his place as Leader for the years 1929 and 1930, assisted by F R Parrington, and financed by the governments of Tanganyika, Nyasaland and Kenya. The expedition finally closed in January 1931.
Overall the results of the expedition were disappointing. Although a large number of bones had been discovered and returned to London, few appeared to belong to new genera or species, and it was many years before they were all even unpacked. No scientific report of the expedition was ever published.
Mervyn Herbert Nevil Story-Maskelyne was born at Basset Down House, near Wroughton, Wiltshire, on 3 September 1823. He was educated at Bruton and graduated in mathematics from Oxford in 1845. He studied law, but abandoned this for science in 1847, attending lectures at the Royal Institution given by Michael Faraday (item 16). He lectured on mineralogy at Oxford from 1850, and was appointed Professor of Mineralogy in 1856. Story-Maskelyne became Keeper of Mineralogy at the Museum in 1857, and although he moved to London, he retained his Oxford professorship until 1895. At the Museum he worked with Thomas Davies on the proper documentation of mineral specimens in the collection, and in 1875 he started work on a 'Scientific Catalogue of the Whole Collection ...', containing both crystallographic and chemical data. He pressed for the establishment of a chemical laboratory, and studied and published papers on meteorites.
Outside his Museum work, Story-Maskelyne was a man of wide antiquarian and classical interests. He published papers on ancient mineralogy and, as papers in the class show, made detailed study of the history of the Koh-i-noor diamond. He was also a popular lecturer, and gave a notable series to the Chemical Society in 1874 (item 13). He inherited the family estate of Basset Down in 1879 and resigned from the keepership in 1880 to devote himself to its management. However, he continued to work and publish in mineralogy, and was elected Member of Parliament for Cricklade.