Born, Hamilton, Lanarkshire, 1710; educated, Glasgow University, and became pupil of a physician; surgeon to a merchant ship, 1729; apothecary's assistant, London; practiced at Auchinlee, near Hamilton, 1731-1732; student, Edinburgh Medical School, 1734-1736; practiced as a surgeon in Hamilton, 1736-1744; chief magistrate of Hamilton, 1739-1740; graduated MD, Glasgow, 1740; practiced in Glasgow, 1744-; founded a medical school, lecturing on medicine and several other subjects; made some discoveries on the evolution of heat in chemical combinations and the cooling of solutions; Professor of Medicine, Glasgow University, 1751; joint Professor of Chemistry, Edinburgh University; began to give clinical lectures in the infirmary, 1757; delivered a course of lectures on materia medica, continuing his chemistry course, 1760-1761; Professor of the 'Institutes' or theory of physic, Edinburgh University, 1766-1773; lectured in alternate years on the theory and the practice of medicine with John Gregory; Professor of the Practice of Physic, Edinburgh University, 1773-1789; President, Edinburgh College of Physicians, 1773-1775; helped prepare the new edition of the 'Edinburgh Pharmacopeia', 1774; foreign associate of the Royal Society of Medicine at Paris, 1776; Fellow, Royal Society of London, 1777; died, 1790.
Publications include: Lectures on the Materia Medica, etc (T Lowndes, London, 1773); A Letter to Lord Cathcart ... concerning the recovery of persons drowned and seemingly dead (J Murray, London, 1776); Of the Cold produced by evaporating Fluids, and of some other means of producing cold (1777); Institutions of Medicine. Part I. Physiology. For the use of students in the University of Edinburgh Second edition (W Creech, Edinburgh, 1677 [1777]); First Lines of the Practice of Physic, for the use of students in the University of Edinburgh Second edition 4 volumes (William Creech, Edinburgh, 1778-1784); The Substance of Nine Lectures on Vegetation and Agriculture, delivered to a private audience in the year 1768 (1796); Clinical Lectures delivered in the years 1765 and 1766 (Lee & Hurst, London, 1797); Nosology: or, a Systematic arrangement of diseases, by classes, orders, genera, and species; with the distinguishing characters of each, and outlines of the systems of Sauvages, Linnæus, Vogel, Sagar, and Macbride. Translated from the Latin of W Cullen (William Creech, Edinburgh, 1800); The Works of William Cullen ... Containing his Physiology, Nosology and First Lines of the Practice of Physic: with numerous extracts from his manuscript papers, and from his Treatise of the Materia Medica Edited by John Thomson 2 volumes (William Blackwood, Edinburgh; T & G Underwood, London, 1827).
Unknown. Thought to have been the St Thoma's Hospital Medical School Librarian.
William Gruggen entered St Thomas's Hospital as a pupil on 8th October, 1809.
Astley Paston Cooper was born at Brooke Hall near Norwich, 1768; educated at home; apprenticed to his uncle, William Cooper, surgeon to Guy's Hospital, 1784; soon after transferred to Henry Cline, surgeon to St Thomas's Hospital; Edinburgh Medical School, 1787-1788; Demonstrator of anatomy, St Thomas's Hospital, 1789; joint lecturer with Cline in anatomy and surgery, 1791; lectured on anatomy at the College of Surgeons, 1793-1796; Surgeon, Guy's Hospital, 1800-1825; private practice rapidly increased; Fellow, Royal Society, 1802; made post-mortem examinations wherever possible, and was often in contact with 'resurrectionists'; a founder and first treasurer, 1805, President, 1819-1820, Medical and Chirurgical Society of London; Professor of Comparative Anatomy, Royal College of Surgeons, 1813; lectured, 1814-1815; performed a small operation on George IV, 1820; by the bestowal of a baronetcy; examiner at the College of Surgeons, 1822; published his 'Dislocations and Fractures of the Joints', 1822; resigned his lectureship at St. Thomas's, 1825; instigator of the founding of a separate medical school at Guy's Hospital; Consulting Surgeon to Guy's Hospital; President, College of Surgeons, 1827, 1836; Sergeant-Surgeon to King William IV, 1828; Vice-President, Royal Society, 1830; died, 1841.
Publications include: The Anatomy and Surgical Treatment of Inguinal and Congenital Hernia (Crural and Umbilical Hernia) (printed for T Cox; sold by Messrs Johnson, etc, London, 1804); A Treatise on Dislocations, and on Fractures of the Joints (Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown; E Cox & Son, London, 1822); The Lectures of Sir Astley Cooper, Bart., F.R.S. ... on the Principles and Practice of Surgery: with additional notes and cases, by Frederick Tyrrell 3 volumes (Thomas & George Underwood, London, 1824-1827); Illustrations of the Diseases of the Breast ... In two parts (Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green: London, 1829; Lectures on the Principles and Practice of Surgery Second edition (F C Westley, London, 1830); Observations on the Structure and Diseases of the Testis (Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green; Highley & Underwood, London, 1830); The Anatomy of the Thymus Gland (Longman, Rees, Orme, Green & Brown, London, 1832).
John Haighton was born in Lancashire, in about 1755; pupil, St Thomas's Hospital; Surgeon to the Guards; Demonstrator of Anatomy, St Thomas's Hospital; Lecturer in Physiology, [1788] and Midwifery, St Thomas's and Guy's Hospitals; conducted numerous physiological experiments; silver medal, Medical Society of London, 1790; presided at meetings of the Physical Society, Guy's Hospital; joint editor of Medical Records and Researches, 1798; 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); 'An Experimental Inquiry concerning the Reproduction of Nerves' in Philosophical Transactions, 1795, and Medical Facts and Observations vol. vii; A case of Tic Douloureux ... successfully treated by a division of the affected nerve (1798); 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).
Thomas Byrdall Hugo of Newton Abbott, Devon, was admitted 24 Jan 1780 as pupil at St Thomas's Hospital. Died 1780.
Joseph Else was Surgeon to St Thomas's Hospital, London from 1768 to 1780. He was appointed Lecturer in Anatomy and Surgery in 1768 on the unification of the medical schools of St Thomas's and Guy's Hospitals.
Publications: An essay on the cure of the hydrocele of the tunica vaginalis testis (London, 1770); The works of ... J. E., ... containing a treatise on the hydrocele, and other papers on different subjects in surgery. To which is added, an appendix, containing some cases of hydrocele ... by G Vaux (London, 1782); [An account of a successful method of treating sore legs.] Méthode avantageuse de traiter les ulcères des jambes in [Surgical tracts, containing a treatise upon ulcers of the legs.] Traité sur les ulcères des jambes, etc by Michael Underwood M D pp 217-228 (1744 [1784]).
William MacCormac was born in Belfast, 17 January 1836, the son of Henry MacCormac, MD and his wife Mary Newsham. He was educated at the Belfast Royal Academical Institution, Queen's College, Belfast where he graduated BA, 1855, MA, 1858, MD, MCh, 1879 and DSc, 1882, winning the gold medal of the university. He also became MRCS (England) 1857, and FRCS (Ireland) 1864. After graduation MacCormac studied surgery in Berlin.
He practised as a surgeon in Belfast from 1864 to 1870, becoming successively surgeon, lecturer on clinical surgery, and consulting surgeon to the Royal Hospital. In 1870 at the outbreak of the Franco-German war, MacCormac volunteered for service. Appointed to hospital duties at Metz, he was treated on his arrival as a spy and returned to Paris, where he joined the Anglo-American association for the care of the wounded. Returning to London at the end of the Franco-German war, he became Assistant Surgeon at St. Thomas's Hospital, which had just moved to the Albert Embankment. He was made full surgeon in 1873 following the resignation of Frederick le Gros Clark (1811-1892), and he was for twenty years lecturer on surgery in the medical school. He was elected consulting surgeon to the hospital and emeritus lecturer on clinical surgery in the medical school on retiring from active work in 1893.
As honorary general secretary, he contributed largely to the success of the seventh International Medical Congress in London in 1881, the Transactions' of which he edited; he was knighted on 7 Dec. for these services. He was president of the Medical Society of London in 1880 and of the metropolitan counties branch of the British Medical Association in 1890. MacCormac was also surgeon to the French, the Italian, Queen Charlotte's, and the British lying-in hospitals. He was an examiner in surgery at the University of London and for Her Majesty's Naval, Army, and Indian Medical Services. In 1897 he was created a baronet and was appointed surgeon in ordinary to the Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII; on 27 Sept. 1898 he was appointed K.C.V.O. in recognition of professional services rendered to the Prince when he injured his knee. At the Royal College of Surgeons of England, MacCormac was elected a member of the council in 1883, and in 1887 of the court of examiners. He delivered the Bradshaw lecture in 1893, taking as the subjectSir Astley Cooper and his Surgical Work,' and he was Hunterian orator in 1899. He was elected president in 1896, and enjoyed the unique honour of re-election on four subsequent occasions, during the last of which he presided over the centenary meeting held on 26 July 1900. His war service was still further extended, and his great practical knowledge was utilised in the South African campaign of 1899-1900, when he was appointed `government consulting surgeon to the field force.' In this capacity he visited all the hospitals in Natal and Cape Colony, and went to the front on four occasions. In 1901 he became K.C.B. for his work in South Africa, and an honorary serjeant-surgeon to King Edward VII.
He married in 1861 Katharine Maria Charters of Belfast. He died at Bath on 4 December 1901.
Publications: Notes and Recollections of an Ambulance Surgeon, being an Account of Work done under the Red Cross during the Campaign of 1870, London 1871; Surgical Operations, part 1, 1885, part 2, 1889, Smith, Elder & Co.: London; An Address to the Students of St. Thomas's Hospital ... October 1st, 1874, J W Kolckmann: London, 1874; On Abdominal Section for the Treatment of Intraperitoneal Injury, 1887; Antiseptic Surgery: an address delivered at St. Thomas's Hospital, with the subsequent debate, Smith, Elder & Co.: London, 1880; The Hunterian Oration. Delivered ... February 14, 1899, Smith, Elder & Co.: London, 1899; An Address of Welcome on the Occasion of the Centenary Festival of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, 1900; with biographical accounts, often with portraits, of the sixty-one masters or presidents.; Transactions of the International Medical Congress. Seventh session held in London ... 1881. Prepared for publication under the direction of the Executive Committee by Sir William Mac Cormac ... assisted by George Henry Makins ... and the secretaries of the sections, J W Kolckmann: London, 1881.
Edward Barber entered St Thomas Hospital as dresser to Mr Whitfield in 1828.
Joseph Henry Green: Born, London, 1791; studied in Germany, [1806-1809]; apprenticed at the College of Surgeons to his uncle, Henry Cline; pupil at St Thomas's Hospital; demonstrator of anatomy, St Thomas's Hospital, 1813; diploma of the College of Surgeons, 1815; private surgical practice in Lincoln's Inn Fields, 1815-1836; private course in philosophy in Berlin, 1817; Lecturer on anatomy and later surgery, St Thomas's Hospital, 1818-[1852]; Surgeon, St Thomas's Hospital, 1820-1852; Professor of Anatomy, College of Surgeons, 1824; elected to the Royal Society, 1825; Professor of Anatomy to the Royal Academy, 1825-1852; Professor of Surgery, King's College, 1830-1837; close friend and was literary executor of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1834, becoming interested in systematising, developing, and establishing the doctrines of Coleridgean philosophy; life member, 1835, examiner, 1846, President, 1849-1850, 1858-1859, College of Surgeons; Hunterian orator, 1841, 1847; D.C.L., Oxford, 1853; College of Surgeons representative on the General Medical Council, 1858; president, General Medical Council, 1860-1863; died, 1863.
Publications include: A letter to Sir Astley Cooper ... on certain proceedings connected with the establishment of an anatomical and surgical school at Guy's Hospital (London, 1825); The dissector's manual (printed for the Author, London, 1820); Distinction without separation. A letter to the President of the College of Surgeons on the present state of the profession (London, 1831); An address delivered in King's College, London, at the commencement of the medical session, Octr. 1832 (London, 1832); Suggestions respecting the intended plan of medical reform (London, 1834); A Manual of Modern Surgery, founded upon the principles and practice lately taught by Sir Astley Cooper Bart. ... and Joseph Henry Green edited by T Castle, fifth edition (W Rushton & Co, Calcutta, 1839); The principles and practice of Ophthalmic Surgery: comprising the anatomy, physiology and pathology of the eye, with the treatment of its diseases by B Travers and J H Green, edited by Alexander Cooper Lee (London, 1839); Vital dynamics. The Hunterian oration (W Pickering: London, 1840); The touchstone of medical reform; in three letters addressed to Sir Robert Harry Inglis, Bart (London, 1841); Mental Dynamics, or Groundwork of a professional education. The Hunterian Oration (London, 1847); Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit, and some miscellaneous pieces, etc [With an introduction by Joseph H Green] Samuel Taylor Coleridge (William Pickering: London, 1849); Spiritual philosophy 2 volumes (London, Cambridge,1865).
George Henry Makins was born 3 November 1853, and was the son of G H Makins. He was educated at Gloucester; St Thomas's Hospital; and Halle, Vienna.
During his career he served as Consulting Surgeon South African Field Force, 1899-1900; served European War, 1914-1918; Chairman of Committee of Inquiry into Standard of Comfort and Accommodation in the Hospitals of British Troops in India, 1918; late Under-Secretary, International Medical Congress, London, 1881, and Treasurer, 1913; Lecturer on Surgery and Anatomy, St Thomas's Hospital Medical School; President and Member of the Court of Examiners, Royal College of Surgeons, England; Examiner for the Army and Indian Medical Services; President of the Board of Examiners for the Naval Medical Service, and Member of the Consultative Committee, Queen Alexandra Military Hospital.
He was Consulting Surgeon to St Thomas's Hospital and to Evelina Hospital for Sick Children; Hon. Major General, Army Medical Services; Member of Council British Red Cross Society; Treasurer Imperial Cancer Research Fund. He was awarded GCMG, 1918; KCMG, 1915; CB 1900; LLD Cambridge. and Aberdeen; FRCS.
In 1885 he married Margaret Augusta nee Kirkland, (died 1931), widow of General Fellowes. Makins died on 2 November 1933.
Publications: Surgical Experiences in South Africa 1899-1900, Being mainly a clinical study of the nature and effects of injuries produced by bullets of small calibre Smith, Elder & Co, London, 1901; On Gunshot Injuries to the Blood-vessels, Founded on experience gained in France during the Great War, 1914-1918. J. Wright & Sons, Bristol, 1919; Gunshot Injuries of the Arteries, etc. (The Bradshaw Lecture.) Henry Frowde; Hodder & Stoughton: London, 1914; and papers on various medical subjects.
George Fletcher, was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, 29 Feb 1848, the son of Dr Fletcher and his wife Annie Stodgon. He was educated at Bromsgrove School, and Clare College Cambridge. Awarded MA, MD (Cantab), MRCS, LSA. He worked as a surgeon at St Thomas's Hospital, London.
Publications: The Life & Career of Dr. William Palmer of Rugeley, etc, T. Fisher Unwin: London, 1925); The Management of Athletics in Public Schools, a paper, H. K. Lewis: London, 1886.
Robert Cory, member of the medical staff of St Thomas's Hospital, 1875-1896.
Publications: Lectures on the Theory and Practice of Vaccination, Bailliere, Tindall & Cox: London, 1898; On the Relation of Cow-Pox and Horse-Pox to Smallpox. A thesis ... Reprinted from vol. IX. of the St. Thomas's Hospital Reports, J. E. Adlard: London, 1885
John Newton Tomkins was a medical student at St Thomas's Hospital in 1831-1834.
Jonathan Toogood was a surgeon, a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons and one of the founders of the Bridgewater Infirmary in 1813. He retired to Torquay in the 1860s and died in 1869.
Publications include: Hints to Mothers and other persons interested in the management of females at the age of puberty (London, 1845); Illustrations of the Fraud and Folly of Homeopathy (London, 1848); Medical Toogoodism and Homeopathy. Extracted from the British Journal of Homeopathy (London, 1849); Reminiscences of a Medical Life, with cases and practical illustrations (Taunton, 1853).
J William Valantines of Doncaster. Unknown.
Henry Cline: born, London, 1750; educated, Merchant Taylors' School; apprenticed to Mr Thomas Smith, surgeon to St Thomas's Hospital, 1767; diploma from Surgeons' Hall, 1774; Lecturer on anatomy, St Thomas's Hospital, 1781-1811; Surgeon, St Thomas's Hospital, 1784-1811; examiner at the College of Surgeons, 1810; master of the College of Surgeons, 1815, president, 1823; delivered the Hunterian oration, 1816, 1824; died, 1827. Publications: On the Form of Animals (Bulmer and Co, London, 1805).
Born 1920; educated, University of London; Department of Education, Jamaica, 1954; University of Guyana; helped establish the College of the Bahamas; helped establish B.Ed and MA corses at the University of the West Indies; Professor of Education, Recife University, Brazil; consultant for the World Bank, Unesco and the Commonwealth Secretariat; died 2006. Publications: The Making of the West Indies with F R Augier, D G Hall and M Reckord (1960)
Sources of West Indian History with F R Augier (1962)
Century of West Indian Education (1963)
Reports and Repercussions in West Indian Education (1968)
God Almighty Make Me Free (1996)
Our Cause for His Glory (1998)
The African National Congress (ANC) was formed in 1912 as the South African Native National Congress (it changed its name to the ANC in 1923) with the aim of replacing tribal opposition to white rule with a united African force. At first its membership was narrow - its leaders drawn from among traditional chiefs and wealthy Africans, its aims were limited and its activities were law-abiding. An attempt by J.T. Gumede to create a mass anti-imperialist movement was defeated by the moderates in 1930, following which the ANC lapsed into inactivity.
With an enlarged membership, a new President-General, Dr A.P. Xuma, and the adoption in 1943 of a new constitution and political programme - calling for full political rights for the first time - the ANC began its transformation into mass movement. It began to co-operate with other organisations, like the Communist Party and the South African Indian Congress. The Congress Youth League, formed in 1944, played an increasingly powerful role within the ANC: in 1949, its Programme of Action, with mass opposition to apartheid at its heart, was adopted as ANC policy. The Defiance' campaign of 1952 was the result and, though eventually broken by the state forces, it did give the ANC a mass membership. Under the Presidency of Albert Lutuli and the leadership of Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and others, the ANC became the leading resistance force in South Africa. The alliances it developed with other organisations, including the South African Indian Congress and the Congress of Democrats, led to the formation of the Congress Alliance, whose delegates adopted the Freedom Charter at the Congress of the People in 1955. This was adopted as the ANC's programme in 1956. In the same year, the Charter was used as the basis of a charge of treason against 156 members of the Congress Alliance. All of the accused in the 'Treason Trials' were acquitted, but in April 1960 the ANC was forced underground when it was banned as anunlawful organisation' following the pass law campaign and the Sharpeville massacre.
Many leaders went into exile and an external mission under Oliver Tambo and a military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), under Mandela were formed. After the arrest at Rivonia in 1963 of Mandela, Sisulu and other leaders and their imprisonment, ANC activities were for a while based mainly on the work of the external mission and the development of MK. However, following the rise of mass opposition among workers and students in the 1970s and 80s, the ANC's position as the leading anti-apartheid force was confirmed after the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990 and his and the ANC's subsequent victory in the election of 1994.
The South African Indian Congress was formed when the Natal, Transvaal and Cape Indian Congresses merged in 1920. Like the ANC, it was at first a moderate organisation until the rise of radical leaders like Dr Yusuf Dadoo and Dr G.M. Naicker in the 1940s. As well as organising passive resistance and strikes by Indian workers from 1946 onwards, they developed links with other resistance movements, first through the Non-European Unity Movement, then with the ANC. In 1947 Dadoo, Naicker and Xuma of the ANC agreed a pact for joint action by the South African Indian Congress and the ANC. The SA Indian Congress joined the Defiance Campaign in1952 and then the Congress Alliance in 1953. It had members among the Treason Trial defendants and in MK when it was formed in 1961. Though never banned, its leaders and membership were broken by state repression in the early 1960s. The Natal Indian Congress was revived in 1971 and the Transvaal Indian Congress in 1983. Both were prominent in the establishment of the United Democratic Front in the mid-1980s.
The first organised Trotskyist organisation on the Witwatersrand was an ephemeral Communist League of Africa, founded in 1932 by Thibedi, followed by a succession of small Trotskyist groups in Johannesburg. In the Western Cape, which was to become the historical stronghold of South African Trotskyism, the first organisation was the Lenin Club, which was formed in 1933. It split soon after, with its majority faction joining with Johannesburg-based groups to form the Workers' Party of South Africa in 1935, and the remainder forming the Communist League of South Africa. The South African Trotskyists were, from the start, characterised by centrifugal tendencies, and were also disunited in their response to the two-stage theory of the Communist Party of South Africa.
Proposals to introduce income tax to Kenya Colony and to the Straits Settlements were made in 1933 and 1940 respectively. In the case of Kenya there was strong opposition from colonists working in trade and commerce, who viewed the proposed legislation as detrimental to their economic viability and a removal of one of the material benefits of living and working in the colony. The petition was spearheaded by Lord Francis Scott, a son of the Duke of Buccleuch, and a Member of the Executive Council and the Legislative Council.
In the Straits Settlements, while an increase in taxation was accepted in principle because of the outbreak of war, the petitioners viewed income tax as a method impossible to implement efectively and fairly, because of widespread corruption in the colony. They suggested (but did not specify) an alternative method of taxation which would be self-assessing.
In Fiji, schools for the large Indian community provided (in accordance with legislation) teaching of and in the Indian language of Hindustani only, despite there being significant numbers speaking the languages of South India, namely Tamil, Telegu and Malayalam. There had been moves to widen the teaching to include these languages in the 1930s, instigated by the then Governor, Sir Arthur Richards. Following Sir Arthur's transfer from the Colony, the matter remained in abeyance, and the petitioners sought to reactify this by appealing directly to the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
Australia held a year of celebrations in 1988 to mark the 200th anniversary of the founding of the country. Events were co-ordinated by the Australian Bicentennial Authority, with individual states, cities and other organisations mounting their own celebrations.
Jack Gallagher worked as a teacher and education adviser in Lesotho during the 1980s and 1990s. He accumulated this material during this time: some relates directly to his work and personal interests, while other items were collected by him. Gallagher donated a substantial Library to ICS as well as these archival items.
The Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) promotes, through collaborative projects, the growth of international telecommunications throughout the Commonwealth. The organisation endeavours to link its commitment to development and training to the benefits attached to the creation and extension of commercial opportunities.
Commonwealth collaboration in international telecommunications dates back to 1902. During this period the nature and scope of formal Commonwealth collaboration in this field has undergone profound change. In most respects, this change reflects technological development and, by extension, the commercial nature of the telecommunications business and, of course, the changing status and functions of the Commonwealth. The CTO is the present institutional manifestation of this wider evolution.
The earliest substantive example of Commonwealth collaboration was the establishment of the Pacific Cable Board (PCB). The first submarine telegraph cables linking Britain with the other commonwealth dominions of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand were laid by cable companies. These companies were unwilling to meet the expense of laying a cable across the Pacific from Canada to Australia. The Dominion governments considered that the link was necessary for the enhancement of imperial strategic security and imperial trade. The PCB was given the responsibility of constructing and managing the cable, which was laid in 1902. In subsequent years the board established and operated facilities in other parts of the Commonwealth.
The commercial development of long-distance radio transmission by the Marconi company led to the introduction in the 1920s of beam radiotelegraphy between Britain and Australia, Canada, India and South Africa. This new medium posed a threat to the commercial interests of British long-distance cable companies. In 1928 the inter-governmental Imperial Wireless and Cable Conference was convened to discuss the situation. This produced a report recommending, inter alia, the formation of a single communications company to take over and operate all the communications systems of all wireless and cable companies throughout the Commonwealth and Empire, including the British Post Office (BPO) and the Pacific Cable Board. This company (Imperial and International Communications Ltd) later became known as Cable and Wireless Limited. Since then, Cable and Wireless has continued to play an important commercial and training role in Commonwealth telecommunications.
The 1928 conference also led to the creation of the Imperial Communications Advisory Committee (ICAC), which the new company was required to consult on any questions of policy, including alterations in rates. Australia, Britain, Canada, India, the Irish Free State, New Zealand and South Africa were represented on this committee. British committee members were usually drawn from British Dominion Office personnel and Dominion officials came from the respective high commissions in London. A Colonial Office official represented the British Colonies and Protectorates.
In making these arrangements the 1928 Conference was particularly concerned to ensure that the competing technologies of wireless and cable transmission was integrated and harmonised to maximise the benefits to the Commonwealth as a whole.
The Second World War had a considerable impact on Commonwealth telecommunications and in 1942 a Commonwealth Conference in Australia recommended that the advisory committee should be reconstituted. It was replaced by the Commonwealth Communications Council (CCC), with its members now being resident in their own countries. This change was effected in 1944 and the new council met in London on five occasions between 1944 and 1949. Much of its time and effort was devoted to devising ways and means of improving the central co-ordination of Commonwealth telecommunications, a matter which the governments regarded as essential for the consolidation and strengthening of the Commonwealth system.
In 1945 Lord Reith, at the request of the British Government, undertook a tour of the Dominions, including India, in order to discuss with the governments the new proposals put forward by London. This tour prepared the way for a Commonwealth Telecommunications Conference in London in that same year. The conference was attended by representatives of the Dominions, as well as Southern Rhodesia and India. The central recommendation was for the nationalisation of all overseas telecommunications in the Commonwealth and for the establishment of a strong central co-ordinating body. This new central body would replace the CCC and was to be known as the Commonwealth Telecommunications Board.
These recommendations were accepted and embodied in the Commonwealth Telegraphs Agreement, signed in London on 11 May 1948. Provision was included in the agreement for operating agreements to be signed between each partner government, its national (operating) body and the Commonwealth Telecommunications Board. (The 1948 Agreement was later modified by a Supplemental Agreement, dated 25 July 1963, which substituted a revised form of operating agreement). South Africa ceased to be a partner government in 1961 on leaving the Commonwealth. Similarly, Southern Rhodesia left in 1969.
The Commonwealth Telecommunications Board was incorporated in the United Kingdom on 31 May 1949 by the Commonwealth Telegraphs Act 1949. The board held its first meeting on 10 November 1949. It was composed of an independent Chairman (appointed jointly by all the partner governments), one member from each of the individual governments, and one member appointed by Britain to represent the colonies and protectorates. These members were normally resident in London and the board met regularly at fortnightly intervals.
The Board's functions, as originally specified in the CTA, was wide-ranging, but in practice the Board's efforts over the years were mainly consultative, coordinative and advisory, directed towards the efficient development and use of the Commonwealth telecommunications network. Associated with this objective was the important task of administering the Partners' joint financial arrangements known as the First Wayleave Scheme.
Under the Wayleave Scheme, which was in force until 1972/73, each national body kept its own net revenue (calculated by an agreed deduction from its gross receipts) and made such use of the Commonwealth 'common-user' system as it desired. The expenses incurred by each national body in maintaining and operating its part of the system were calculated in an agreed manner. The total expenses of the whole common-user system were then allocated among national bodies in proportion to the net revenue each received of the total net revenue of all national bodies. The resultant debits were set against the common-user expenses incurred by each national body and the differences settled as net Wayleave payments or receipts.
Reviews of these financial arrangements took place in 1952, 1958, 1964 and 1966, the first and the third being held under the auspices of the Board, the second and fourth in conjunction with Commonwealth Telecommunications Conferences.
Despite the post-war expansion of long-distance radio links and their increased operating efficiency, by 1956 it was apparent to the CTB that the growing demand for telecommunications facilities could not be adequately met by this means. The Board therefore drew up and recommended to partner governments plans for a round-the-world submarine telephone cable system to serve the trunk routes of the Commonwealth network. This cable system would employ the newly developed coaxial cable technique with submerged repeaters. A Commonwealth Telecommunications Conference was convened in London in 1958 to review the plans for the project. Because of the huge extra costs involved in the project it was recommended that separate financial arrangements should apply to all services carried by the new cable system. This resulted in a new Second Wayleave Scheme embodied in a new arrangement and based on the same principles as the First. The Second Wayleave Scheme added to the practical tasks of organising the installation and subsequent exploitation of the new cable system. In order to cope with the increased work load a new body, the Commonwealth Cable Management Committee (CCMC), was established by those Commonwealth countries that financed the project.
The expanding demand for broad band systems on some of the shorter Commonwealth routes (e.g. Caribbean) led to the employment of other media, notably tropospheric scatter and VHF radio systems.
The development of satellite technolgy in the early 1960s presented new opportunities in international telecommunications. It also posed new financial problems for the Commonwealth partnership. For these reasons a Commonwealth Telecommunications Conference was held in London, in 1965. In the light of these new technological developments the conference recognised the need to devise new collaborative financial arrangements, as well as review the existing arrangements for collaboration. Having arranged for a meeting of financial experts and a committee to review the organisation the conference adjourned. It reconvened in 1966 to consider the reports of these bodies and to frame recommendations to the member governments.
The 1966 Conference recommended that a new Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) should be established. It would be made up of a council composed of representatives of partner governments and a bureau based in London to function under the control and direction of the council. It would hold Commonwealth conferences every three years.
The 1966 Conference also recommended the termination of the Commonwealth Telegraphs Agreements of 1948 and 1963 and the incorporation of all existing financial arrangements in a new single financial agreement. These recommendations were accepted by all the partner governments and the CTO came into being in 1967. The first meeting of the Council took place in April 1967 and the Bureau was established in 1968-9. Transfer of the old Board's functions to the organisation occurred in April 1969, following the signing of a new Financial Agreement, the Commonwealth Telecommunications Financial Arrangements (CTFA), and the termination of the old CTAs.
In 1973 a new unified accounting arrangement was introduced under the Commonwealth Telecommunications Financial Agreement. Throughout the 1970s, however, advances in technology were complicating accounting arrangements, and commercial pressures were creating dissatisfaction regarding some aspects of the arrangements, particularly among the more developed national bodies. Following the 1977 Conference, a Committee of Council for the Development of Financial Arrangements (CCDFA) recommended that the CTFA be replaced.
Alongside these developments, steps were being taken to terminate the Commonwealth cable system. Increasingly cables were laid in co-operation with non-Commonwealth administrations. In this case it was a straightforward matter to cancel the CTFA pooling arrangements and allow the cables to revert to the circuit allocations of each owner. For the older cables, the cable owners agreed to operate a simplified form of the cost-sharing scheme until the cables reached the end of their useful lives. The last of these cables was taken out of commission in 1986 and the Commonwealth Cable Management Committee was disbanded.
The 1982 Conference endorsed the scheme as proposed by Council and recommended to governments that the CTFA 1973 be terminated on 1 April 1983 and be replaced with a new agreement (CTOFA 1983) to operate from that date. The CTOFA had two functions. First, to provide a new accounting arrangement (CAA) for the member governments. Second, to provide start-up funding for collaborative projects, termed Non-Financial Collaborative Arrangements (NFCA). This later became known as the Programme for Development and Training (PDT). Funding under the CTOFA came in the form of annual pledges from national bodies. Members were organised into contribution groups with their annual contributions being based on their ability to pay.
Concurrent with the introduction of the CTOFA 1983, Council revised the machinery to deal with other collaborative arrangements. A management board (BOM) was established, comprising eight council representatives from developed and developing national bodies to oversee the disbursement of funds to both the CAA and the PDT. The Board was disbanded at the Twenty-fifth meeting of Council and its mandate was assumed by the Council. Four new bodies were constituted to assume direct control over specific aspects of the CTOFA. The Consultative Committee on Collaborative Arrangements (CCCA); the Operational and Development Group (ODG), the Accounting Arrangements Contact Officers Group (AACOG) were all composed of representatives from the national bodies. The fourth body was the Commonwealth Telecommunications Bureau. The Bureau is the secretariat of the organisation and works under the direction of the General Secretary . It provides administrative and logistical support to the Conference, the Council, its groups and committees.
In 1986, three years after the new financial arrangements were inaugurated, it was agreed at Conference that the division of funds between the CAA and the PDT should be altered. In three years, from 1986-9, the PDT's share of CTOFA funds would be increased from 10% to 50%. It was agreed that this would be effected through an increase in overall funding with a possible reduction in the amount given over to accounting arrangements. With this in mind Council undertook a survey in that year of the telecommunications needs of the developing national bodies, which resulted in a number of larger projects being undertaken, including significant rehabilitation exercises involving the loan of expertise and the provision of essential parts.
The spread of digital technology put a good deal of strain on relations within the organisation and, by extension, on its various functions. On the one hand the demand for international telecommunications throughout the 1980s continued to increase. Even during economic recessions the level of international telecommunications traffic continued to grow. Meeting this demand required a continuing expansion of broad band telecommunications transmission facilities. The CTO played an important role in ensuring a regular flow of information on future plans and their integration into the wider Commonwealth system. But at the same time two notable developments took place within the Commonwealth. First, many counties were extending the number of direct circuits with other non-commonwealth countries. There was, therefore, a declining need for a Commonwealth network. Second, the more developed countries adopted digital technology to extend their range of services. By 1992 two thirds of all
national bodies had digital satellite transmission facilities, much of this in the form of transglobal digital fibre optic cables. Unfortunately in Africa there were no plans to extend this system beyond French-speaking West Africa.
At the Commonwealth Telecommunications Conference in 1992, the governments agreed to Council's proposal that the CTO's preferential adjustments under the Commonwealth Accounting Arrangements should be terminated, while at the same time extending the scope and scale of the Programme for Development and Training (PDT). Cost constraints, along with privatisation and commercialisation, appear to have driven this decision. Even with these changes, some doubt existed over whether national bodies were prepared to fund the extension of the PDT. With funding a central issue, the CTO was directed by conference to establish a working group to investigate this issue. The issue of funding was important: administrative costs had risen from £0.94 to £0.99 million. Another issue at this time was outstanding debts carried over from the old CTFA liabilities.
By the following year major funding and organisational changes were anticipated, based on the findings of a CTO working party (the Genting Group). The working party's recommendations were endorsed by the 1992 Conference. The emphasis henceforth would be placed on training and the 'commercial interests of the service providers'. For some country members these changes did not go far enough. This issue, coupled with new proposals for contributions (switching from voluntary to mandatory contributions with a view to stabilising the CTO's funding) led to protests from New Zealand or Australia. These members gave notice that they were withdrawing their membership.
In early March 1993, Australia and New Zealand, still members, continued to express concerns regarding their contributions. Another working party, the Windsor Group, was appointed to investigate the future role of the bureau.
By 1995 the organisation had come through a difficult five year period of restructuring and policy reappraisal. This transitional period formally culminated in the approval by council at its thirty-fourth meeting of a new constitution. But these changes were not without their cost. Both New Zealand and Australia left the organisation in wrangles over unpaid contributions and moneys due from the CTFA funds. Moreover, Canada gave notice that it would withdraw its membership in 1996. This was later withdrawn, pending a revision of its contributions. In contrast, by mid-1997 there was a strong possibility that South Africa would rejoin the CTO.
Item CTO 4.2.5. is an undated and unattributed 'History of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation, 1928-1969'
The Empire Press Union was founded by Harry Brittain in 1909, it became the Commonwealth Press Union in 1950. Members are newspapers of which there are currently over 700 from 50 countries in membership. These are represented by their proprietors, senior executives and editors. The Union's aim is to uphold the ideas and values of the Commonwealth and to promote, through the Press, understanding and goodwill among its members; to defend Press freedom; to support the interests of publishing bodies and individuals; to maintain a comprehensive training programme; to work forimproved facilities for reporting and transmitting news. The CPU provides training and defendsthe freedom of the Press. It organises training courses, seminars, workshops, exchanges and three fellowships: Harry Brittain fellowship, Gordon Fisher fellowship and the CPU fellowship in international journalism. Conferences are held every two years. It vigorously defends press freedom, making use of its close links with governments and also with other established Commonwealth bodies, with the shared aims including the pursuit of better education and the protection of human rights. It monitors and opposes all measures and proposals likely to affect the freedom of the press in any part of the Commonwealth.
Born Jamaica, 1917; member of the National Reform Association, 1937; member of Norman Manly's Commitee assisting W A Bustamente in the formation of trade unions, 1938; member of the People's National Party (PNP), 1938-1952, and a member of the Party's executive, 1941-1952; editor of the working class militant H C Buchanan's Jamaica Labour Weekly when Buchanan was in prison, Dec 1938-Apr 1939; co-founder and Chairman of the Jamaican Youth Movement, 1941; qualified as a solicitor, 1941; President of the Jamaica Government Railway Employees' Union (JGREU), 1942-1948; Assistant Secretary , Caribbean Labour Conference, 1945-1946, and General Secretary from 1947-1953; expelled from the People's National Party for 'communist' activity, 1952; Chairman of the People's Educational Association (PEO), and a member of the People's Freedom Movement, 1952-1962; member of the Committee for the formation of a Jamaican Federation of Trade Unions, 1953-1963; Legal Adviser to the [Jamaican] Sugar and
Agricultural Workers' Union, (SAWU) 1953-1957; Treasuer of the Socialist Party of Jamaica, 1962-1963; editor of the progressive newspaper The Mirror, Guyana, 1963-1965; resident in England from 1965.
Sir (William) Ivor Jennings, constitutional lawyer and educationalist, was born in Bristol on 16 May 1903 and died in Cambridge on 19 December 1965. Educated at Queen Elizabeth's Hospital, Bristol Grammar School and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, he had already begun a university career before he was called to the bar in 1928. His first academic appointment was as lecturer in law at Leeds University in 1925-1929, following which he taught at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where he was first lecturer, (1929-1930) and then reader in English Law (1930-1940). His publications in this period included works on the poor law code, housing law, public health law, town and country planning law and laws relating to local government. He also wrote on constitutional matters in The Law and the Constitution (1933), Cabinet Government (1936) and Parliament (1939).
Appointed principal of University College, Ceylon in 1940, he was its first Vice-Chancellor (1942-1955) when it became the University of Ceylon. He described his life there in Road to Peradeniya, an unpublished autobiography (ref: C/14); see also Jennings' The Kandy Road (ed. H.A.I. Goonetileke, University of Peradeniya, 1993). He was frequently consulted on constitutional, educational and other matters and was Chairman of the Ceylon Social Services Commission (1944-1946), a member of the Commission on University Education in Malaya (1947), a member of the Commission on the Ceylon Constitution (1948), President of the Inter-University Board of India (1949-1950), Constitutional Adviser and Chief Draughtsman, Pakistan (1954-1955), a member of the Malayan Constitutional Commission (1956-1957), and Chairman of the Royal University of Malta Commission. He was also Professor of Political Science, University of British Columbia, in 1938-1939 and Visiting Professor, Australian National University in 1950.
As the colonial period ended, he became particularly interested in the Commonwealth and the newly independent nations and was valued as a commentator on the subject. He delivered the 1948-1949 Wayneflete lectures at Magdelen College, Oxford on The Commonwealth in Asia', the 1950 George Judah Cohen Memorial Lecture at the University of Sydney onThe Commonwealth of Nations', the 1957 Montague Burton lecture on International Relations at the University of Leeds on Nationalism, Colonialism and Neutralism' and a series onProblems of the New Commonwealth' at the Commonwealth Studies Center (now closed) at Duke University, South Carolina, USA in 1958. He re-published an earlier work on laws of the empire as Constitutional Laws of the Commonwealth (3ed. 1956) and published The Approach to Self-Government (1956) and works on Ceylon and Pakistan.
In 1954 he became Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge and Downing Professor of the Laws of England in 1962, holding both posts until his death. In later life he returned to his study of the British constitution, with the publication of Party Politics (1960-62). He was knighted in 1948, made a QC in 1949, and awarded the KBE in 1955.
Matthew Goniwe was born in Cradock, Eastern Cape, South Africa, in 1947. He attended St James' Primary school and moved on to Sam Xhallie Secondary school, where he obtained his junior certificate.
After leaving school he obtained a teachers' diploma from Fort Hare University and returned to Sam Xhallie school to teach maths and science. In 1974 Goniwe left for a teaching post in Transkei and married Nyameka, a social worker. Matthew's political involvement in Transkei led to his arrest in 1977, when he was convicted under the Suppression of Communism Act and sentenced to four years in Umtata Prison. After his spell in prison, Goniwe returned to teaching in Graaff-Reinet and completed a BA degree through Unisa. He was then transferred to Cradock and appointed the headmaster of Sam Xhallie High. In 1983 Goniwe called a mass meeting to discuss how the community should respond to high rents, and in the same year the Department of Education and Training (DET) tried to transfer him to Graaff-Reinet. This caused teachers and pupils from Cradock's seven schools to embark on a 15-month class boycott - the longest in the country's history.
On 27 June 1985 Goniwe and three other activists, Fort Calata, Sparrow Mkonto and Sicelo Mhlauli were killed and mutilated by unnamed members of the Security Forces.
Jabavu is one of the townships making up the modern Soweto. The discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand in 1886 caused an influx of thousands of people to the area, including black job-seekers. This growing population had to be housed. The townships of Kliptown, Sophiatown, and Western Native Township were established in and around Johannesburg for black and so-called Coloured people. The Native Urban Areas Act (1923) decreed that local councils had to provide housing for black people living in their areas. This led to the development of the larger townships of Klipspruit and Western and Eastern Townships closer to Johannesburg from 1927 to 1930. Demand for space and housing grew, prompting the Johannesburg Council to purchase land at Klipspruit on which Orlando East was established in 1930, the first township making up modern day Soweto.
The coming to power of the Nationalist Party in 1948 and the Group Areas Act of 1950 led to further racial segregation, controls on settlers, and separate development. During the 1950's, black people living in and around Johannesburg were forced to move to newly laid-out townships southwest of the city--Mofolo South, Moroka North, Jabavu, Molapo, and Moletsane.
Britain granted internal self-government to Uganda in 1961, with the first elections held on 1 March 1961. Benedicto Kiwanuka of the Democratic Party became the first Chief Minister. Uganda maintained its Commonwealth membership. In succeeding years, supporters of a centralized state vied with those in favor of a loose federation and a strong role for tribally based local kingdoms. Political manoeuvering climaxed in February 1966, when Prime Minister Milton Obote suspended the constitution, assumed all government powers, and removed the president and vice president. In September 1967, a new constitution proclaimed Uganda a republic, gave the president even greater powers, and abolished the traditional kingdoms. On 25 January 1971, Obote's government was ousted in a military coup led by armed forces commander Idi Amin Dada. Amin declared himself president, dissolved the parliament, and amended the constitution to give himself absolute power.Idi Amin's 8-year rule produced economic decline, social disintegration, and massive human rights violations. The Acholi and Langi tribes were particular objects of Amin's political persecution because Obote and many of his supporters belonged to those tribes and constituted the largest group in the army. In 1978, the International Commission of Jurists estimated that more than 100,000 Ugandans had been murdered during Amin's reign of terror; some authorities place the figure much higher. In October 1978, Tanzanian armed forces repulsed an incursion of Amin's troops into Tanzanian territory. The Tanzanian force, backed by Ugandan exiles, waged a war of liberation against Amin's troops and Libyan soldiers sent to help him. On 11 April 1979, Kampala was captured, and Amin fled with his remaining forces. After Amin's removal, the Uganda National Liberation Front formed an interim government with Yusuf Lule as president. This government adopted a ministerial system of administration and created a quasi-parliamentary organ known as the National Consultative Commission (NCC). The NCC and the Lule cabinet reflected widely differing political views. In June 1979, following a dispute over the extent of presidential powers, the NCC replaced President Lule with Godfrey Binaisa. In a continuing dispute over the powers of the interim presidency, Binaisa was removed in May 1980. Thereafter, Uganda was ruled by a military commission chaired by Paulo Muwanga. The December 1980 elections returned the UPC to power under the leadership of President Obote, with Muwanga serving as vice president. Under Obote, the security forces had one of the world's worst human rights records. In their efforts to stamp out an insurgency led by Yoweri Museveni's National Resistance Army (NRA), they laid waste to a substantial section of the country, especially in the Luwero area north of Kampala.Obote ruled until 27 Jul 1985, when an army brigade, composed mostly of Acholi troops and commanded by Lt. Gen. Basilio Olara-Okello, took Kampala and proclaimed a military government. Obote fled to exile in Zambia.
No 1 Company Indian and Malay Corps (No 101 South African Reserve Motor Transport Company was established in Natal in 1939, and left for South Africa for active service in Kenya, Sep 1940. The Company returned to South Africa in Dec 1940, and took part in the Somaliland Campaign in 1941.
The African National Congress (ANC) was formed in 1912 as the South African Native National Congress (it changed its name to the ANC in 1923) with the aim of replacing tribal opposition to white rule with a united African force. At first its membership was narrow - its leaders drawn from among traditional chiefs and wealthy Africans, its aims were limited and its activities were law-abiding. An attempt by J.T. Gumede to create a mass anti-imperialist movement was defeated by the moderates in 1930, following which the ANC lapsed into inactivity.
With an enlarged membership, a new President-General, Dr A.P. Xuma, and the adoption in 1943 of a new constitution and political programme - calling for full political rights for the first time - the ANC began its transformation into mass movement. It began to co-operate with other organisations, like the Communist Party and the South African Indian Congress. The Congress Youth League, formed in 1944, played an increasingly powerful role within the ANC: in 1949, its Programme of Action, with mass opposition to apartheid at its heart, was adopted as ANC policy. The Defiance' campaign of 1952 was the result and, though eventually broken by the state forces, it did give the ANC a mass membership. Under the Presidency of Albert Lutuli and the leadership of Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and others, the ANC became the leading resistance force in South Africa. The alliances it developed with other organisations, including the South African Indian Congress and the Congress of Democrats, led to the formation of the Congress Alliance, whose delegates adopted the Freedom Charter at the Congress of the People in 1955. This was adopted as the ANC's programme in 1956. In the same year, the Charter was used as the basis of a charge of treason against 156 members of the Congress Alliance. All of the accused in the 'Treason Trials' were acquitted, but in April 1960 the ANC was forced underground when it was banned as anunlawful organisation' following the pass law campaign and the Sharpeville massacre.
Many leaders went into exile and an external mission under Oliver Tambo and a military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), under Mandela were formed. After the arrest at Rivonia in 1963 of Mandela, Sisulu and other leaders and their imprisonment, ANC activities were for a while based mainly on the work of the external mission and the development of MK. However, following the rise of mass opposition among workers and students in the 1970s and 80s, the ANC's position as the leading anti-apartheid force was confirmed after the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990 and his and the ANC's subsequent victory in the election of 1994.
Benjamin Turok, born Latvia, 1927; came with his family to South Africa, 1934; educated at the University of Cape Town; taught in London, 1950-1953; returned to South Africa, and became a full-time political activist; served with a banning order, 1955, and arrested for treason, 1956 (the charges were withdrawn in 1958); elected unopposed to represent Africans of the Western Cape on the Cape Provincial Council, 1957; during the 1960 emergency Turok evaded arrest, and went underground to help reestablish ANC organisation; in 1962 he was convicted under the Explosives Act, and sentenced to three years in prison; after his release he escaped via Botswana; resident in the UK from 1972; currently a member of the South African Parliament.
Argentine forces invaded the Falkland Islands on 2 April 1982. A British Task Force was despatched on 3 April, the first troops landing at San Carlos Bay on 21 May. Argentine forces surrendered on 14 June following fierce land, sea and air battles.
Marion Valerie Friedmann was born in 1918, and was a founder member of the Liberal Party of South Africa. The multiracial Liberal Party of South Africa was founded in 1954, and was forced to disband under the Prohibition of Political Interference Act of 1968.
Ruth Hayman was a lawyer in South Africa, and a campaigner for racial equality and justice. After she was banned for her work in South Africa, she settled in North London, and in 1969 set up the pioneering organisation, Neighbourhood English Classes, to help newly arrived immigrants settle into the UK. In 1977 she was a founding member, and honorary secretary of the National Association for the Teaching of English as a Second Language to Adults. After her death in 1981 the Ruth Hayman Trust was established in her memory.
The multiracial Liberal Party of South Africa was founded in 1954, and was forced to disband under the Prohibition of Political Interference Act of 1968.
John Campbell Horsfall was the author of a number of books on Australian economics and politics.
The International Transport Workers' Federation was founded in London in 1886 by European seafarers and dockers' union leaders who realised the need to organize internationally against strike breakers. In 2001 it is a Federation of 570 trade unions in 132 countries, representing around 5 million workers. The ITF represents transport workers at world level and promotes their interests through global campaigning and solidarity. It is dedicated to the advancement of independent and democratic trade unionism, and to the defence of fundamental human and trade union rights. It is opposed to any form of totalitarianism, aggression and discrimination.
The history of meteorological observations in Ceylon, in the form of rainfall measurement, dates back to year 1850. Systematic recording of observations started during 1866-1883 under the Survey General of Ceylon. The Colombo Observatory was set up in 1907 on Bullers Road (Bauddhaloka Mawatha) in Colombo. Since 1948 it has been part of the Government Department of Meteorology.
Cyril Lionel Robert (CLR) James was born in Trinidad on 4 January 1901. He trained as a teacher, and worked as a teacher and journalist in Trinidad. James left Trinidad in 1932 at the instigation of the cricketer Learie Constantine (later Lord Constantine) and went to stay with him in Nelson, Lancashire. He worked as a cricket correspondent for the Manchester Guardian, 1933-1935, and also became a prominent member of the Trotskyist movement. For a time he was a member of the Independent Labour Party, and he campaigned actively against the Italian invasion of Abyssinia. He moved to the United States in 1938, and spent 15 years there writing and lecturing mainly on the Pan-African Movement. He left the Trotskyist movement in 1951, though he remained a convinced Marxist. He was expelled from the US because of his Communist views in 1953, returned to Britain and became active in the African independence movement. In 1958 he returned to Trinidad at the invitation of Dr Eric Williams, to edit the People's National Party newspaper. He also became secretary of the West Indies Federal Labour Party, and campaigned unsuccessfully against the break-up of the Federation of the West Indies. James soon quarrelled with Williams, and left Trinidad in 1963. In the 1960s and 1970s he lectured extensively in the United States and Europe. In 1963 he published Beyond a Boundary which explored the place of cricket in popular culture, especially in the colonial context, regarded by many as the greatest book ever written about cricket. He died in Brixton, London in 1989.
Professor Bryan Wooleston Langlands (1928-1989) was Professor of Geography at the University of Ulster at Coleraine and was killed in the British Airways crash of BD092 at Kegsworth. He had spent much of his time in Uganda and accumulated a large library on various aspects of African historical geography.
Born, South Africa, 1919; as he young man he became concerned about the injustice of the treatment of the local black population; worked at Johannesburg's newly established Sunday Express, 1934; became political correspondent, 1937; joined the South African Labour Party and edited its journal, Forward; elected to Johannesburg City Council, 1942; an opponent of apartheid, Legum moved to Britain; diplomatic editor and its Commonwealth correspondent, Sunday Observer, 1951; editor of the annual Africa Contemporary Record, 1968; returned to South Africa, 1991; continued to work as a journalist, author and visiting lecturer; died 2003,
Publications:
South Africa: Crisis for the West, with Margaret Legum (1964)
Congo Disaster (1960)
Pan-Africanism: A Brief History (1962)
Africa: A Handbook of the Continent (1962).
Africa Since Independence (1999)
Julius Lewin, Lecturer in Native Law at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Zachariah Keodirelang Matthews was born in the Cape Colony, South Africa, in 1901, and educated in South Africa, the United States and Britain. In 1936 he joined the staff of Fort Hare University as a lecturer in Anthropology and African Law. In 1945 he became a professor, and in 1954 Acting Principal. During this time he was active in political affairs, he joined the African National Congress (ANC) in 1940, and soon assumed a leading role. In 1952 Mathews was involved in the preparations for a Defiance Campaign. In May 1953 he proposed that a National Convention of all South Africans be held during which a peace manifesto should be drafted. His proposal was generally met with approval by the ANC and several other organisation, and resulted in the Congress of the People of June 1955 during which the Freedom Charter was adopted. This activity led to his arrest in 1956, on a charge of High Treason, he was tried and acquitted. In 1959 he left Fort Hare, in 1960 the ANC was banned, and after the Sharpeville shootings he was detained for 135 days. In 1962 he left South Africa to join the staff of the World Council of Churches in Geneva, travelling widely in Africa on WCC business. He died in 1968 in Washington DC.
Josie Palmer (sometimes the African form of the name is used (Mpama) was born in Potchefstroom, South Africa, in 1903. She refers to herself as 'coloured' but married an African, Edwin Mofutsanyane (a leading member of the Communist Party of South Africa and the African National Congress (ANC), and lived in an African area. She became the first black woman to play a significant part in the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) and in the womens' movement in South Africa.
She came to the fore in Potchefstroom in the 1928 campaign against residential permits and joined the Communist Party then. During the late 1920s and 1930s she wrote for 'Umsebenzi', the Journal of the CPSA. In 1943-1945 she was a member of the CPSA's Anti-Pass Campsign and in March 1944 convened the women's Anti-Pass Conference in Johannesburg. At the 1947 International Women's Day Meeting in Johannesburg a resolution was passed to establish a 'non colour bar women's organisation' and the Transvaal All-Women's Union was formed, with Palmer as the secretary. It did not last very long, and although it changed its title in 1949 to become the Union of South African Women, it never became a national movement. However the idea was planted and Palmer later became a founding member of the Federation of South African Women and President of the Transvaal Branch. She was banned in 1955 before the Pretoria women's demonstration, and never became involved in the Anti-Pass Campaigns of those years.
The Institute of Commonwealth Studies was founded in 1949 to promote advanced study of the Commonwealth. The Institute offers opportunities for graduate study, houses several research projects and offers a full conference and seminar programme.
Mary Benson was born on 8 December 1919 in Pretoria, South Africa and was educated there and in Great Britain. Before the Second World War she was a secretary in the High Commission Territories Office of the British High Commission in South Africa. Between 1941-1945 she joined the South African women's army, rising to the rank of Captain and serving as Personal Assistant to various British generals in Egypt and Italy.
After the war she joined UNRRA and then became personal assistant to the film director David Lean. In 1950 she became secretary to Michael Scott and first became involved in the field of race relations. In 1951 she became secretary to Tshekedi Khama, and in 1952, together with Scott and David Astor, she helped to found the Africa Bureau in London. She was its secretary until 1957 and travelled widely on its behalf. In 1957 she became secretary to the Treason Trials Defence Fund in Johannesburg. She became a close friend of Nelson Mandela, and assisted with smuggling him out of South Africa in 1962. In February 1966 she was served with a banning order under the Suppression of Communism Act and she left South Africa for London later that year.
In London she continued to work tirelessly against apartheid, writing to newspapers and corresponding with fellow activists in South Africa. In April 1999 Mandela visited her at her home during his state visit to Britain and later that year an 80th birthday party was staged for her at South Africa House.
Mary Benson died on 20 June 2000.
Among her writings are South Africa: the Struggle for a Birthright, Chief Albert Luthuli, The History of Robben Island, Nelson Mandela: the Man and the Movement, the autobiographical A Far Cry and radio plays on Mandela and the Rivonia trial.
Edward Roux was born in the northern Transvaal, South Africa, in 1903, the son of an English mother and an Afrikaner father. He grew up in Johannesburg, where his father opened a pharmacy in 1907. Roux's father was a free-thinker and Roux, while still a student, helped found the Young Communists League in 1921. In 1923 he joined the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA). After completing his first degree at the University of the Witwatersrand he was awarded a scholarship to Cambridge University, where he spent the years 1926-1929 completing a PhD and carrying out research on plant physiology. In 1928 he visited Moscow as a South African delegate to the 6th Congress of the Communist International. He returned to South Africa in 1929, and by 1930 was engaged on full-time political work as editor of 'Umsebnzi', the Communist weekly. He remained active until 1935 when he was removed from the party's political bureau for aleged right wing sympathies. He left the CPSA in 1936 and took no direct part in politics for the next 20 years. He returned to his academic career and in 1945 he joined the faculty of the University of the Witwatersrand, where he became professor of botany in 1962. In 1957 he became an active member of the multiracial Liberal Party of South Africa. Although 'named' as a former member of the CPSA in 1950 he was not singled out for persecution by the Nationalist government until the early 1960s. In 1963 he was forced to resign from the Liberal Party under new ruled banning 'named' persons, and in 1964 he was issued a full array of banning orders, prohibiting him from teaching, publishing, attending gatherings, being quoted, or leaving Johannesburg. He died in 1966.
Publications S P Banting - A Political Biography, 1944; Longer than Rope [the first major history of African nationalism in South Africa], 1948, numerous articles and pamphlets. His autobiography Rebel Pity: The Life of Eddie Roux was written with his wife Winifred, and published posthumously in 1970.
Roger Southall received a PhD from Birmingham University in 1975. Since then he has worked on East Africa and South Africa, publishing in 1983 South Africa's Transkei: the political economy of an independent Bantustan.
The Capricorn Africa Society was founded in Southern Rhodesia by David Stirling in 1949, with objective of democratic and multi-racial development in East and Central Africa.
Hyman M Basner was born in Russia in 1905, and moved to South Africa at an early age. He trained as a lawyer, and his case work brought him into close contact with Africans and their plight. He joined the Communist Party of South Africa, but resigned in 1938. He stood for Senate as a native representative against J H Rheinallt Jones, and served from 1942-1948. In 1943 he co-founded the African Democratic Party. He left South Africa after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, and worked in Ghana from 1962-1966. He died in England in 1977.
Didymus Noel Edwin Mutasa born 27 July 1935, Rusape, Zimbabwe; educated at Goromonzi Government School, and University of Birmingham; clerk, 1956-1959; established Nayafara Developement Company, 1960; administrative officer, Ministry of Agriculutre, 1960; co-founder Southern Region Federal Services Association, 1960-1963; Co-founder Cold Comfort Society, 1964; arrested 1970, in solitary confinement, Sinoia Prison, 1970-1972; in exile, 1972-1979; founder member Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) Branch, Birmingham, and district Chairman ZANU (UK), 1975; joined ZANU Headquarters, Maputo, 1977; deputy secretary for Finance, Central Committee, ZANU, 1978; elected ZANU-PF MP for Manicaland, 1980, also elected Speaker of the Zimbabwe Parliament, 1980-1990; Senior Minister for Political Affairs, 1990, secretary for Transport and Welfare, Politburo, ZANU-PF since 1984.
Soweto (originally an acronym for South West Townships) started with a competition organized by the Johannesburg City Council in 1931 for the design of new black townships for 80,000 residents south west of Johannesburg. Orlando ( named after the Mayor of Johannesburg between 1925-1926 Councilor Edwin Orlando Leake), was the first of its kind in South Africa and was to form the core around which other townships were to develop and eventually become Soweto. There was an increasing influx of Africans coming to Johannesburg in search of work, due to factors such as natural disasters in the country and exclusion from farm land.
Dr Clare Taylor was a member of the Department of History of the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, and specialised in colonial history and the history of the West Indies, publishing widely on these subjects. Amongst her publications are Wales and the American Civil War, 1972; Samuel Roberts and his circle: migration from Llanbrynmair, Montgomeryshire, to America, 1790-1890, 1974; and British and American abolitionists: an episode in transatlantic understanding, 1974.
The material here is the product of a local anti-apartheid group.