Simon , Brian , 1915-2002 , Professor of Education

Brian Simon was Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Leicester. He was best known for his 4 volume history of the English education system from 1780-1990 (a standard text today), and his continued campaigning for comprehensive schooling. Simon came from a privileged background. His parents were great civic figures in Manchester. His father, Ernest Simon, head of the family engineering firm, was made first Lord Simon of Wythenshawe for public services. His mother, Shena, served 50 years on Manchester's education committee, working to improve the state system. Among close family friends was RH Tawney, also strongly committed to secondary education for all. As a schoolboy, Simon had encountered German fascism at first hand, having been sent in the early 1930s to Kurt Hahn's progressive school at Salem, which was already under Nazi attack. During his time at Trinity College, Cambridge, Simon was part of the generation which, horrified by fascism, turned to communism. Allegations that Simon recruited Guy Burgess for the KGB were refuted by him. His communist beliefs, unlike those of many of that generation, survived the war and the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary. Simon wanted to become a teacher and following the Second World War, in 1950, he went to Leicester University School of Education, where academics were doing field work devising a comprehensive school system. He was to stay at Leicester for the rest of his professional life until his retirement in 1980. Simon wrote a draft autobiography, which was published in a shortened version as A Life In Education (1998). Today he is recognised as a great educationalist by those who work in the field.

Publications:
Studies in the History of Education, 1780-1870 (1960), later retitled The Two Nations and the Educational Structure
Education and the Labour Movement, 1870-1920 (1965),
The Politics of Educational Reform, 1920-1940 (1974)
Education and the Social Order, 1940-1990 (1991).