W. G. de Burgh – Tales from the Archives

July 18, 2023

Edith Morley: the ‘Professorship Battle’ (part two)

Whiteknights plaque — Plaque at the entrance to the Edith Morley Building, Whiteknights.

On learning that Edith Morley had become Professor of English Language in 1908 (see my previous post) one might have thought that it was the end of the story. Far from it – and this time she didn’t just threaten to leave, she actually submitted a formal letter of resignation!

1911-12: A risky attempt at renegotiation

By 1911 the appointment of a Professor of English Literature was imminent. A Mr J. E. V. Crofts had recently been appointed Lecturer in English Language and Literature and, according to Childs’s handwritten notes, this new appointment would ease his workload.

In the meantime it is apparent that there had been attempts by Morley to renegotiate her position in the light of the impending appointment. The evidence for this is contained in a typed ‘private’ letter from Childs to Morley of 4th June 1912. In it, he stresses that he is not prepared to consider any change to their previously agreed arrangements, including the wording of her title. He wants her to stay but the half-time arrangement on a salary of £300 will not change. There is no prospect of the money increasing for a half-time contract and there is no chance of her becoming full time. Apparently she has told him that she had ‘prospects elsewhere’.

Further correspondence (Morley to Childs, 4th & 17th June 1912) shows that Morley is still deeply unhappy with the title of Professor of English Language. She has taken advice from elsewhere, however, and will agree to the title even though she regards it as anomalous (in her reminiscences, she refers to English Language as, ‘the branch of my subject in which I was not and had no intention of becoming a specialist’). Furthermore, she will keep to their agreement of 1908 even though her being half-time would compromise the equality of the two professorships.

Up to this point, I have had nothing but admiration for Edith Morley and her achievements, as must be clear to anyone who has read the many references to her in this blog. Nevertheless, even I have to concede that she committed a serious tactical error in a letter of 17th June by including the following statements that, in my opinion, clearly conflict with the 1908 protocol:

‘If the post is given to a man, however promising, whose achievement is at present small, while in standing, teaching & other experience he is much junior to myself, I cannot accept his “authority in (literature) matters which concern us both”, but shall have to resign at once. I do not demand impossibilities, but the field is limited, & everything depends on the candidate selected.’

This apparent attempt to impose conditions on the new appointment did not go down well. In a letter of 18th June, Childs reminds her of their earlier agreement and points out that the College Council has a free hand to appoint any suitable candidate. He complains, ‘You raise fresh difficulties or prospects of difficulties at every turn.’ He feels unable to proceed with a previous arrangement that she is now trying to change and must be free to propose a new settlement.

Realising she has gone too far, Morley penned a retraction on 19th June: ‘My letter seems to have conveyed exactly the opposite impression from that which was intended.’ She insists that she intends to make the conditions of 1908 workable and wants Childs to give up the idea of replacing the old agreement.

The following day (20th June), she again writes that she is happy with the conditions of 1908 and wants this letter substituted for the one of the 17th. Nevertheless, Childs insists on forwarding both sets of correspondence to the Finance Committee.

The dean intervenes

On the same day (20th June 1912), Professor W. G. de Burgh, Dean of the Faculty of Letters, sent out a memo in which he claimed that Morley lacked the qualities necessary to lead such an important department and recommended a revision of the 1908 agreement, something he had never been happy with.

Her recent letters to Childs simply demonstrated her lack of judgement and discretion. He believes she could retain her title but should be unequivocally subordinate to the new Professor. Otherwise there was a danger that she might assume an albeit unofficial leadership of the women members of the College!

June 1912: The finance Committee’s verdict

The Finance Committee issued its report on 21st June 1912, and its decision was passed on to Morley in a letter from Childs on the 22nd June. There were three main points:

1. There should be a ‘fair trial’ of the agreement of 1908; Morley would remain half-time.
2. If the arrangements did not work they could be modified.
3. When the College became a university, the Council would have the right to make a single professor responsible for the whole subject of English language and Literature.

Morley immediately sought clarification of the third point (22nd June), but Childs insisted that it spoke for itself and refused to elaborate (24th June).

July 2012: Professor R. Dewar is appointed

The appointment Robert Dewar as Professor of English Literature was made in July 2012; Morley was not impressed:

‘I abstained from voting for Mr Dewar because I object in principle to the appointment to so important a post, of a man who has not yet proved himself.’ (Morley to Childs, 19th July).

In the belief that she would lose her position when the College became a university she enclosed a formal letter of resignation. She says she intends to apply for a Readership at King’s College for Women and asks Childs for a reference.

Subsequent events unfold as follows:

1. Childs protests about her taking such drastic action, claiming that she has made an ‘unauthorised’ and ‘unwarrantable assumption’ about Point 3 of his letter of the 22nd June. He is returning her resignation letter and advises her to await the outcome of her King’s application before finalising her decision (19th July).
2. In a letter from Morley to Childs on the 24th July she has changed her mind and states that she has ‘definitely decided not to stand for King’s.’
3. In a reply dated the 25th, Childs is glad she is staying but fears there may be future conflict. She must therefore commit herself wholeheartedly and ignore the setbacks. If she can’t do this she should go to King’s.
4. In a response of 26th July, Morley agrees that she had misconstrued Point 3 of the Finance Committee’s decision, mistakenly believing she would be forced to leave when the Royal Charter was granted. She will accept the risk and hopes to stay on permanently.
5. Morley to Childs on the same day: Childs has now returned her resignation letter. She will forget her grievances, she says, and affirms that: ‘I think you will agree that my decision to give the new conditions a trial after all that has passed, is the best proof I can offer that I am putting my “dignity” on one side.’

The New English Department

At the beginning of the autumn term 1912, the College calendar displayed the full complement of the English Department: two Professors – one for Language and one for Literature, and one Lecturer in both Language and Literature (see below).

As had been requested by Morley in 1908, her title is no longer Professor of English Language and Lecturer in English Literature but simply Professor of English Language. This, she believed, would remove any impression that she was subordinate to her new colleague.

Professor Dewar and Mr Crofts were soon to join the armed forces, returning from WW1 as late as February 1919. Presumably Professor Morley kept the department going during their absence. In 1934 Dewar succeeded W. G. de Burgh as Dean of the Faculty of Letters and held that post until 1948.

Sources

Holt, J. C. (1977). The University of Reading: the first fifty years. Reading: University of Reading Press.

Morley, E. J. (2016). Before and after: reminiscences of a working life (original text of 1944 edited by Barbara Morris). Reading: Two Rivers Press.

University of Reading, Special Collections, MS 2049/50: File of correspondence between William M. Childs & Edith Morley, including a memo from W. G. de Burgh.

University of Reading Special Collections, MS 5305: Photographs – Portraits Box 1.

University College, Reading, Annual Report and Accounts, 1918-19.

University College, Reading. Calendar, 1912-13.

June 23, 2023June 23, 2023

Edith Morley: the ‘Professorship Battle’ (part one)

By the end of my previous post, the saga of Edith Morley’s chair had reached the stage where she was the only head of a department not to receive a professorship. Despite her reservations about her own academic prowess, she was so disturbed by the way the matter had been conducted by the College, and the low calibre of some of those who had been promoted that she decided to take the matter further.

Correspondence between Morley and the College Principal, W. M. Childs, about her professorship is held in the University’s Special Collections at the MERL. Morley’s handwritten letters, with their spontaneity and their insertions and deletions, tell us much more about the controversy and her own conflicted feelings than the carefully curated prose of her own ‘Reminiscences’. The sequence of events she narrates in just a few brief lines on page 116 is this:

1. she offered her resignation;
2. she was persuaded to remain and try out the new system;
3. she found the situation intolerable during the 1907-8 academic year;
4. she refused to stay on unless she was granted the title;
5. she was nominated Professor of English Language.

In fact, and as the correspondence shows, the negotiations between Morley and Childs were complex and lengthy, occasionally embarrassing, but generally polite and mutually respectful. It may have been a battle from Morley’s perspective, but at this stage it was a relatively civilised one (later events in 1912 are a different matter and will be the subject of my next post).

The business was treated as confidential, with only the Dean of Letters (W. G. de Burgh) being fully informed. Several of Childs’s letters are marked ‘private’. On one occasion Morley was rebuked (Childs to Morley, 2/3/1908) for discussing the wording of a possible professorial title with her friend Miss Lilian Faithfull (formerly Vice-Principal of King’s College Ladies Department and from 1906-22 Headmistress of Cheltenham Ladies’ College). For this, Morley was extremely apologetic (Morley to Childs, 3/3/1908) but claimed that she had understood any such injunction to apply only within the College.

The correspondence is not complete – there are references to missing letters and to private conversations whose contents we can only infer. Some of those from Childs are handwritten drafts with no copy of the formal typed version. Others are carbon copies from which the colour has faded. Nevertheless, the section of the archive for 1908 contains 13 legible letters (7 from Morley, 6 from Childs) written between February and March, and two sets of Childs’s personal notes. From these we can establish the following rough chronology:

- in 1907 Morley was not made professor because in Childs’s firm opinion, ‘she had not the requisite qualifications for a Professorship in English Literature.’ (Childs’s retrospective notes, probably 1911). The College wished to appoint a male Professor of English or English Literature at a later date.
- She threatened her resignation. According to Childs’s notes, ‘Miss M. agitated.’
- In July 1907 Morley suggested that in return for her professorship she would receive no increase in stipend, nor any change in her rights. She would also accept the College’s power to appoint ‘a special professor’ to cover those areas in which she was less qualified (Childs quotes this back to her in a handwritten draft of 2 March 1908).
- Events between July 1907 and February 1908 are unclear, but according to Childs, during the summer of 1907 Morley had requested a reassessment of her position and had agreed to a half-time post on an annual salary of £250 (Childs’s personal notes of 1911 and a draft of a letter to Morley of 18 June 1912). She was persuaded to stay on and give the new arrangements a fair trial.
- At some point, the idea of giving Morley a title other than Professor of English was floated. It would contain the words ‘English Language’ (Childs’s notes of 1911). Later letters show Morley’s passionate resistance to being relegated from ‘English’ and ‘English Literature’ to ‘English Language’.
- By 1908 Morley was extremely dissatisfied with the new arrangements. We don’t know the details but she expressed her frustration in a letter of 24 February 1907 in which she again threatens resignation (see image).

Final para

Letter of 24/2/1908 from Morley to Childs threatening resignation (University of Reading Special Collections).

- Childs was astonished, or so he claimed in a reply of the same day. His letter prompted an immediate counter-response from Morley (25 February) outlining her conditions:
  - - The word ‘Language’ should not appear in her title – she does not want to be pigeonholed as a Philologist and confined to nothing but basic work on literature.
    - When a new English professor was appointed, the two posts should have equal status. In return she would respect his authority in areas outside her expertise.
- There followed two letters containing suggestions from Morley of possible wordings of the professorial title: ‘Old & Modern English’ or ‘Historical & Modern English’ (27/2/08); ‘English Language & Literary History’, ‘English Language & Literary Criticism’, ‘English Letters & Language’, ‘English Language & History of Literature’ (29/2/08). She would accept his decision as long as the word ‘Literature’ was included somewhere, but would prefer ‘English’ on its own.
- On 2 March 1908 Childs produced a handwritten draft of a letter reminding her of what she had already agreed (see image below) and outlining a set of non-negotiable conditions and concessions. These included:
  - - The only acceptable title would be Professor of the English Language and Lecturer in English Literature;
    - Council would have total freedom in the appointment of a new English Professor;
    - She would still have a share of Literature teaching and the two professorships would have equal status, but on questions of literature ‘the authority of the Professor of Literature shall be acknowledged.’;
    - He would not proceed unless he had Morley’s total and continuing acceptance of these proposals.

Childs quotes M's own letter — Childs’s draft letter of 2 March 1908 in which he quotes back to Morley the concessions she had made the previous July (University of Reading Special Collections)

- Morley’s reply dated the following day was polite and conciliatory. She would be prepared to accept all the conditions but was still worried about the wording of her title, quibbling about the inclusion of the definite article before ‘English Language’ when it was not present in front of ‘English Literature’. She wants all mention of ‘Lecturer in English Language’ to be removed on the appointment of the new Professor. Otherwise, she claimed, she would appear ‘explicitly’ subordinate to him.
- Childs’s reply of the same day (3 March 1908) agrees to the future dropping of the reference to ‘English Language’ but cannot agree to any extension to the title once the new professor was in post (the word ‘extension’ appears in several documents but its meaning is not clear to me).
- Morley is pleased, and agrees to the terms. However, she retains the right to reconsider her position on the appointment of the new professor (8 March 1908).
- Childs agrees to put the proposals to the Finance Committee but insists on confidentiality: premature disclosure could derail everything.
- Morley’s agreed title appeared in the College Calendar for 1908-9 (see image below).

first title — Calendar for 1908-9. Note that the definite article before ‘English Language’ has been removed.

The story doesn’t finish here, however. I stated earlier that during 1908 the exchanges between Morley and Childs had been civilised, polite and mutually respectful. Nevertheless, in 1912 with the imminent appointment of a new Professor of English Literature their tone became distinctly more frosty; and that will be the subject of the next post.

Note

I have borrowed the phrase ‘professorship battle’ from Barbara Morris because that is how she indexed the affair when she edited Edith Morley’s original manuscripts. It isn’t an exaggeration, particularly when developments of 1912 are taken into consideration.

Thanks

To Sharon Maxwell, Archivist at the Museum of English Rural Life/Special Collections Service for telling me about the correspondence between Morley and Childs.

Sources

File of correspondence between William M. Childs and Edith Morley, MS 2049/50. University of Reading, Special Collections.

Morley, E. J. (2016). Before and after: reminiscences of a working life (original text of 1944 edited by Barbara Morris). Reading: Two Rivers Press.

University College, Reading. Calendar, 1908-9.

October 29, 2022October 30, 2022

Grammar for Pupil Teachers

The education and training of Pupil Teachers formed a significant proportion of the work of the University Extension College (1892-8) and Reading College (1898-1902). In a post about Reading’s ‘Normal Department’ I included information about Pupil Teachers and their attendance. On his appointment to the College in 1893, it was the job of W. M. Childs to teach them English history, something that all but defeated him:

‘…. at first it was uphill work, and sometimes I returned to London more that half inclined to throw up my job.’ (Childs, 1933, p. 4).

Below is the timetable for the third-years during 1899-1900. Four of the staff (de Burgh, Rey, Childs and Seaby) are in the photo of the Education Department at the end of the post, Teacher Education, Albert Wolters and the ‘Criticism Lesson’ :

Textbooks are specified in the College Calendar for History, Geography, English Language and Literature, Music, Algebra, Euclid and Mensuration.

The courses were intense and sometimes highly academic. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the choice of textbooks for English Grammar. Until 1898 two books were listed:

- Outline of English Grammar, by C. P. Mason (Bell and Sons), 2s.
- For Fourth Year. Historical English Grammar, by C. P. Mason (Bell and Sons), 3s 6d.

I have never seen copies of either of these, but in 1899 they were replaced by a single volume:

- English Grammar, past and present, J. C. Nesfield (Macmillan), 4s. 6d.

No doubt the students were thrilled to be saving a whole shilling on the deal; whether they were thrilled by the grammar is another matter!

Nesfield’s grammar was first published in 1898 and my own copy, bought in a second-hand bookshop 40 years ago, is the reprint of 1900:

Nesfield

The work is divided into three main sections followed by appendices:

- Modern English Grammar
- Idiom and Construction
- Historical English: Word-Building and Derivation
- Appendices on Prosody, Synonyms, and other Outlying Subjects.

The 470 pages of small print must have been a formidable challenge for the Pupil Teachers.

Some of the terminology in the volume would be a mystery to many English teachers today. And contemporary linguists might be unhappy with the syntactic analysis, not to mention the division of the language into ‘parts of speech’.

Some expositions rely on diagrammatic paradigms; personal pronouns are shown in three separate tables (1st person, 2nd person, 3rd person) that cross-tabulate Case (Nominative, Possessive and Objective) with Number (Singular or Plural), sometimes with separate columns for Gender (Masculine, Feminine, Neuter). Included in the tables are ‘thou’, ‘thy’, ‘thine’, ‘thee’, ‘ye’, ‘you’, ‘your’ and ‘yours’ (p. 35), a total of eight forms compared with only three in modern English. Thus, ‘If thou shouldst love’ (p. 63) is an example of the 2nd person singular ‘Future tense’ of the ‘Subjunctive mood’ .

The chapter on Syntax contains Parsing Charts like the ones below for ten word classes:

Parsing example — Parsing charts for Nouns, Pronouns and Adjectives (Nesfield, 1898, p. 122)

Each of the main sections contains sample questions from London Matriculation Papers set between 1879 and 1897. These examples are typical:

- Modern English Grammar:
  - ‘State clearly the rules of English Accidence with regard to the use of shall and will in Assertive sentences.’ (p. 139).
  - ‘Prove that vowel-change is not the decisive mark of the Strong conjugation.’ (p. 142).
- Idiom and Construction:
  - ‘Explain and parse the following phrases:- methinks; woe is me; I had as lief.’ (p. 218).
  - ‘Point out any grammatical errors that are common in ordinary colloquial speech. Say exactly what you understand by “good English”.’ (p. 219).
- Historical English: Word Building and Derivation:
  - ‘What is a vowel? What vocalic sounds exist in modern English? Show particularly how they are all expressed by means of the six Roman vowels.’ (p. 423).
  - ‘What traces of reduplication can you adduce in the tense formation of verbs in English (Old and Modern).’ (p. 428).

I don’t know much of Nesfield’s grammar had to be digested by pupil teachers, but if Childs’s account is anything to go by, there was a great deal of rote-learning across the whole curriculum, and relatively little understanding — ‘a hot-bed of cram’, he called it (1933, p. 3). All that mattered was getting enough marks in the Queen’s Scholarship Examination to qualify for the training college of one’s choice.

Sources

Childs, W. M. (1933). Making a university: an account of the university movement at Reading. London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd.

Nesfield, J. C. (1898). English grammar past and present. London: Macmillan.

Reading College. Calendar, 1898-99 & 1899-1900.

August 29, 2022

Early Days of Educational Research at Reading

In the 1880s, before the University Extension College became Reading College and before the latter became a University College, research was taking place in the Departments of Science and Agriculture; regular supplements to the College Journal reported the results of agricultural field experiments.

Educational Research

The first records of school-based research did not appear until 1910-11:

‘Mr. Wolters has conducted some interesting experiments at the Demonstration School with regard to Child Study; and Mr. A. W. Seaby tried some experiments with the older boys in drawing and design work. A short experimental study of fatigue in school was made by students preparing for the London University Examinations in Education.’ (Report of the Academic Board, 1910-11, p. 41)

The names Wolters and Seaby will be familiar to readers of this blog. Albert Wolters went on to found the Psychology Department and was Deputy Vice-Chancellor between 1946 and 1950; Allen Seaby became Professor of Fine Arts in 1920, and was Departmental Director from 1911. Both contributed to Teacher Education programmes and had experience teaching children (Wolters had qualified as an Elementary School teacher at Reading).

The ‘Demonstration School’ was Redlands School, and its three headteachers, including Eliza Chattaway, Head of Infants (see earlier post about the Farm School), were members of the College’s Teacher Education section. Redlands became a convenient focus for research activity, as shown by a report in the College Review under the heading of ‘Educational Experiments’.

Three such experiments were conducted in the Demonstration School ‘and other selected schools’:

1. Spelling: the relative success of class teaching versus private study in learning spelling (instruction was twice as effective at all ages).
2. Imagination: children were given the beginning of a story that they were asked to complete. It was found that girls tended to describe scenery, whereas the boys focused on actions. We are told that, ‘The London boys occasionally referred to common incidents of life in town, while the provincial children kept exclusively to Fairyland.’ (p. 22).
3. Memory: ‘A hundred boys were made to learn a series of twelve numbers, the number of readings required to obtain a correct repetition being noted. It was found that there was great improvement between the ages of seven and ten and practically no improvement later.’ (College Review, 1910, p.22)

The Logbooks of Redlands School show that, following the creation of a Senior Mixed Department in 1929, University Education staff immediately requested further collaboration and, within weeks, a certain Miss Campbell (Lecturer in Education – see below) arranged for her students to administer intelligence tests in the lower part of the school.

Redlands composite — Redlands Primary School, August 2022

Further information about educational research is hard to find. Projects probably took place that never found their way into College documents. I can find no evidence of any ‘experiments’ being published. Nevertheless, according to H. Armstrong’s overview of the history of the Education Department:

‘Investigations in teaching methods by members of the Education Staff were an important feature from the earliest days. It is interesting to record here an example of experimental work done by students themselves. Early in 1923, at St. John’s Schools, students tried out the Dalton Plan.’ (Armstrong, 1949, p. 15)

The Dalton Plan was a progressive scheme of learning designed by Helen Pankhurst in the USA. There was no formal class teaching; pupils worked at their own pace and designed their own timetables. The students at Reading concluded that:

‘…. class teaching must retain its decisive place in school administration, and could not be put aside.’

This and other ‘experiments’ raise questions about the extent to which the students were given free rein, how it was negotiated with the school, what preparation they received, and how parents, children and regular class teachers felt about it! Did anyone think about ethics?

Publications

The first list of staff publications appeared once the original College had acquired the status of University College, Reading. The list was published in the Official Gazette in 1903, and contains just 9 academic publications by 5 staff in the Letters and Science Departments, followed by a set of Technical Reports, mainly from Agriculture (e.g. ‘Practical Buttermaking’ by Mr Edward Brown). But it does also include an item titled ‘Blackboard Drawing’ by Allen Seaby (see above). This is the first record of a published contribution to the field of Education.

Subsequently, lists of publications appear only intermittently with Agriculture figuring prominently (‘The Value of Poultry Manure’ by Edward Brown & W. Brown, 1907).

In 1906, however, Education was represented again: W. G. de Burgh, Lecturer in Philosophy and Classics, published ‘The Development of Individuality in the Young: an Address to Students of Education’ in the ‘The Parents’ Review’. (Burgh became Dean of the Faculty of Letters in 1907 and was Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University from 1926 to 1934).

De Burgh wasn’t the only member of the College to publish in The Parents’ Review. In the Annual Report for 1909-10, H.S. Cooke, Lecturer in Education (later Master of Method and Head of Department), was author of ‘The Real Meaning of Children’s Play’.

‘The Parents’ Review’ described itself as ‘A Monthly Magazine of Home-Training and Culture’ and, between about 1890 and 1920, was distributed to parents and teachers engaged in homeschooling .

The following is an illustrative sample of publications relating to Education, set out as they appear in the Annual Reports:

- 1909-10: ‘Mr. Cooke:- “School Practice Guide and Instructions” (C. Elsbury, Reading).
- 1911-12: The Principal [W. M. Childs] .. .. “The Essentials of University Education.” (Hibbert Journal April, 1912).
- 1911-12: Professor de Burgh .. .. “The Use and Abuse of Educational Theory.” (Parents’ Review), March and April, 1912).
- 1912-13: Miss Chattaway .. .. “School Nature Rambles.” (Oxford Elementary Schoolbooks, 1912, pp. 221).
- 1913-14: Professor Edith Morley “Teaching as a Profession for Women.” (Educational Times, June, 1914).
- 1918-19: Professor Edith Morley … The Teaching of English. A Series of Papers read at a Conference at University College Reading, July, 1918. (Pamphlet 43 of the English Association).

Between 1903 and 1926, the year of the Royal Charter, just six members of staff produced literature on the theme of Education – a total of 17 publications. These were mainly practical guides or opinion pieces. None involved involving data collection and analysis, although Eliza Chattaway’s book is a (probably idealised) record of a year’s nature study with the children at Redlands Infants’ School.

Chattaway book — Frontispiece and title page of Eliza Chattaway’s book

Three of the contributors were based outside the Education Department. Of these, Edith Morley, as the most prolific, deserves a special mention. Over the course of this period, in addition to her research on English Language and Literature, she developed a reputation as an expert on the Teaching of English and organised a conference on the subject that took place in the Great Hall in July 1918. It was attended by over 300 people and was reported in the Journal of Education and The Times Educational Supplement. She edited the Volume of Proceedings that can be seen in the illustrative sample above.

Such was Morley’s interest in English teaching that two years later the Report of the Academic Board reported that:

‘Professor Morley gave evidence before the Government Commission appointed to report upon the study and teaching of English Language and Literature.’ (p. 14).

The outcome of this was the Newbolt Report of 1921 (see note below) in which Morley is mentioned as an Individual Witness.

The Reading Room at MERL: Complete sets of Annual Reports and Accounts, 1892 to 1924, from the University Extension College, Reading College and University College, Reading.

On Becoming a University

The University took a more rigorous approach to recording publications. From 1925-6 onwards, the annual Proceedings combined the list of publications across departments and it contained only items that had been approved by the Research Board. The list is in three sections: I. Books; II. Articles embodying Results of Original Work; III. Other Publications. The list is longer than ever before, raising questions about how complete the earlier College lists had been.

We also find the first indication of a research grant for education from University funds: E. Smith received £20 ‘for travelling expenses incurred in connexion with researches on the history of English education between 1660 and 1714’ (Proceedings, 1925-6).

The following year, Isabella Campbell (see above) was awarded £15 ‘for travelling expenses incurred in consulting literature bearing upon her research on temperament tests’. In 1943 Campbell became the first lecturer in the Education Department to obtain a PhD on ‘A study of abstract thinking and linguistic development with reference to the education of the child of ‘average’ intelligence.’ In the same year, Charles Rawson became the first Education student to be awarded a doctorate for his work on the WWII evacuation.

Such events had been predicted by an article by Childs in Tamesis in 1926 which considered the implications of becoming a University:

‘Some of [Reading’s degree students] will, I hope, proceed to our higher degrees, Ph.D. and M.A., and the doctorates. Here comes in research, and all I need to say on this topic is that we intend to do our utmost to make our University famous for research and scholarship.’ (p. 86).

Educational Research Today

These humble beginnings may seem a far cry from the achievements of the present Institute of Education. Nevertheless, thanks to the work of early pioneers, particularly those like Isabella Campbell and Albert Wolters who crossed disciplinary and departmental boundaries, a tradition was established that led to today’s internationally recognised research programme, with its valued contribution to theory and practice across the education, language and learning spectrum.

Toby — Using eye-tracking technology in the Institute of Education, August 2018

Note

The Newbolt Committee and its Report were named after its chair, Sir Henry Newbolt – a historian, novelist, poet and adviser to the Government of the day.

The Newbolt Report was often quoted by educationalists and linguists when Michal Gove, Secretary of State for Education (2010-2014), reformed the English curriculum for Primary Schools and Introduced tests of Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation (SPAG). A particular favourite of those opposed to the reforms was Newbolt’s reference to the unpopularity of grammar as the most hated part of the curriculum – an inspector’s report of 1894 is quoted, stating that, ‘English Grammar has disappeared in all but a few schools, to the joy of children and teacher.’ (Para. 51)

For the benefit of cricket lovers: in his role as poet, it was Sir Henry Newbolt who penned the famous line, ‘Play up! play up! and play the game!’

Sources

Armstrong, H. (1949). A brief outline of the growth of the Department. In H. C. Barnard (Ed.), The Education Department through fifty years (pp. 9-17). University of Reading.

Board of Education (1921). The teaching of English in England [The Newbolt Report]. London: HMSO.

Childs, W. M. (1926). Our University. Tamesis, Vol. XXV. No. 7. Summer Term, pp. 83-6.

Holt, J. C. (1977). The University of Reading: the first fifty years. Reading: University of Reading Press.

Rooke, P. (1991). Redlands: a hundred years at school, 1891-1991. Reading: Redlands School Parents’ Teacher Association.

The Journal of the University Extension College, Reading, Vols 2 & 3, 1895-96 & 1896-97.

The Reading University College Review, Vol. III, 1910, pp. 21-22.

University College, Reading. Accounts and Annual Reports, 1906 to 1925.

University College, Reading. Official Gazette. No. 31. Vol. II. 10th December, 1903.

University College, Reading. Official Gazette. No. 51. Vol. V. July 3, 1907.

University of Reading. Proceedings of the University, 1925-26 & 1926-27.