‘THE PAST NO LONGER CASTS LIGHT UPON THE FUTURE; OUR MINDS ADVANCE IN DARKNESS’¹: THE IMPACT AND LEGACY OF SIR ALEC CLEGG’S EDUCATIONAL IDEAS AND PRACTICES IN THE WEST RIDING OF YORKSHIRE (1945-1974)

ABSTRACT

This paper examines and evaluates some aspects of the legacy of the West Riding of Yorkshire County Council and its long serving Chief Education Officer, Sir Alec Clegg, who held the post between 1945 and 1974. Against a subsequent political discourse of markets, choice and autonomy which portrays local authorities as the cause of poor educational outcomes and school failure, political developments have led to a diminution of the role of local authorities, destruction of local democratic accountability and greater centralisation of power and control of education. Drawing on interviews and email correspondence with former pupils, teachers, officers and others of the West Riding, its successor authorities and beyond, we explore the context, tensions, successes and lasting impact of Clegg’s ideas and practice, particularly in relation to support for community development and the arts and creativity. The paper also looks at Clegg’s influence and legacy with regard to selection for secondary education and the role of middle schools, the development of primary education and the impact on successor authorities to the West Riding and beyond.

Keywords:

• Alec Clegg
• education
• administration
• local education authority
• schools
• education policy
• community

8. Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Ian Clayton for starting us off on the journey and good times at the Tap and Barrel in Pontefract. Thanks to all our respondents for their time, conversations, hospitality and support. Thanks are also due to Professor Jon Nixon for his valuable comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of the paper. We would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers who reviewed the original submission of the paper. We acknowledge support for this study through research funding from York St John University, UK. We also wish to record our thanks for support from the Centre for Education and Policy Analysis (CEPA) at Liverpool Hope University, UK. The paper is developed from a talk given at the History of Education Society Conference at University College London (UCL) on 8 November 2019.

9. Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Title taken from De Tocqueville’s 1840 study ‘Democracy in America’ (2003, p.819).

2. The West Riding County Council covering the West Riding of Yorkshire was one of the largest pre-1974 English administrative counties. It was abolished in 1974 following the 1972 Local Government Act. The northern, more rural areas of the West Riding were transferred to a new North Yorkshire County Council whilst the more densely populated and industrial areas in the south of the Riding, centred on the conurbations of Leeds and Sheffield, were reorganised into nine separate unitary councils acting as education authorities.

3. The name mentioned here has been pseudonymised