The Working Men's College and the Tradition of Adult Education

by Tom Schuller (Editor), Richard Taylor (Editor)

Overview

The Working Men’s College (WMC) is the UK’s oldest continuously running adult education institution, and a very distinctive example of the British adult education tradition. This volume brings the history of the WMC up to date, following the 1954 centenary history by JFC Harrison.

Contributions from a range of professional educators explore topics such as the philosophy of the College, the issue of women’s entry, college governance and the notion of community as it applies to changes in the composition of the student body. Additional features include a chapter on the architectural history of the College; an interview with Satnam Gill as the key figure who drove through crucial change at a time when the College might have died; a chapter from the latest member of a family which has been closely involved with the College over four generations; and a range of personal contributions from tutors and students from the past six decades.

This book will be of interest to historians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, all those in UK adult education, along with local Camden/London community and political groups and the WMC’s extensive family of former students and tutors.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781040090923
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	07/05/2024
Series:	Routledge Studies in Modern British History
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	206
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

Tom Schuller chaired the Governing Board of the Working Men’s College from 2008 to 2018. He is a former Dean and Professor of Lifelong Learning at Birkbeck, University of London. His latest book is The Paula Principle: How and Why Women Lose Out At Work (2017).

Richard Taylor is Emeritus Professorial Fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge, and was Professor and Director of Continuing Education and Lifelong Learning at the Universities of Cambridge and, before that, Leeds. His most recent book is English Radicalism in the Twentieth Century: A Distinctive Politics? (2020).

Table of Contents

Introduction Part One 1. From FD Maurice and Christian Socialism to secular radicalism: continuities and differences 2. From benign neglect to narrow utilitarianism? Adult education policy since the Second World War and its impact on the College 3. The College building: embodying the ethos Part Two 4. The governance of the College: accountability, strategy and ethos. Appendix to chapter 4: Money matters. Personal memoirs 1. 5. The educational context: the changing programme and curriculum of the College. Personal memoirs 2
6. Learning communities 7. Interview with Satnam Gill: leading the College into the twenty-first century 8. Interrupting the ‘fellowship’: women, equal opportunities and change at the WMC Personal memoirs 3. 9. The Franklin family and the College, 1882 to 2017 and beyond. Personal memoirs 4. 10. Fellow institutions: the College in relation to other SDIs Personal memoirs 5 Part Three 11. The ‘College tradition’ and future challenges