Lionel Elvin: Difference between revisions

'''Herbert Lionel Elvin''' (7 August 1905 -in [[Buckhurst Hill]] &ndash; 14 June 2005 in [[Cambridge]]) was an eminent [[educationist]].<ref>[http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nra/searches/subjectView.asp?ID=P9307 The National Archives | National Register of Archives | Person details | Archive Details<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> (b.[[Buckhurst Hill]], d. Cambridge).

He studied at [[Southend High School for Boys]], for which he wrote the lyrics for the school song, and [[Trinity Hall, Cambridge]], where he achieved first class honours in English and History. He was also President of the [[Cambridge Union Society]] and an accomplished athlete, representing Cambridge in the half-mile against Oxford in 1927.<ref>[httphttps://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/professor-lionel-elvin-494339.html Professor Lionel Elvin - Obituaries, News - The Independent<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>

After a two-year Commonwealth Fund Fellowship at [[Yale]], Elvin returned to Trinity Hall in 1930 as the college's first Fellow with responsibility for teaching English. (Hehe was tutor to media theoristboth [[Marshall McLuhan]] and [[Raymond Williams]] while athe Trinitywas Hall.there). He became the Senior Treasurer of the then newly formed [[Cambridge University Labour Club]] in Easter Term 1934. InThat 1934same year, he also married Mona Bedortha Dutton (died 1997; one son).

His interest in education was broadened by membership of Cambridge Town Council and by the work of [[Henry Morris (education)|Henry Morris]], chief education officer for Cambridgeshire, who was the creator of "village colleges" in the county. Elvin was also active in the Workers' Educational Association and served as Treasurer of its Eastern District. Elvin was a man of the left, a radical and a "non-Christian"; his adherence to his principles led him to refuse numerous honours, although he did accept the honorary fellowships awarded to him by Trinity Hall and the Institute of Education. He was a person of great charm and modesty (his Who's Who entry included under recreations "most games indifferently").<ref>{{cite He was also the first Chairman of Amnesty International.encyclopedia

*1958-1973 when he retired: Director of the [[UCL Institute of Education|Institute of Education at London University]]

His [[Second World War]] service was in the Air Ministry and in the American Division of the Ministry of Information, but in 1944 he moved to a very different environment with his appointment as Principal of Ruskin College, Oxford. His chief rival for the post was [[Richard Crossman]]. In his autobiography, ''Encounters with Education'' (1987), Elvin, who had stood unsuccessfully as the Labour parliamentary candidate for [[Cambridge University (UK Parliament constituency)|Cambridge University]] in the election of 1935, recorded, "I do not think any five years in my career were more enjoyable than those I spent in Ruskin."

[[Category:BritishAlumni educationistsof Trinity Hall, Cambridge]]