Progenitors
After seven years at Warwick University I had become disenchanted with what I considered to be the mismanagement of the post-redbrick expansion of University education. There were three threads to the yarn: an overall lowering in the quality of the professoriat; a recognition that many of the students didn’t deserve to be at university or, in many cases, weren’t capable of benefiting from the opportunity they had been given; and a mismatch between the level of donations received and the relevance of the objects to which they were put.
Then, out of the blue, came an opportunity to take part in the founding of a university that I hoped would be run on business lines. A colleague in the Library spotted an advertisement for the post of Librarian at what was then called The Independent University, and came to show it me. I sent right away for further particulars, and sure enough it was to be a product of private initiative, located in Buckingham.
Its evolution had started six years earlier. Max Beloff, Gladstone Professor of Government and Public Administration at Oxford University, had written an essay on ‘British Universities and the Public Purse,’ and Harry S Ferns, Professor of Political Science at Birmingham University, a paper entitled ‘A Radical Proposal for the Universities,’ both on similar lines.
The catalyst which precipitated the establishment of the new institution, however, was a letter written to The Times in 1967 by a consultant physician, Dr John W Paulley. ‘Is it not time,’ he wrote, ‘to examine the possibility of creating at least one new university in this country on the pattern of those great private foundations in the U.S.A. without whose stimulus and freedom of action the many excellent state universities in that country would be so much the poorer?’
Meetings ensued that led to a Memorandum of Association, dated 29 March 1973, which enabled the Independent University to become the University College at Buckingham as a legally constituted entity. The following month I was invited to become its Librarian. And what a coincidence it was that Paulley’s seminal letter had been published on 27 May, the very date of my own birthday.
Its only resort is the law of surprises.
A Matter of Degrees
There was, as it happened, already a scholarly institution in Buckingham with regal connections, namely the Royal Latin School. King Edward VI had granted a charter for the school in 1548, and in 1973 it remained one of only relatively few grammar schools in the country after the conversion of most into comprehensive schools. Its previous home in the town was the fifteen-century Chantry Chapel. One of our requirements before I accepted the job was to ensure that we would be able to find good schooling for the children; so, well in advance, we visited the RLS and it was confirmed that they would both be accepted.
Not many people who already had a well paid and secure job, with growing children and a good circle of friends, who visited the derelict site where the College was to be built, would have been tempted to take up a post there. I had already found myself unemployed on two previous occasions, having stepped outside the comfort zone of publicly financed and pensionable employment. Still, we proceeded to look for a house and it was agreed that I would start on 1 September.
Funding
A substantial benefaction had enabled a handful of administrative and academic staff to be recruited, and negotiations had been conducted which led to strong expectations that several large companies and foundations were proposing to make further donations. But only a matter of weeks later, on 6 October, Egypt and Syria launched surprise attacks on Israel. It proved to be a short war, ending on 24 October in a resounding victory for the Israeli Army.
Funding which might otherwise have come Buckingham’s way may have been diverted to ensure that result; but whether or not that was the case, the simultaneous cutting of oil supplies to the West had a serious impact on the UK economy, which itself put severe restrictions on the raising of funds. Ted Heath’s government was faced with having to rescue businesses and implement both price and incomes policies to stave off inflation; and industrial action was rampant.
Even as early as the following 1 January, I was presenting a discussion paper to an ad hoc staff meeting. It spoke of the ‘present air of gloom and despondency’ and warned that ‘If morale reaches too low an ebb we may even be faced with desertions.’ Were things really that bad? Well yes, as a member of Senate, I knew that they were. Two professors deserted and another hedged his bets by taking a non-professorial post elsewhere, on the understanding that if the College survived he could have his job back.
It is little wonder, especially having been in such situations before, that I should myself consider moving on. An attractive post elsewhere was being advertised nationally and I put the matter before the Principal, Professor Beloff. His response was that he would be happy to support my application, but that if I left Buckingham he also would leave. That might, of course, have been too spontaneous a reaction on his part, but I had to believe him. I told him there and then that I would stay. The die was cast.
Recruiting Students
During the planning stages of the College, consultations took place with schools and prospective employers of students, and these gave it a certain amount of publicity, but at times it seemed that too little attention was being given to the matter of attracting students. After all, the whole enterprise would depend on income from fees. Meetings were succeeded by open days, but all they really amounted to in the end was forums for obtaining the participants’ views and advice. Even setting 3 February 1976 as the opening date failed to set in motion a vigorous recruitment programme.
Dithering
Clearly, the interminable round of negotiations and consultations had to stop and be replaced by immediate executive action. I set about producing a preliminary prospectus for potential applicants. As many of the teaching staff were not yet in post, I sent out urgent requests for course descriptions from those who were designing them. There was no precedent to follow, so I had not only to assemble the details, including dates of terms and fees, but also to ensure consistency of presentation and style.
In the founding of a new university it is particularly important to establish good working relations with the students, and I was asked to chair a Student Liaison Committee. It was to be expected that, as fee payers, their wish list would be quite extensive, and dealing with it did require a good deal of diplomacy. Some early requests that were catered for included a dispensing machine for condoms, a tennis court, and gymnasium equipment. Recreation was clearly going to be an antidote to study.
The most precarious situation I found myself in was much later, at the Beloffs’ house in Brighton. Max had telephoned, asking me to go down and collect a number of books as a gift to the Library. When I arrived he took me upstairs and into his bathroom. To my amazement I saw that it carried a single self all round, laden with books. It struck me as being a far from appropriate environment for them. While some could be reached via a step ladder, getting quite a lot of them meant standing on the rim of the bath. Then they had to be taken downstairs and out to the car in armfuls. With the cargo safely on board I thought, ‘What a lucky escape, and not just for the books!
Down in Kent, after loading a very useful collection from a rather elegant house, clearly the home of a successful business man, I was given refreshments. The room was home to a fine grand piano, and I soon discovered that my hostess was none other than the internationally acclaimed pianist Eileen Joyce.
A run of the House of Commons Hansard in a North Yorkshire mansion posed an unexpected problem. I arrived after a long journey, only to be told that due to meetings being held I would not be able to keep using the front door. However, the room with the books was not being used by the visitors and was situated at the rear. My suggestion that I could take the volumes out through one of its large sash windows didn’t exactly meet with warm approval; but having promised to take the greatest of care, I was allowed to lug them out that way. I emulated a professional removal man, stacking them in batches on the deep window sill, swinging myself out onto the lawn, picking up half dozens and tramping round to my car, parked on the shingle drive. It was certainly good physical exercise.
The proceedings were far more civil when I showed my pass to enter the precinct of the House of Commons. Having parked I was ushered to the room where my host, an MP, received me and helped in transporting the Parliamentary Papers he had assembled to the boot I had left open.
I was well acquainted with the National Library of Science and Technology which extended its subject coverage and became the Lending Division of the new British Library. It circulated lists of duplicates from which libraries throughout the country could request selected items. I knew that this stock was held in a designated part of the Library and obtained permission to check through it. The building was located in Boston Spa, way up to the north-east of Leeds, but it proved to be a trip well worth making.
By working my way systematically through the shelves I discovered that, along with many other goodies, I had been piling up all the nominate law reports I needed to complete the whole set. These were the published reports of English court cases made by individuals between 1220 and 1867, before law reporting was officially taken over by the Council of Law Reporting.
They were not at all easy to come by. What I did on my return was strike a deal with the proprietor of Professional Books of Abingdon, Oxfordshire whereby he would borrow this set for the purpose of making and publishing a good quality reprint of them under the title of the English Reports, and I’d receive a set of the new 178 volumes gratis for the Library. Since then, libraries all over the world have been able once more to obtain copies of that valuable record.
Public Opinion
Precedents dominate rulings in court:
Current opinion should always be sought.
The sheer quantity of literature I acquired made it necessary to use the Radcliffe Centre, a former church in the town, to process it. This applied in particular to material in serial form, for example when issues of journals from different sources had to be sorted into chronological order or gaps in sequences of volumes such as the Statutes at Large needed to be filled. The building at times felt like a trading station, with loads I had acquired coming in and surplus items going out to specialist dealers.
The University College Opens
A Nobel Laureate
A World First
One of my excursions to Oxford of special importance to the University College was in connection with negotiations I had entered into with Mr Richard Blackwell regarding funding. These had reached the point where Blackwells’ Board of Directors needed to be consulted, and I was invited to meet them. Having put the College’s case, a sum of money was agreed against which the cost price of books selected by the Library could be set. This proved of great benefit, most particularly in establishing the basic stock of legal handbooks; they were exceptionally expensive and needed constant replacing as new editions were published.
It was also with Blackwells that we achieved what I believe was a world first. It took the form of a computer system through which, at the touch of a few keys, the Library was able to consult that internationally famous book supplier’s extensive bibliographic information files. It was a forerunner to what would now be done via the Internet, and dramatically improved the efficiency of book selection as well as purchasing and related procedures.
Gown and Town
The architect adopted the recommendation in a paper I had written that we should abandon earlier over-ambitious building projects and devote our resources instead to removing the old pigsties and renovating the existing properties in Hunter Street. A priority would be upgrading the Commander’s House, the former headquarters of the Royal Bucks Hussars, to provide offices for the Principal and other administrative staff. In this way we would meet the service requirements for our first student intakes and provide material evidence of a functioning institution. Meanwhile our presence was manifest in a rented converted bank next to the Town Hall and a nearby building historically called The Brewery House.
Professor Beloff was pleased to take Joyce on board, initially as the Local Liaison Officer on a part time basis, providing links with the local press and making arrangements for meetings and functions. She also organized musical evenings to which local residents were invited. In fact she brought Europe’s leading baroque orchestra, The English Concert and its renowned conductor Trevor Pinnock, to the College as a sponsored event.
In due course, now as Assistant Bursar, Joyce also assumed the role of Accommodation Officer, keeping her closely involved in town affairs. We couldn’t take it for granted that everyone who lived in or near the town of Buckingham welcomed the advent of the College. One who was quite opposed was Denis Foot, the Mayor. It was important to get him on side, and it’s possible that employing his daughter in the Library contributed to his conversion.
Niven, Branson and Marc Gené
We established good relations with nearby Stowe School, where actor and film star David Niven was taught and Richard Branson showed early signs of his entrepreneurial skills. Much later on, the latter entered a team into Formula One under the ‘Virgin’ banner, and this brings to mind the F1 racing driver Spaniard Marc Gené. Doubtless attracted to Buckingham by the town’s proximity to the Silverstone circuit (and to Stowe) Marc registered as a student of the University.
The Old Town Hall
The 18th century Town Hall stood at the confluence of four roads in a prime position overlooking the square and the Old Gaol beyond it. At the time we were there it still had its courtroom and three cells, but when a Civic Centre was built the County had little use for it. Thinking it might be useful to the University College, they offered the building to me for the sum of one penny. Not only because it would have been costly to renovate and convert to College purposes, but also considering its poor access and lack of parking space, we sadly had to decline.
The Monastery
The former Franciscan Monastery on the southern outskirts of the town was an altogether different proposition. Built of red brick in the nineteenth century, it was in sound condition and stood in tree-lined grounds. There was no other building of its size in the town, and when I learnt in 1977 that it was shortly to come on the market, it was clear to me that it was vital, if at all possible, that the College should acquire it. I put the proposition strongly to a meeting of the College’s Council of Management, and conditional on the arrangement of funding it was accepted. The final human link with the Monastery was Brother Brendan, whose deep knowledge of horticulture led helpfully to his becoming gardener to the College.
The Open University
On the academic side of things, an early attraction was Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s brainchild, the Open University. Located in Milton Keynes, some saw it solely as being on the other side of the political divide from the nascent University of Buckingham. In fact the OU Librarian, John Simpson, and I were soon exchanging visits and fostering good relations between the two institutions. And it so happened that in 1973 the Open University adopted the second edition of my book British Official Publications as a set text for its degree courses in Politics.
LORDS OF THE REALM
Anyone who has read the book that Joyce and I wrote on the conception, foundation and early years of Buckingham University, when it was still called the University College at Buckingham (UCB), will already be aware of the number of Lords of the Realm associated with it. Here I shall have to be selective; and, to avoid controversy, I am using alphabetical order to introduce those who appear.
My first meeting with Max Beloff, the first Principal of the University College at Buckingham, was at his invitation in Oxford, where he was Gladstone Professor of Government and Public Administration. I was still at Warwick at the time, and I knew that my colleague Malcolm Anderson, Professor of Politics there, had been acquainted with him for some time. So I asked Malcolm what I could expect when dealing with his former mentor. His reply was ‘Don’t expect any compliments, but if he doesn’t criticize you you’ll know you’re doing things right.’ That wasn’t far out, but I would add that Max was very approachable. If I wanted to see him I could just tap on his door. He would cross from his desk to a small table where we’d sit and deal with the matter in hand. Once a decision was made it was adhered to. You might call it his management style.
Always behind him was the academic, not the businessman, and he would maintain that it wasn’t his job to raise funds. What motivated him was bringing to fruition his philosophy of independence in the domain of university education, about which he had already written. He left Buckingham in 1979, having contributed significantly to the establishment of a university not funded from the public purse.
In the following year he received a knighthood, and in the next he became a Life Peer, often speaking on education in the House of Lords. I know how gratified he would have been to learn that in the next century the chartered University of Buckingham was voted top for student satisfaction several years in succession.
Something we shared was a deep concern about the country’s waning capacity for self-government in the face of EU institutions that lacked accountability.
If I was in any way able to influence him, it was by enlightening him on the benefits to be gained from adopting professional practices in library administration that went beyond the arrangement of books shelved in alphabetical order of authors’ names!
Denning
In 1977 there was a ceremonial unveiling at the College when Lord Denning, created Baron in 1957 and Master of the Rolls from 1962-82, revealed a plaque inaugurating the Denning Law Library. This also served as an occasion for a number of eminent lawyers to honour him. There are many things that he will be remembered for. Some readers will recall the inquiry he chaired into the Profumo sex scandal of 1963, and the report thereon which rapidly became a best-seller. But what isn’t so widely known is the serious interest he took in the education of students in Africa and elsewhere abroad; and the fact that Buckingham was also providing a legal education for overseas students greatly commended itself to him. Above all, he was dedicated to defending the rights of the individual, a cause that led to his coining the phrase ‘Freedom under the law,’ for which he will long be remembered.
Members of the national press were present at the unveiling ceremony, and his Lordship was to address the students afterwards. I was asked by the reporters if they could attend the address and sought Lord Denning’s permission, which he granted. As the speech revealed his views on a contentious issue, it was widely reported by the press who, as a surety, gave my name and position as go-between.
Hailsham
Turning to Lord Hailsham, formerly Quintin Hogg, a very damaging delay in enabling Buckingham to grant degrees was an extended dialogue with the Council for National Academic Awards (CNNA). How ironic, then, that it was that very body which his Lordship himself had inaugurated when he was Secretary of State.
Much before that, of course, was a more light-hearted episode when as Party Chairman in 1957 he kept ringing a town crier’s handbell from the platform of the Conservative Party Conference to raise the spirits of delegates in the wake of the Suez debacle. In the expectation that he would become Prime Minister when Macmillan resigned, he disclaimed his peerage, but the Party chose Alec Douglas-Home instead. In 1970 Edward Heath asked him to become Lord Chancellor. Accepting a life peerage he took that post, becoming the longest-serving holder in the twentieth century.
He was the University’s first Chancellor, from 1983-92, and on the many occasions when he gave orations at convocations in the Parish Church, I sat in awe of his impromptu, fluent deliveries. Back in May 1974 I was stationed in my car on a slip road off the A5 waiting for him to arrive from London so that I could escort him to the College. He was on his way to the ceremony at which he was to unveil the College’s foundation plaque. Very few people present knew that it was I who had written his introductory speech.
Harris
In the decade before he was created Lord Harris of High Cross (once described as ‘the most friendly and least lordly of peers’), Ralph Harris was a prominent figure in promoting the interests of the College. At a critical time he succeeded in securing from a benefactor the capital required for purchasing its first site, that on Hunter Street. He figured also as a signatory to the Certificate of Incorporation issued on 29 March 1973, when the University College at Buckingham formally came into being.
A true enabler, he continued to bring together key players in its development, frequently using the offices of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), of which he was Director, for that purpose. An instance of this was when he ensured that Professor H S Ferns, an early proponent of the University, produced a substantial paper entitled Towards an Independent University. And yes, it was published and distributed by the IEA!
At a meeting of the College’s Council, in London, I presented a report on budgeting for the proposed Library, including average prices of books in the subjects to be taught. Harris rose to dispute my figures, using IEA publications as his comparator, and accordingly I was asked to check my calculations. This I did, supporting my results at the following meeting by quoting the relevant trade sources. The projections I gave were exactly the same as before. There was some consternation round the table, but instantly John MacCallum Scott, himself a publisher, resolved the issue by quoting the Latin phrase, ‘suaviter in modo, fortiter in re’ (gentle in manner, resolute in action).
I credited Harris not only for his ready acceptance of my calculations but also for the manner in which he conveyed it. From then onwards we retained one another’s respect, something I deeply appreciated.
I was a member of the interviewing panel which supported the then Sir Richard Luce’s appointment to the post of Vice-Chancellor at Buckingam and recall his insistence on being known as ‘a people person.’ This I interpreted as having charisma and being able to interact well with others. The extent to which he might have shown these traits came from his experience both in business and politics.
In fact he retired from the Commons at the 1992 General Election. That was the time when Kinnock was expected to win for Labour and The Sun newspaper urged that if he did ‘will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights.’ As it happened, John Major won for the Conservatives, and Luce stepped into the vacant post at Buckingham. Coming from a non-academic background, he described himself in his 2007 book Ringing the Changes: a memoir, as feeling ‘rather as though I had been appointed captain of a ship without having been in the Navy.’
His tenure proved to be the prelude to a succession of even more elevated positions, first as Governor of Gibraltar, then Lord Chamberlain to HM The Queen, and to his being created a Life Peer as Baron Luce and a Knight Companion of the Order of the Garter.
I felt the warmth of his ‘people person’ nature in a letter to me saying: ‘I am writing to record my warmest thanks for your exceptional services to this University. You can be most proud of your role and loyalty to this unique institution since the very beginning.’
Scarman
Though best remembered for his report on the Brixton racial riots of 1981 and his earlier investigation of the Northern Ireland civil disturbances, Lord Scarman was also a well known figure in academic circles. From 1973 to 1976 he was Chairman of the Council of Legal Education, and from 1977 to 1989 served as Chancellor of Warwick University. Television buffs will recall that his part was played in an episode of the Ashes to Ashes series by actor Geoffrey Palmer.
Tanlaw
It was with the greatest pleasure that I learnt of the ceremonial installation on 4 September 2010 of Lord Tanlaw as the University’s fourth Chancellor.
HRH The Duke of Edinburgh
On 17 February 1978, His Royal Highness landed his helicopter of the Queen’s Flight in the grounds of Buckingham University. There he was greeted officially by Sir Ralph Verney, Vice-Lieutenant of the County, and unofficially by large numbers of townsfolk who had invaded the area. It was a memorable and stimulating prelude to the College’s first Graduation Ceremony, due to take place that same afternoon. There was a moment indoors when he and I were standing side by side. He noticed the tie I was wearing, deliberately chosen for the occasion. Pointing to it, he said, ‘I’m Patron of that,’ and I replied, ‘Yes, Sir, I put it on specially.’ It was the tie of the Royal Society of Arts, of which I had become a Fellow three years earlier.
Good Signs
A smile, a nod, a tie, a wink
Mean more to us than we might think.
A First for Buckingham
My least enjoyable encounter with computers was in my dealings with UCCA, the Universities Central Council on Admissions, which provided a central clearing house for university applications in the UK. Unfortunately, the process of downloading information from that remote source to machines at Buckingham that ran on Unix, a different operating system to the one with which I was familiar, pitched me into the steepest of learning curves. Without the requisite data on student applications and acceptances, the Admissions Office was seriously handicapped, so it was imperative that the necessary procedures were put in place. It took many hours devoted to the task over successive weekends to achieve this.
Creating an ethernet link between the Library and the various administrative offices was relatively straightforward, while laying a fibre-optic cable from the University’s Verney Park Campus to the Hunter Street Campus via the Royal Latin School’s grounds involved protracted negotiations with the County Education Office and finding a reliable cabling contractor. Taken together, these initiatives took the University a big step forward.
When the opportunity came for me to take part in the founding of what was at first called The Independent University, I was quick to seize it. Such an institution, not reliant on public funding, would be able to make its own decisions instead of having to follow the dictates of some faceless regulatory body. Just as Switzerland serves as a model of independence in European law-making, so what is now called Buckingham University serves as a model of independence in UK higher education. I feel sure that said country in the Alps would not let the EU dictate the closure of its post offices, let alone set the rate of its VAT and taxes on fuel as we do. In fact three-quarters of all UK laws now proceed from Brussels, and I fear a future when that figure becomes one-hundred per cent, thereby completing the emasculation of our nation.
