This film is one of a large collection of films from Bradford College, from the late 1960s to early 1970s. The collection mainly highlights various courses, such as hairdressing, and the construction of the new Westbrook extensions.  The history of the College merges with that of the University of Bradford, dating back to the Mechanics Institute in 1832, right up to their going their separate ways in in 1957 when Bradford Technical College became a College of Advanced Technology (CAT),...

This film is one of a large collection of films from Bradford College, from the late 1960s to early 1970s. The collection mainly highlights various courses, such as hairdressing, and the construction of the new Westbrook extensions.  The history of the College merges with that of the University of Bradford, dating back to the Mechanics Institute in 1832, right up to their going their separate ways in in 1957 when Bradford Technical College became a College of Advanced Technology (CAT), confirmed as Bradford Institute of Technology by the Hives Committee in 1959, and becoming a university in 1966. This period in its history is a bit confusing: one part delivering  a higher level of technological education, the other absorbing the three Senior Technical Institutes, Belle Vue, Hanson and Carlton by 1959, in which year the   In 1999 the institute settled for the title of Bradford College.  The YFA also has a film collection from the University ¬– see the Context for The Potential Graduate (1968)

The College website provides a good potted history of the College, and in that it notes how Bradford was a pioneer in education and child welfare: introducing day schools, and “the first higher grade school at Feversham Street in 1895; the first school baths at Wapping in 1897; the first school medicals at Usher Street in 1899 that gave birth to the school health service; the first school meals at Green Lane in 1901; the first model for comprehensive education – and the first middle school at Delf Hill.”

Helped initially by funding from local industrialists and the town council, a new building for the Bradford Technical School was opened on 2nd October 1871 by local MP William Edward Forster.  This was followed soon by another new building, which had a grand opening by the then Prince and Princess of Wales (later King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra) on June 23, 1882.  The Technical School was renamed Bradford Technical College.  It naturally focused on subjects allied to the local industry, but it had quite a wide syllabus, including political drawing!  It has expanded its facilities and provisions ever since. 

Mrs Thatcher’s visit would have been just after the opening of the new Westbrook extension to students in 1969, and just before the formal opening in 1972 by the Duchess of Kent (being re-named the Kent Wing).   Her own bias towards science and vocational subjects, as well as her previous work as a research chemist, is revealed in the choice of subjects she is shown around in the film.

Mrs Thatcher had been a rising star in the Conservative Party prior to being appointed Minister of Education by Edward Heath upon the election victory of 1970.  She had been the Shadow Minister for this department when the election fell.  At this time the Department of Education and Science (DES) was traditionally left more or less to its own devices.   And although the newly elected Tory Government had no big policy plans for education, Thatcher wasn’t likely to just go along with existing policy; especially as regards the programme for comprehensive education: swiftly, and without consultation, withdrawing Circular 10/65 requiring comprehensives – see the Context for Ten Years On - Myers Grove School (1969-1970).  In fact, despite her own views, the growth of comprehensives continued with gusto with her say-so.  But her antipathy to anything egalitarian, or ‘progressive’, meant that her three and half years in the department, as she herself later recounted, were rocky ones.

Yet in fact Thatcher resisted the right wing agenda on education being pushed in a series of so-called Black Papers, by those like Rhodes Boyson (however sympathetic to them she might have been, as shown in her memoirs ).  In fact, in raising the school leaving age to 16 Thatcher was more progressive than the previous Labour administration.  Also, she saw her decision to cut school milk provision for those aged between 7 and 11 –¬ for which she famously earned the nickname, from a delegate to the Labour Party conference, ‘Thatcher the Milk Snatcher’ – as merely a continuation of Labour policy (Harold  Wilson didn’t see it this way, even though labour had recently cut it for the over 11s without much fuss).  As far as Further and Higher Education went, this was an area that Thatcher wanted more money to go into – at least as regards science (especially pure science) and vocational training (having little time for the humanities).  So, not only was Thatcher going against the conservative grain in expanding education rather than cut it (though the savings on milk was to be put to this end, in primary education); but she also supported the Open University, something else that the more right wing elements opposed.

Yet when Thatcher was in power as Prime Minister, ten years later, the whole thing was replayed, only this time as students protested against huge cutbacks in government funding of universities.   From receiving as much as 80-90% of their money from central government universities, today this figure has dropped to about a third.   

Thatcher was by no means the first woman Minister - that accolade goes to another Margaret, Margaret Grace Bondfield, appointed by Ramsay McDonald in 1929 as Minister of Labour.  But she got there before her equally uncompromising predecessor Barbara Castle, when she was Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Pensions & National Insurance between 1961 and 1964.  Her subsequent rise to become the first woman prime minister has been seen as a mixed blessing by feminists.  Despite criticisms from some regarding the representation of Thatcher suffering from the effects of dementia, Meryl Streep’s portrayal may have done her more good than harm.  History will give a final verdict.

References

John Campbell, Margaret Thatcher: Vol. I, the Grocer’s Daughter, Vintage, London, 2007.
Margaret Thatcher, The Path to Power, Harper Collins, 1995.
The Margaret Thatcher Foundation