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The Association of Teachers in Technical Institutions (1904–14)

A Case-Study on the Origins, Formation and Growth of a White-Collar Organization*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

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The purpose of this essay is to examine the emergence and development, between 1904 and 1914, of the Association of Teachers in Technical Institutions. A main conclusion is that the ATTI, in being mainly concerned with its members' employment interests, was implicitly a trade union despite continual protestations by both officers and members that the Association was a professional body and would not “degenerate into a mere trades union […]. For people of education, like teachers, […] it is wrong to begin at the salary end”. In the first place, therefore, this paper is an investigation into certain aspects of the early history of a white-collar union, in this case the organization whose membership was drawn initially from among a small group of teachers in local authority technical institutes in England at the beginning of this century. Secondly, however, insofar as the technical teachers of this period saw themselves as professional people for whom trade unionism was inappropriate, the case-study also, in passing, illustrates the common conflict over the goals sought by most teachers' organizations at some time during their evolution as to whether they “should be concerned only with professional matters or should also fight for better salaries”.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1974

References

page 377 note 1 Report of the Annual General Meeting, 27 October 1906, ATTI Archives, Vol. II: Miscellaneous correspondence and documents, January 1906 – May 1907, ATTI Library, Hamilton House, London. By early 1907, however, with the Association established on a firm national basis, Council had surveyed all members on their salaries, pension rights, hours worked etc. in order to “draw up a ‘Schedule of Salaries’ […] which shall form a standard below which no salary ought to fall” (Salary Survey Form, 15 March 1907, ibid.). Subsequently the Association urged the Board of Education “to make it a condition of the continuation of grants that some such scale be adopted by the Institutions which they inspect” (Executive Committee Minutes, 22 December 1908, ATTI Archives, Vol. XVII: Minutes of General Purposes Committee Meetings, 1904–1907; Minutes of Executive Committee Meetings, 1907–1911).

page 377 note 2 For membership figures from 1904–1914 infra, Table 1. By 1970 the ATTI (now affiliated to the Trades Union Congress) had a membership of about 30,000 out of a total 46,000 full-time teachers in British further and higher education outside of the universities. The Technical Journal, March 1970, p. 8.

page 378 note 1 Blum, A. (ed.), Teacher Unions and Associations (Urbana, 1969), p. viii.Google Scholar In the event, the subsequent history of the ATTI has shown that the realities of salary negotiation for its members have become of greater importance than the falsely perceived sense of occupational status of the Association's founder members and their colleagues.

page 378 note 2 Tropp, A., The School Teachers (London, 1957), p. 44.Google Scholar

page 378 note 3 Ibid., pp. 51 and 54.

page 378 note 4 The word “elementary” was dropped in 1889, ibid., p. 109.

page 378 note 5 Tropp, A., “Elementary Schoolteachers as a Professional Group: 1800 to the present day”, London Ph.D. thesis 1954, Appendix, p. xxviii.Google Scholar

page 378 note 6 There was, of course, a considerable social gulf between the teachers in the state and the private schools and they would be unlikely to form “common” associations.

page 379 note 1 Webb, B., special supplements on “English Teachers and their Professional Organisation”, in: New Statesman, 25 September 1915, pp. 216, and 2 October 1915, pp. 28.Google Scholar

page 379 note 2 ATTI, Proceedings for 1904–05, p. 1.Google Scholar

page 379 note 3 They included specialist bodies like the National Society of Art Masters (1888) and the Training College Association (1892). Webb, loc. cit.

page 379 note 4 There was one local association, the West Riding Association of Teachers of Science, Art and Technology founded in Yorkshire about 1900. It was the first formal organization of technical teachers in England and later became the West Yorkshire branch of the ATTI. See The ATTI: The First Half-Century 1904–1954 (London, 1954), pp. 5 and 12.Google Scholar

page 379 note 5 See Cotgrove, S., Technical Education and Social Change (London, 1958), pp. 16ff.Google Scholar, and Argles, M., South Kensington to Robbins: An Account of English Technical and Scientific Education since 1851 (London, 1964), pp. 129.Google Scholar

page 379 note 6 Cotgrove, op. cit., p. 69.

page 380 note 1 Council Minutes, 4 December 1909, ATTI Archives, Vol. VI: Minutes of Council Meetings, November 1908 – April 1913.

page 380 note 2 Quoted Argles, op. cit., p. 31.

page 381 note 1 For a summary of the main recommendation of the Royal Commission, ibid., pp. 32ff.

page 381 note 2 Ibid., p. 35.

page 381 note 3 Ibid.

page 381 note 4 Although British industrial output doubled between 1870 and 1913, world output increased fourfold. Further, whereas Britain produced about a third of the world's manufactured goods in 1870, by the 1890s it supplied only 20% of total world production. See Ashworth, W., An Economic History of England 1870–1939 (London, 1960), pp. 2545.Google Scholar

page 381 note 5 Ibid.

page 382 note 1 Cotgrove, op. cit., p. 67.

page 382 note 2 They were not like the German colleges of higher technology but “an English blend of philanthropy, adult education, and technical instruction”. Argles, op. cit., p. 39.

page 382 note 3 Lowndes, G. A. N., The Silent Social Revolution (London, 1937), p. 192.Google Scholar For details of the organized science schools, see Argles, op. cit., pp. 21 and 43.

page 382 note 4 Cotgrove, op. cit., pp. 60–70. See also Johnson, F., “The London Polytechnics”, London M.A. thesis, 1929.Google Scholar

Source: Argles, op. cit., p. 38.

page 382 note 6 Cotgrove, op. cit., pp. 63f.

page 383 note 1 Lowndes, op. cit., p. 192.

page 383 note 2 Ibid.

page 383 note 3 This theme constantly recurs in ATTI literature of the period. Refer, for example, to John Wilson's remarks in his presidential address at the annual conference, 18 June 1910: “The need of our activities as advocates of technical education is all the greater at a time like the present, when there is a danger of public attention being engrossed by the demands of elementary and secondary education.” Journal of the ATTI, July 1910, p. 97.

page 383 note 4 Ibid., p. 105.

page 384 note 1 Letter from W. W. Pullen, London, 9 May 1905, to V. A. Mundella, ATTI Archives, Vol. XXVIII: Minutes of Legal Committee, 1905–1912.

page 384 note 2 ATTI, Proceedings for 1906–07, pp. 52f.

page 384 note 3 Adamson, J. W., English Education 1789–1902 (Cambridge, 1930), p. 490.Google Scholar

page 384 note 4 Webb, loc. cit., 2 October 1915, p. 6.

page 384 note 5 See Education, 13 April 1906, p. 281, for further details.

page 384 note 6 Webb, loc. cit., 2 October 1915, p. 6.

page 384 note 7 The ATI, formed in 1894 with an institutional membership of twenty-seven, had by 1914 grown to ninety-eight. Its objects were: “To promote the efficient organisation and management of technical institutions, facilitate concordant action among governing bodies, and aid the development of technical education throughout the U.K.” See H. L. Haselgrave, “History of the ATI 1893–1919”, in: Vocational Aspect, November 1950, p. 240.

page 384 note 8 Meeting Minutes, 29 June 1904, ATTI Archives, Vol. IV: Minutes of Preliminary Meetings, 1904; First Annual General Meeting, 21 January 1905; Minutes of Council Meetings, February 1905 – October 1905.

page 385 note 1 ATTI: The First Half-Century, p. 6.Google Scholar

page 385 note 2 Ibid.

page 385 note 3 ATTI, Proceedings for 1904–05, p. 1.Google Scholar

page 385 note 4 Letter from J. Wilson, London, 30 November 1904, to C. Harrap, ATTI Archives, Vol. V: Minutes of Annual General Meetings, 1905–1908; Minutes of Council Meetings, November 1905 – October 1908.

page 385 note 5 Recruiting leaflet, London, 1904, ATTI Archives, Vol. II.

page 385 note 6 Pamphlet, London, September 1904, ATTI Archives, Vol. XLII: Folder containing copies of official documents, 1904–1916.

page 385 note 7 Circular to Members, London, 25 March 1907, ATTI Archives, Vol. II.

page 385 note 8 One of these was designated as “Chairman”.

page 385 note 9 ATTI, Proceedings for 1904–05, 1905–07, et passim.

page 386 note 1 Letter from WRATSAT, Leeds, 26 October 1904, to ATTI, ATTI Archives, Vol. IV.

page 386 note 2 ATTI, Proceedings for 1904–05, p. 4.

page 386 note 3 General Meeting Minutes, 21 January 1905, ATTI Archives, Vol. IV.

page 386 note 4 Recruitment leaflet, London, (May?) 1905, ATTI Archives, Vol. XLII. The above are also to be found virtually unmodified in the various Constitution and Rules of the Association 1905ff.

page 387 note 1 Report of the Annual General Meeting, 27 October 1906, ATTI Archives, Vol. II.

page 387 note 2 See Johnson, W., Whyman, J., Wykes, G., A Short Economic and Social History of Twentieth Century Britain (London, 1967), p. 134.Google Scholar

page 388 note 1 Journal of the ATTI, October 1908, p. 5.

page 388 note 2 The Technical Journal, July 1914, pp. 100f.

page 388 note 3 The Association's “branches” were not located at “institute” level but were based on wide geographical areas covering a number of establishments. For example, in 1908 the London branch contained 301 members from more than 60 institutes spread over London and the Home Counties. See Journal of the ATTI, October 1908, pp. 51–61.

page 388 note 4 ATTI, Proceedings, for 1905–06, p. 67.Google Scholar

page 388 note 5 Supra, pp. 385f.

page 388 note 6 Resolution passed by the WRATSAT, 19 December 1904, ATTI Archives, Vol. IV.

page 389 note 1 Letter from the WRATSAT, Leeds, 23 December 1905, to the ATTI, ATTI Archives, Vol. V.

page 389 note 2 Education, 20 April 1906, p. 284.

page 389 note 3 ATTI: The First Half-Century, p. 12.

page 389 note 4 ATTI, Proceedings for 1905–06, p. 6.Google Scholar

page 389 note 5 ATTI, Proceedings for 1906–07, p. 29.Google Scholar

page 391 note 1 Journal of the ATTI, October 1908, pp. 42–67, et passim. Of this group three institutes were located in London, one in West Yorkshire, and the other in West Lancashire. Ibid.

page 391 note 2 Journal of the ATTI, November 1913, pp. 268–304, et passim. These included three institutes from London, two from West Yorkshire, and one each from West Lancashire, East Lancashire and Birmingham. Ibid. Among these, Liverpool Technical School, Bradford Technical College, Regent Street Polytechnic (London), and Battersea Polytechnic (London) had had over twenty members each in 1908.

page 391 note 3 Ibid. They belonged to, and were predominant in, the Southern Counties branch and East Midland branch respectively.

page 392 note 1 The Technical Journal, July 1911, p. 157. Yet it was felt “That it is desirable […] to induce a larger number of part-time teachers to become members.” Council Minutes, 4 February 1911, ATTI Archives, Vol. VI. Part-time teacher membership was clearly important for the Association because of the large proportion of staff they constituted in technical institutes throughout the country and because of the potential financial advantages that their inclusion offered to the Association. Unfortunately it is impossible to ascertain from existing records their membership strength during the period 1904–1914, since it was only from 1922 that the ATTI separated out part-time from full-time membership. However, two particular problems hampered the recruitment of part-time staff to the Association. Firstly, the majority of part-time teachers worked in small, geographically scattered institutes. Secondly, since they were engaged in full-time employment elsewhere, it was likely that many of them were members of other unions or associations.

page 392 note 2 This was especially so in view of the fact that when the Burnham Technical Committee was set up in December 1920, although the majority representation was accorded to the ATTI, the National Union of Teachers, the National Society of Art Masters, the National Federation of Class Teachers, and the Association of Principals in Technical Institutions were also included on the panel. ATTI: The First Half-Century, p. 21. Hence it is very probable that between 1904 and 1914 the Association was in competition with such teachers' organizations for certain groups of “specialist” and “general” teachers.

page 393 note 1 Council Standing Orders, 1908–09, ATTI Archives, Vol. VI.

page 393 note 2 The sources of this information are the same as those of Table 1.

page 393 note 3 Supra, p. 386.

page 393 note 4 Letter from Helen Maxlow, London, 3 May 1905, to Chairman of Legal Committee, ATTI Archives, Vol. XXVIII.

page 393 note 5 Letter from E. A. Atkins, Liverpool, 1 October 1907, to Chairman of Legal Committee, ATTI Archives, Vol. XXVIII.

page 393 note 6 See “Proposed Scale of Salaries”, in Executive Committee Minutes, 19 February 1909, ATTI Archives, Vol. XVII.

page 393 note 7 Council Minutes, 10 January 1914, ATTI Archives, Vol. VII: Minutes of Council Meetings, May 1913 – April 1922. The Association wanted a 30 hour week for 36 weeks of the year.

page 393 note 8 Compared, say, with the NUT's 91,500 members. Webb, loc. cit., 25 September 1915, p. 3.

page 394 note 1 See Baron, G., “The Teachers' Registration Movement”, in: The British Journal of Educational Studies, May 1954, pp. 113144.Google Scholar The Council was established by Order in Council on 29 February 1912. It was composed of representatives of the elementary schools, secondary schools, technical institutes and the universities, together with Crown nominees and co-opted members. It laid down that an applicant must have proof of an academic qualification, of training in teaching, and of not less than three years teaching experience. Yet since a saving clause provided that up till 1918 anyone over twenty-five who had taught for five years could enrol, it was no more effective than the first register either in conferring status upon those who enrolled or in controlling entry into teaching. Furthermore, the Board of Education gave no official standing to the Council's rulings. Ibid.

page 394 note 2 ATTI, Proceedings for 1906–07, p. 50.

page 394 note 3 Report of the Annual General Meeting, 27 October 1906, ATTI Archives, Vol. II.

page 394 note 4 Supra, p. 386.

page 394 note 5 Although a superannuation scheme was promised by the government in 1912, the outbreak of war delayed matters till a Superannuation Act was passed in 1918. Yet it was not collective action by the technical teachers alone that had brought success, for they had acted in concert with other teachers' associations, including the National Union of Teachers. ATTI: The First Half-Century, p. 10.

page 395 note 1 Cole, G. D. H., An Introduction to Trade Unionism (London, 1953), p. 13.Google Scholar