We are currently advertising for a new Peter Gosden and Richard Aldrich Fellow at the History of Education Society, follow on from our current Fellows who are moving on to new pastures after the end of this year. Alongside this, we would like to share with the community the people behind these fellowships, and their wonderful contribution to the History of Education Society. Today, we are sharing the life journey of Richard Aldrich.
Richard Aldrich
Richard Aldrich (1937–2014) was known across Britain and the world for his research and leadership in history of education. The author or editor of 20 books and almost 100 articles or book chapters – not to mention contributions to the Times Educational Supplement and Times Higher Education Supplement – Richard was a key figure in the development of historical research in education for almost half a century. A Cambridge graduate (1958), history teacher and then lecturer and senior lecturer in history at Southlands College of Education in London, he worked at the Institute of Education (IOE), University of London, from 1973, remaining there for the rest of his career. Richard completed a University of London PhD, supervised first by A. C. F. Beales and later Kenneth Charlton, in 1977, on the nineteenth-century Conservative educational reformer John Pakington. This led to his first book – Sir John Pakington and National Education – in 1979, and a string of contributions to the History of Education Society’s publications, including History of Education and the Bulletin (now the Researcher). He subsequently wrote a series of important articles on educational policy and reform, on the history of teacher training, and on the history curriculum, among much else. Richard wrote and edited books that introduced the history of education to generations of students, including An Introduction to the History of Education (1987), Education for the Nation (1996) and A Century of Education (2002).
Richard was an active member of the History of Education Society from 1972, sat on the Society’s committee from 1981, and served as its secretary (1983–6) and president (1989–93, succeeded by Peter Gosden). He was also chair (1994–5) and president (1996–7) of the International Standing Conference for the History of Education, and was made an honorary life member of the History of Education Society in 2004. A professor at the IOE from 1995, Richard retired in 2003, but remained the Institute’s ‘Public Orator’, a role he held from 1993. He wrote the IOE’s centenary history, published in 2002, and in 2003 perhaps his best known article, ‘The Three Duties of the Historian of Education’, appeared in History of Education. Richard was the recipient of a Festschrift in 2007, edited by David Crook and Gary McCulloch and published as one of the IOE’s Bedford Way Papers. In fact, this was the second time that he was honoured in this way: an earlier special issue of the Australian journal, Education Research and Perspectives, edited by Clive Whitehead and Tom O’Donoghue, had been dedicated to him in 2004. There was also an edited collection in 2006: Lessons from History of Education: The Collected Works of Richard Aldrich. This was in the Routledge ‘World Library of Educationalists’ series – ‘the equivalent for education professors’, according to Crook and McCulloch, ‘of being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’. The History of Education Society established a fellowship in his name in 2015.
Further reading
Richard Aldrich, Lessons from History of Education: The Selected Works of Richard Aldrich (London: Routledge, 2006).
Richard Aldrich, ‘The Three Duties of the Historian of Education’, History of Education 32, no. 2 (2003), pp. 133–43.
David Crook and Gary McCulloch (eds), History, Politics and Policy-Making in Education: A Festschrift Presented to Richard Aldrich (London: Institute of Education, University of London, 2007). Bedford Way Papers, no. 29.
Roy Lowe, ‘Richard Aldrich FRHS, FRSA (June 1937 – September 2014)’, History of Education 44, no. 1 (2015), pp. 1–4.