Access, Excellence and Egalitarianism Brian Seaton, Chemistry with Biochemistry 1963, Patron of Mansfield situated at 310 Barking Road, Plaistow (pronounced cockney “plar-stow”, not “plays-toe”) in the East End of London. The link between the name of the building and a former principal of Mansfield College, Revd. Dr. A. M. Fairbairn, is no coincidence. Fairbairn Hall was just one of the activities of the Mansfield House University Settlement, now part of the Aston-Mansfield organisation (www.aston-mansfield.org.uk) founded towards the end of the 19th century by students of Mansfield College as an outreach activity to the underprivileged in east London. The links with the College have somewhat dwindled over the years but Mansfield House continues to provide much-needed social outreach services in what is still a relatively deprived area of London.
FAIRBAIRN HALL IS
Fairbairn Hall is now a rather sad building and is a shadow of its former glory. In the 1950s it was a flourishing and prestigious boys’ club with a wide range of social and sporting facilities and a long waiting-list of would-be members. Its grand entrance hall and stairs were a far cry from the relatively poor working-class environment in which it was situated. In the 1950s Plaistow and neighbouring Canning Town, part of West Ham (now Newham), was the home of the large number of low-paid labourers who worked in the nearby docks of the Port of London Authority (now trendy Docklands). Both my grandfathers were dock labourers, though my father rose to the exalted height of foreman. However, the links between Mansfield House, Fairbairn Hall and Mansfield College Oxford did not normally extend to education, with which many of the local working-class inhabitants had little truck. I had school friends who, having successfully passed their 11-plus exams, were told firmly by their parents “yer ain’t going to no grammar school – secondary mod. was good enough for me and it’s good enough for you!” Not that a Grammar School place meant quite as much there as it did elsewhere. In staunchly left-wing “egalitarian” defiance of low levels of academic achievement, the local council provided more grammar school places per head of population than most other London boroughs. As a result, 25% or more of the pupils (the entire D-stream, and others too) left grammar school at 15 without taking any GCEs at all and even in the highest A-stream the majority of pupils would get fewer than 5 O-levels. “Comprehensive” education came early to West Ham ! So it caused something of a stir when a sizeable sum of money was left to Mansfield House to promote education amongst local school-children, and it was decided to use the money to pay for students coming up to their GCE examinations to spend two weeks of their Easter Holiday in Mansfield College to revise for their exams. Given that not many West Ham pupils at that time even went on to university – and going to Oxbridge was unheard of – places on the revision course, in
Oxford of all places, were in great demand and always over-subscribed. So I was very fortunate to get a place on the course and the opportunity to come to Oxford and to Mansfield College. And so it was that I – together with about twenty others – had the opportunity to spread my books out on the big oak tables in the library bays; to gaze in amazement and pleasure at the wonderful beams and ceiling, the musty books and the quaint balcony; to look out over the beautiful quad to the chapel and the new building; to sit on long wooden benches in the dining room and actually be served my meals under the gaze of portraited redoubtables; to sleep in a room of my own and be looked after by a scout; and to enjoy all the other accoutrements of a student lifestyle of which I could never have dreamed because I never knew it really existed. A number of the College’s students (Geoffrey Roper, the Association’s President, being one of them) gave up some of their Easter vacation to act as “tutors” (technically “mentors” as they weren’t allowed to teach us) and, more importantly, to help organise the outings and parties that so admirably counterbalanced the revision periods. I even learned that Oxford (i.e. Mansfield College) wasn’t populated entirely with toffee-nosed, academic snobs (the East End of London’s perception). Not surprisingly, I fell in love with Mansfield and Oxford and, to the consternation of friends and teachers, abandoned all thoughts of trying for a place to study chemistry at University College London (then the pinnacle of achievement for someone from West Ham) in favour of a place at Mansfield. There were, however, obstacles. First of all, I was aspiring outside my working-class background: nobody – but nobody – from West Ham ever went to Oxbridge. Secondly, and consequently, in West Ham even grammar schools had neither the curriculum nor the experience to prepare their pupils for Oxbridge entrance. So, even though I had taken all the subjects that the timetable allowed, I did not have the appropriate combination of GCE subjects to meet Oxford entrance requirements. Inevitably, many were sceptical, and a few overtly hostile, to the notion of a West Ham lad going to Oxford. But there were, fortunately, some who were supportive – parents and, particularly, the teachers who were willing to provide the one-to-one tuition necessary to enable me to obtain the additional entrance requirements. And so it was that I managed to get these, the College was kind (but not too kind, I hope) with my entrance examination submissions and, as the saying goes, “the rest is history”.
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