Down memory lane Virginia Berridge, a member of the former Convocation and daughter of the late James Stewart Cook, tells us about her father's and her links to the University of London. Your father James Stewart Cook had a long association with the University of London federation, from his student days at Imperial College and LSE, to his involvement with the University of London Union. Can you tell us a little more about his connection to the University and the legacy he left? My father was brought up by his mother in a single parent family as his father, one of the first Conservative political agents, died of TB when he was very young (aged two or three), in the 1900’s. He made his way to university via scholarships and took a degree in chemistry at Imperial College, with later study at LSE. He was involved in student politics and was president of the University of London Union.
James Stewart Cook
He was elected to the Standing Committee of Convocation in 1940 and became a Convocation Senator in 1944. He was also the author of the pamphlet Convocation - A Study in Academic Democracy. Convocation was a full part of the governance of the University and its elected Senators sat on the University Senate, which was the governing body of the University of London. Of course academic governance has changed in the 21st century beyond recognition to a more managerial model. I would guess few, if any, universities now allow their graduates a governance role of this sort! At the time when my father was a Convocation Senator, some of the leading universities had their own Members of Parliament. So if you were an Oxford, Cambridge or London graduate, you had two votes, one of which was for your university MP. The MP for the University of London, Sir Ernest Graham Little, was supported by a graduates’ association as an independent. A number of London graduates formed the University of London Society, arguing that the graduates’ association was simply a front for getting Graham Little re-elected. They wanted more active involvement for graduates in the University. The new Society was supported by Mary Stocks, the Principal of Westfield College, who nearly unseated Graham Little in the 1945 general election. The Society was a non-political body which continued up to the abolition of Convocation in 2003. Graham Little continued as MP until the abolition of the University franchise in 1950.
James Stewart Cook (pictured third from left) with fellow students
Your father had a varied and inspiring career. What were some of the roles he undertook in his professional life? He worked as an industrial chemist over a wide field: in sugar beet factories in Ipswich, Kings Lynn and Peterborough, as an analyst in the Post Office engineering department and as a chemical engineer in a radio valve factory. He was associated with the British Standards Institution and the Festival of Britain. He was at one stage the organising secretary of the British Association of Chemists and undertook teaching and lecturing also.
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Convocation Newsletter Autumn/Winter 2020-21
Senate House in the late 1930s
