Professor Mary Davis will talk on the life of Robin Page Arnot, Principal of the Workers School from its foundation in 1933 to the Second World War. A founder member of the Communist Party, Page Arnot was Secretary of the Labour Research Department up until 1926. James Klugman was Trustee and leading figure in the Library after the Second World War and donated his collection of documents and artefacts to the Library. As head of the Communist Party’s Education Department, he trained many trade union activists in the post-war period. Professor Roger Seifert will talk on the impact of his teaching and his pioneering work in introducing small group informal educational methods. Andrew Rothstein was also a founder member of the Communist Party. A Balliol history scholar he was press officer of the Soviet Mission in Britain from 1920 to 1945 and Chair of Marx Memorial Library for much of the post-war period. John Foster will discuss his work in reviving and redeveloping the Library in the 1970s and 80s.
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