Schools: History

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, who is a most distinguished historian. He referred very modestly to his work on the Spanish civil war but no more seminal work has been produced in this country in the past 50 years. He did not refer, modestly or otherwise, to his history of the slave trade. I wish he had because it is a book that would commend itself to all those Members of your Lordships’ House who have not yet read it.

This is a very important debate and I am most grateful, as we all are, to my noble friend Lord Luke not only for introducing it but for the manner in which he did so. Over the nearly 42 years now that I have been associated with this place I have on many occasions taken parties of school children round this building, which I love and will love to my dying day. I have always taken them to the Royal Gallery and I have gone through the kings and queens whose portraits hang there from the first of the Hanoverians onwards. I have talked of the two great paintings by Daniel Maclise, which are being looked at for restoration. There is a great difference between the parties that I used to take round in the early 1970s and the parties that I have taken round more recently. The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, referred to the phrase that every schoolboy knows. In the early 1970s when I talked about the Battle of Trafalgar and the Battle of Waterloo—the pictures of which, incidentally, had to be covered up when Giscard d’Estaing addressed both Houses here—every member of the group that I was showing round would know about Waterloo and Trafalgar. In more recent years that has not been the case.

As a young man before I entered the House of Commons I was for 10 years a schoolmaster. I taught history. I had charge of the history curriculum in two schools. I made sure that the boys—I am afraid they were all boys in those days in the schools in which I taught—when they reached the age of 16 all had a reasonable, chronological knowledge of the history of their country. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas, is right to say that it is the history of our country that we should be primarily concerned with. I made sure that all those boys knew about the great events in English history and the great people who had moulded those events, be it Wycliffe and the Lollards and the first attempt at an English Bible, Hampden and Pym in the 17th century, those great orators of the 18th century to whom the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, referred, or Gladstone and Disraeli. One liked to try and enliven one’s lessons by telling amusing stories. I always loved the one about Disraeli and Gladstone when Disraeli said that if Mr Gladstone fell into the Thames it would be a great misfortune but if somebody pulled him out it would be a calamity. By means of anecdotes one could bring alive the history of the country in a way to which young people responded.

In more recent years when I have shown people round there has often been a look of blank incredulity and ignorance when I have talked of some of the great names of our past. Why is that the case? I am afraid I do not share the sanguine view of the history curriculum held by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. What may be said in the curriculum papers is not necessarily brought forth in the classroom. I think that Mr Gove was entirely justified in making the remarks that he made in 2010 and I hope that my noble friend, when he comes to respond to this debate, will be able to give your Lordships some encouragement. The knowledge of our history is the birthright of every child in this country. To deprive a child of his or her birthright is an act of wanton intellectual and academic vandalism. It is essential that all our children have a knowledge of our history so that when they leave school they can fit into the framework of national events the things about which they read in the contemporary press.

We were recalled to this House in August to discuss those dreadful, disfiguring riots. There was unanimous consternation here at what had happened. I put forward a suggestion, which I want to repeat. I said that every young man or woman leaving school, be it at the age of 16 or 18, should go through the same sort of ceremony that those who now aspire to British citizenship must go through and that in order to do so they must be able to demonstrate a certain knowledge of the history of their country. We have a golden opportunity coming up to do something about this.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving way but this point is pertinent to what he has just said about those rioters. Is he talking about teaching history, as he and the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, have described it, or should we not have more about the people’s history of Britain? There is another dimension to history teaching on which a number of very commendable books have been written which turn the world upside down. Would he reflect on that as well?

[Lord Cormack]

I hope that I reflect on all sorts of things as I make my meandering remarks but I will not allow myself to be too diverted by the noble Lord’s intervention.

The point I am seeking to make is that I believe that those who leave school to go into the wider world should be proud of their British birthright, which means that they must have a knowledge of the history of this country. I was going on to say that I believe there is a golden opportunity coming up because in 2015 we will be commemorating the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta. Only yesterday I was talking in my capacity as chairman of the History of Parliament Trust to Sir Robert Worcester who is chairing the committee on Magna Carta. I asked him whether it would not be a marvellous idea if in that year every school leaver in the country was given a facsimile of Magna Carta and an account of what it meant for the foundation of our liberties. That would be a good thing and would help concentrate the mind.

Anniversaries are good. This morning at Question Time—rather mischievously, because it was not relevant to the Question—the noble Lord, Lord West, talked about Trafalgar Day, which is tomorrow. How many people out there know that Trafalgar Day is tomorrow? Should it not be incumbent on those who teach history in our schools to ensure that every child knows that Trafalgar Day is tomorrow, just as they should know the significance of 11 November? Of course, in three years’ time we will have an opportunity to reflect on the beginning of the First World War.

The problem today is that there is a pick and mix attitude to history teaching in schools. Very often there is a constant emphasis on the Second World War. I was born just before the beginning of that terrible war and of course I yield to no one in acknowledging how tremendously important and life-changing for everyone around the world it was. However, that is not the sum total of history. The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, talked about cause and effect, as did my noble friend Lord Luke. If people are going to understand the Second World War, they have to understand the First World War; and if they are going to understand the First World War, they have to understand the French Revolution, to which the noble Baroness referred. If they are going to understand that, they have to understand our revolutions of the 17th century: the bloody one, which resulted in the death of the king, and the glorious one, as we often call it, through which the true foundations of parliamentary democracy were laid and the absolute power of the monarch came to an end without bloodshed. All these things they have to know.

It is important that we should discuss these matters in the House. This evening I will have the honour of presiding at a small dinner for a group of fellow members of the Royal Historical Society. We shall meet David Willetts, the Minister in charge of universities, to discuss the teaching of history in universities. This is a follow-up to a similar dinner that I arranged last year for Royal Society members to meet Michael Gove to discuss the teaching of history in schools. A golden thread links the two: we want more young people in our schools to read history at university. We hope that when they do, it will give them a comprehensive knowledge of history such as is not always the case at the moment. I have a son of whom I am extremely proud. He read history at a great university. He knows nothing at all about the Middle Ages, although he has a very good degree. That cannot be right.

We have an opportunity today to point to and underline the fundamental importance of the study of our past. My noble friend introduced the debate very eloquently on that score. We also have a duty to ask the Minister to do all that he can with the Secretary of State to ensure that the centrality of history in the curriculum of our schools is underlined. History must be chronological and as all-embracing as possible. Young people must study it to the age of 16 at least, and when they leave school they should not only have knowledge, but knowledge of which they are truly proud.