Walter Perry, Baron Perry of Walton

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Walter Laing Macdonald Perry, Baron Perry of Walton Kt OBE FRSE FRS FRCP (born June 16, 1921 in Dundee , † July 18, 2003 in London ) was a British pharmacologist , university professor and politician of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) who lived between 1969 and in 1981 was first vice-chancellor of the newly founded distance university The Open University and in 1979 as Life Peer became a member of the House of Lords under the Life Peerages Act 1958 .

Life

Studies and university professor

Perry, whose father Fletcher Perry was Head of Customs and Excise in Scotland , began studying medicine at the University of St Andrews after attending Ayr Academy and High School of Dundee . After completing his studies with a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBCh.) In 1943, he worked as a doctor at the Dundee Royal Infirmary before he went to Nigeria in 1944 , where he was the only doctor in a region with 500,000 inhabitants. On his return, he completed his military service as a doctor in the Royal Air Force . There he was promoted to lieutenant ( flying officer ) on October 3, 1946 .

He was then between 1947 and 1952 a member of the Medical Research Council ( Medical Research Council ) and earned during this time in 1948 a Doctor of Medicine (MD) at the University of St Andrews. While working for the MRC, he worked at the Mill Hill Medical Research Center there and worked intensively on vaccines against poliomyelitis , the effects of which he had to determine during his work in East Africa .

He then became director of the department for biological standards at the National Institute for Medical Research , a medical research institution founded in 1913 by the Medical Research Council in London, in 1952 , and worked there until 1958. For his services there, he was awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1957 . He also served from 1952 to 1968 as chairman of the British Pharmacopoeia Commission , responsible for issuing pharmacopoeia is responsible. In 1958 he also obtained a Doctor of Science (D.Sc.) from the University of St Andrews .

In 1958 Perry accepted a professorship in pharmacology at the University of Edinburgh and taught there for ten years until 1968. Most recently, he was also Vice-Principal of this university from 1967 to 1968 and was made a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1967 ( FRCPE).

Co-founder and Vice Chancellor of the Open University

The building named after Harold Wilson on the Open University campus in Milton Keynes

Perry then became the first Vice Chancellor of The Open University, which was newly founded in the New Town of Milton Keynes, in 1969 and held this position until 1981.

As Vice Chancellor of the Open University, which was jokingly called the “University of the Air” at the beginning, he advocated enabling higher education through distance learning , which offered courses for everyone regardless of previous education. Previously, he joined intensively for the creation of this Open University, which was one of the first devices of this type, in particular the financing of such a university by Chancellor of the Exchequer ( Chancellor of the Exchequer ) Roy Jenkins as a gimmick by the then Prime Minister Harold Wilson was seen. Already in September 1963 Wilson was, at that time leader of the opposition Labor Party at a campaign appearance in Glasgow in the event of an election victory of his party in the general election provided the establishment of an Open University in prospect. The founding idea that Wilson claimed for himself came from the sociologist Michael Dunlop Young .

Subsequently, in November 1963, Perry contacted Tam Dalyell , who was then secretary of the Labor Party's Standing Committee on Science. He later made contact with Jennie Lee , who became Minister of State for the Arts in the Ministry of Education and Science after the Labor Party won the general election of October 15, 1964 and was one of the key forces behind the founding of the Open University.

On July 23, 1969, the Open University was officially founded in 6 Carlton House Terrace, the seat of the Royal Society . In the celebratory speech, the founding chancellor Geoffrey Crowther, Baron Crowther as Perry said:

“We are open, first as to people. Not for us the carefully regulated escalation from one educational level to the next by which the traditional universities establish their criteria for admission ... only in recent years have we come to realize how many such people there are, and how large are the gaps in education provision through which they can fall. The existing system, for all its great expansion, misses and leaves aside a great unused reservoir of human talent and potential. Men and women drop out through the failures in the system, through disadvantages of their environment, through mistakes of their own judgment, through sheer bad luck. These are our primary material. To them we offer a further opportunity. It has been said that there are two aspects of education, both necessary. One regards the individual human mind as a vessel, of varying capacity, into which is to be poured as much as it will hold of the knowledge and experience by which human society lives and moves. This is the Martha of education - and we shall have plenty of these tasks to perform - but the Mary regards the human mind more as a fire that has to be set alight and blown with the divine afflatus that also we take as our ambition. "

“We are open to people first. Not to give us careful progression from one level of education to the next, as traditional universities justify in their entry criteria ... Only in recent years have we noticed how many such people there are and how big the gaps are in the educational offer that they can fall. The existing system, despite its great extent, leaves out a large unused store of human talents and potentials. Men and women fall through the failures in this system due to disadvantages in their environment, due to mistakes in their own judgments, due to sheer bad luck. These are our primary material. We offer them another opportunity. It is said that there are two aspects of education, both of which are necessary. One regards the individual human mind as a vessel of varying capacity into which to pour as much as possible of the knowledge and experience of the human society in which it lives and moves. This is the Martha of education - and we will have many of these duties to fulfill - but Mary regards the human mind as more of a fire to be lit and blown on with divine inspiration, which we also see as our ambition. "

In the initial phase, Perry was also heavily involved in the selection of staff. The first 18 professors were young eminent scientists such as Steven P. Rose , a 31-year-old scientist from Imperial College London who took the chair in biology .

After the election victory of Conservative Party in the general election of June 18, 1970 , he managed the new Minister of Education ( Secretary of State for Education ) Margaret Thatcher to convince them of the goals of the Open University, as well as the Chancellor of the new conservative government of Prime Minister Edward Heath , Iain Macleod , who was skeptical of the Open University. After MacLeod died a month after the election on July 20, 1970, Perry, together with the founding Chancellor of the University Baron Crowther, succeeded in convincing MacLeod's successor as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Anthony Barber , of state funding for the Open University.

In 1971 the university opened with 25,000 students and in 1973 it awarded its first diplomas to 867 students. In the following years the number of students grew from 40,000 in 1973 to 65,000 in 1978. During this time he was beaten on December 10, 1974 to the Knight Bachelor and from then on carried the suffix "Sir".

House of Lords

By a Letters Patent of February 9, 1979 Perry was the University of Dundee in 1975 an Honorary Doctorate of Law (Hon. LL.D.) gave, as a life peer with the title Baron Perry of Walton , of Walton in the County of Buckinghamshire , raised to the nobility and was a member of the House of Lords until his death. His official introduction ( Introduction ) as a member of the House of Lords took place on March 6, 1979 with the support of Edward Boyle, Baron Boyle of Handsworth and Jennie Lee, who was now Baroness Lee of Asheridge.

He was also involved between 1979 and 1982 as chairman of the Research Defense Society , a lobby group representing research and scientific interests, and for the contract research institute Huntingdon Life Sciences , which, however, was criticized by opponents of animal experiments . In 1980 the University of Stirling awarded him another honorary doctorate, as did The Open University in 1981 on his resignation as Vice Chancellor.

He then served as a fellow at both the Open University and University College London between 1981 and his death .

Perry, who was temporarily a member of the Labor Party, joined the Social Democratic Party (SDP) founded in 1981 by former Labor politicians Roy Jenkins, David Owen , Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams . During his membership in the House of Lords, he was the first time deputy chairman of the parliamentary group of the Social Democratic Party in the House of Lords between 1981 and 1983 . Between 1983 and 1991 he was spokesman for the SDP and the Liberal Democrats founded in 1990 for education, health and social security. He was also a member of the House of Lords Committee on Science and Technology for the first time between 1985 and 1990. From 1985 to 1980 he was also a member of the National Advisory Board for Higher Education in the Public Sector.

Baron Perry, who became a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1985 , served again as vice chairman of the SDP in the House of Lords from 1987 to 1988. He was later a member of the House of Lords Committee on Science and Technology again between 1992 and 1997.

In 1992 the Victoria University of Manchester awarded him an Honorary Doctorate in Education (Hon. D.Ed.). In 1994 Baron Perry, who was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) and the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP), was awarded the Wellcome Gold Medal . In addition, he was awarded the Royal Medal of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2000.

Publications

  • The Open University. A personal account by the first Vice-Chancellor , 1976

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ London Gazette  (Supplement). No. 37776, HMSO, London, November 1, 1946, p. 5416 ( PDF , accessed December 18, 2013, English).
  2. ↑ London Gazette . No. 46430, HMSO, London, December 13, 1974, p. 12745 ( PDF , accessed December 18, 2013, English).
  3. ^ London Gazette  (Supplement). No. 47733, HMSO, London, December 29, 1978, p. 56 ( PDF , accessed November 29, 2013, English).
  4. ↑ London Gazette . No. 47770, HMSO, London, February 13, 1979, p. 1997 ( PDF , accessed December 18, 2013, English).
  5. ^ Entry in Hansard (March 6, 1979).
personal data
SURNAME Perry, Walter, Baron Perry of Walton
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Perry, Walter Laing Macdonald, Baron Perry of Walton (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British pharmacologist, university professor and politician
DATE OF BIRTH June 16, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Dundee
DATE OF DEATH July 18, 2003
Place of death London