Two Days at Oxford
A view of the city in the ’thirties
by John Goto
An exhibition of the series will be held at OFS Gallery, 40 George St., Oxford OX1 2AQ, 16 January - 27 February 2016
List of artworks –
1. Photographer and Writer
2. New Fellow
3. Coming Up
4. Factory Workers
5. Grammar School Boy
6. Migrant Workers
7. Established Family
8. Assembly Line
9. Unemployed
10. Debate
11. Strike!
12. Street People
13. Reds and Blacks
14. Bluestocking
15. Chaps' Sisters and Gaiety Girls
16. Spain
17. Rent Strike
18. After Dinner
19. Wall
20. Refugees
21. May Morning
Suggested links and further reading –
[numbers correspond to the titles above]
2, 3, 10, 14, 15, For information on University self-appointments: family and educational backgrounds of undergraduates: access: King and Country debate: women’s education and gender segregation - see The History of the University of Oxford: Vol. VIII: The Twentieth Century, edited by Brian Harrison (Clarendon Press, 1994)
13, Red Shirts and Black, Fascists and Anti-Fascists in Oxford in the ’Thirties by David Renton (Ruskin College Library, 1996) offers a detailed study of events surrounding ‘The Battle of Carfax’. For a contemporary account published in The Isis, visit http://isismagazine.org.uk/2015/02/statements-following-oswald-mosleys-meeting-in-oxford-may-27-1936/
4, 6, 8, 11, 17, 19, 20, The Politics of the Production Line: Autobiography of an Oxford Car Worker by Arthur Exell (History Workshop Journal, 1981) offers an invaluable first-hand account of working at Pressed Steel: the 1934 strike to gain union recognition: migrant workers in Oxford: the Florence Park rent strike: the Cutteslowe Walls dispute: Basque children and the Oxford Spanish Aid Committee.
9, 11, The View From Cowley: Impact of Industrialisation on Oxford 1918-39 by R.C. Whiting (Clarendon Press 1983) considers employment, unionisation and industrial relations in the city.
11, 17, 19, A key figure in the politicisation of Oxford’s industrial workers in the 1930s was the Communist Party of Great Britain representative Abe Lazarus – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lazarus
9,12, For an account of questions raised in the House of Commons regarding undergraduates’ support for the Lancashire Hunger Marchers passing through Oxford, and the frequency of disabled ex-service men begging in the streets, see The Thirties: An Intimate History by Juliet Gardiner (Harpers Press, 2011)
7, For examples of established families living in Oxford see The Changing Faces of North Oxford: Vols 1 & 2, by Ann S. Symonds (R. Boyd Publications 1997/8)
19, A good account of the Cutteslowe Walls dispute is available at http://oxfordcockaigne.co.uk/cutteslowe/cutteslowewalls.htm
For more detail see The Cutteslowe Walls; A Study in Social Class by Peter Collison (Faber & Faber 1963).
5, Jill by Philip Larkin (Fortune Press, 1946) was the first novel to present the social difficulties experienced at Oxford by a grammar school boy.
18, This image is based on the ‘Bollinger’ Club’s beano at ‘Scone College’ to be found in Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh (Chapman & Hall, 1928)
16, An excellent account of the volunteers who were either Oxford educated or worked in the city is to be found in No Other War: Oxfordshire and the Spanish Civil War 1936-39 by Chris Farman, Valery Rose and Liz Woolley with an introduction by Prof. Tom Buchanan (Oxford International Brigade Memorial Committee, 2015)
20, The Basque Refugee Children in Oxfordshire during the Spanish Civil War: Politically Charged Project or Humanitarian Endeavour? by Meirian Jump is at http://oxoniensia.org/volumes/2007/jump.pdf
The Academic Assistance Council (AAC), assisted Jewish and other academics fleeing Nazi persecution, to find work at UK universities including Oxford http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_for_Assisting_Refugee_Academics For an account of Kindertransport children, of whom a few were placed in Oxford, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindertransport
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