Digby Jacks

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Digby Jacks (16 May 1945 – 21 October 2011) was a British student activist and trade union official. Jacks became the President of the UK's National Union of Students in 1971,[1] serving until 1973, and was subsequently an official for the Manufacturing, Science and Finance trade union.[2]

Jacks was raised in Charlton, south London, the son of a building surveyor, and read biology at King's College, London, and gained a teaching diploma at the Institute of Education.[3] He taught for a time at Holland Park Comprehensive School before his election to the NUS Executive in 1969.[4]

A member of the Communist Party of Great Britain when elected NUS President, Jacks was the second candidate from the left, in this case the , succeeding Jack Straw, also elected on the RSA ticket, to win since the beginning of the Cold War: national student politics having previously been dominated by an anti-Communist alliance.[3][5] Proposals from Margaret Thatcher, then Education Secretary in the Heath government, which would have affected the union's autonomy and finances, were dropped after Jacks led a successful campaign mixing protest and argument.[3][4]

After his term as NUS President, he wrote Student Politics and Higher Education (ISBN 0853153264), a book which examines the broad left's political strategy in student politics.[6] Retiring as a regional officer for the Amicus trade union in 2005, he was a Labour councillor in the London Borough of Hounslow until 2006 and secretary of the lobbying group Alliance for Finance.[3]

Digby Jacks died in October 2011.[4]

References[]

  1. ^ Nelson, Robert (10 April 1971). "British student union picks Red chief". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 28 May 2010.
  2. ^ "Amicus gets amicable". The Guardian. London. 10 May 2003. Retrieved 28 May 2010.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Steel, Peta (22 November 2011). "Digby Jacks, Student leader who took on Thatcher – and won". The Independent. London. Retrieved 23 April 2016.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b c Beckett, Francis (29 November 2011). "Digby Jacks obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 April 2016.
  5. ^ Sampson, Anthony (1973). The new anatomy of Britain. Stein and Day. p. 179. ISBN 978-0-8128-1583-2.
  6. ^ "Student Politics and Higher Education". Marxism Today. 19: 321. 1975. ISSN 0025-4118.
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