GCT Giles (1891–1976) was a leading British communist, most famous for playing a central role in the evacuation of 3 million children to the countryside during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, and for playing a prominent role in the formation of Britain's post-WWII educational reform. Despite being educated at both

Eton College Eton College () is a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. intended as a sister institution to King's College, C ...

and the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

, he was a lifelong supporter of

comprehensive schools A comprehensive school typically describes a secondary school for pupils aged approximately 11–18, that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude, in contrast to a selective school system where admission is res ...

, fighting for the rights of working-class children and teachers. He was also the first communist to be appointed president of the

National Union of Teachers The National Union of Teachers (NUT; ) was a trade union for school teachers in Education in England, England, Education in Wales, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. It was a member of the Trades Union Congress. In March 2017, NU ...

(NUT) and headed a school which following his retirement became one of Britain's first

. Giles became a communist after witnessing the destruction of the First World War and visiting the Soviet Union in 1925. He joined the

Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPG ...

(CPGB) during the

1926 United Kingdom general strike The 1926 general strike in the United Kingdom was a general strike that lasted nine days, from 4 to 12 May 1926. It was called by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in an unsuccessful attempt to force the British governm ...

, and would remain a lifelong member. Later in life, he became the target of

anti-communist Anti-communism is Political movement, political and Ideology, ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, w ...

witch-hunts in the form of slander by politicians and forged leaflets, leading to him temporarily losing his position as president of the NUT. Despite suffering from political persecution, he achieved a considerable influence over British educational policies, directly aiding the formation of British educational reform after WWII, and greatly improving the working conditions of British teachers.

Early and young adult life

Granville Courtnet Trelawny Giles, more famously known as GCT Giles, was born in 1891 and educated at

. During his education at Eton College, his "fag" (boy servant) was future Conservative Prime Minister

Harold Macmillan Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986) was a British Conservative statesman and politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Caricatured as "Supermac", he ...

. After leaving Eton he became a scholar at the

. Giles first came into contact with socialist theories during his time studying overseas in Germany in 1913. The next year the

First world war World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

(WWI) broke out, which he fought in for several years as a

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

officer. After suffering a mental breakdown caused by the stress of the war, he began re-examining his beliefs.

"Three years of war and the loss of many of my friends put me in hospital with a bad breakdown. I began to think and read."

After being dismissed by the British military on the grounds of ill health, Giles worked with disabled British military servicemen with the

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams in London, originally ...

, working as a teacher and a journalist. He was briefly a member of the Labour Party, and Teacher's Labour League. In 1925 he visited the Soviet Union, an event which had a profound effect on his political outlook and solidified his budding socialist beliefs. Upon returning to Britain he joined both the

(NUT), and the

(CPGB), becoming a lifelong member of both organisations. He joined and worked with the CPGB during the

, and became the head of Acton County School that same year, a job he held between 1926 and 1956. Outside of the communist movement, his greatest political influences in 1926 were recorded as being

Sylvia Pankhurst Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst (5 May 1882 – 27 September 1960) was a campaigning English feminist and socialist. Committed to organising working-class women in London's East End, and unwilling in 1914 to enter into a wartime political truce with ...

and

E. D. Morel Edmund Dene Morel (born Georges Edmond Pierre Achille Morel Deville; 10 July 1873 – 12 November 1924) was a French-born British journalist, author, pacifist and politician. As a young official at the shipping company Elder Dempster, Morel ob ...

Anti-fascist and socialist activism 1930s

During the 1930s GCT Giles worked to support victimised teachers from Spain and Germany, where rising fascist movements had placed many academics in danger. Giles was heavily associated with an organisation known as the International Committee for the Relief of Victimised Teachers, and was also a member of the national committee of the British Committee for the Relief of German Teachers. From 1931 onwards, Giles played a significant role in the Communist Party's Teachers’ Advisory. Fighting for higher wages and better conditions for British educators, Giles was repeatedly and unanimously elected the leader of the Middlesex Teachers’ Panel, which under his leadership achieved favourable conditions within negotiations with the County Authority. Using his position as a leader in the NUT, Giles managed to convince many fellow leading NUT members to oppose the release from prison of

Oswald Mosley Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet (16 November 1896 – 3 December 1980) was a British politician during the 1920s and 1930s who rose to fame when, having become disillusioned with mainstream politics, he turned to fascism. He was a member ...

, the leader of the

British Union of Fascists The British Union of Fascists (BUF) was a British fascist political party formed in 1932 by Oswald Mosley. Mosley changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists in 1936 and, in 1937, to the British Union. In 1939, fo ...

. Being especially interested in Spanish politics, Giles acted as the star and commentator of the documentary "Spanish A.B.C", directed by

Thorold Dickinson Thorold Barron Dickinson (16 November 1903 – 14 April 1984) was a British film director, screenwriter, film editor, film producer, and Britain's first university professor of film. Dickinson's work received much praise, with fellow directo ...

and produced by

Sidney Cole Sidney Henry Cole (31 October 1908 – 25 January 1998) was a British film and television producer. Earlier in his career he worked as a film editor. Cole was educated at the London School of Economics (LSE), and entered the film industry as ...

. Giles narrated a second film titled "Behind the Spanish Lines". In 1937 Giles was elected to the NUT executive, and was elected the NUT Vice President in 1941.

Educational activism

Evacuation of children during WWII

GCT Giles played a central role in the evacuation of 3 million children to the countryside during the

(WWII). During the outbreak of WWII, Giles emerged as a leading member of the NUT and was appointed as the leader of the head office at Hamilton House, the organisation that prepared the evacuation of teachers and young children from cities likely to be bombed by the German airforce. Operation Pied Piper, centrally executed by 100,000 teachers, parents, and a team headed by GCT Giles, successfully evacuated over 3 million British children to the countryside without a single fatality. This evacuation was the single largest mass migration of civilians in British history. His actions during WWII would see his position rapidly rise within both the NUT and CPGB.

Activities as first communist president of the NUT

In 1944 GCT Giles was elected the president of the

(NUT), becoming the first communist to hold the position. Upon becoming president of the NUT, Giles threw himself into working to support the

1944 Education Act Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January 2 – WWII: ** Free France, Free French General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny is appointed to command First Army (France), French Army B, part of the Six ...

, speaking at over 200 meetings in a single year discussing both the bill and the act. Giles was selected by the Education Minister to tour and give speeches at sites throughout the UK where allied troops were preparing for the

Normandy landings The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as ...

(D-Day). After WWII, Giles's position as the president of the NUT put him in a position to make direct input into the direction of Britain's post-WWII educational reforms.

The New School Tie (1946)

In 1946 Giles published his most famous work, ''The New School Tie'' (1946). This campaigning pamphlet was dedicated to supporting the 1944 Education Act. Within this work, Giles argued strongly that the quality of education that a child receives should not be determined by their family wealth. ''The New School Tie'' proved to be very popular with his contemporaries and has been described by historians as a clear expression of post-war radical populism. Although the 1944 Education Act Act did not go as far as addressing the issues of income inequality, Giles and many other educational reformists were satisfied with the Act.

Anti-communist persecution

In 1948, forged leaflets were circulated, purportedly belonging to a non-existent organisation called the "Young Communist Action Group", which claimed to show secret plans of how communists could take over the NUT leadership. As a consequence of this hoax, Giles lost his position as the president of the NUT, although he would regain the position in 1952. An investigation by the NUT and communist activists into the source of the hoax failed to discover the source of the leaflets. Despite the source of the hoax leaflets remaining a mystery, Giles continued to become the focus of attacks by anti-communist politicians. Many MPs including John Eden took advantage of the safeguards against libellous speech in parliament to slander and attack Giles in British news media, leading to partial bans on communists joining certain teaching professions. These

McCarthyist McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner. The term origina ...

attacks and slander campaigns against British communists led to many teachers losing their jobs, including Margaret Clarke, John Mansfield, and J.T. Jones.

Later life

At an unknown date, Giles married fellow lifelong communist activist Betsy Giles, and the two of them lived for many years in

Chiswick Chiswick ( ) is a district of west London, England. It contains Hogarth's House, the former residence of the 18th-century English artist William Hogarth; Chiswick House, a neo-Palladian villa regarded as one of the finest in England; and Full ...

. Giles retired from teaching in 1956. In 1968 he was one of the members of the CPGB executive committee to vote against supporting the Warsaw Pact intervention in Czechoslovakia. GCT Giles died in October 1976. After his death, many of his possessions were donated to the

Working Class Movement Library The Working Class Movement Library (WCML) is a collection of English language books, periodicals, pamphlets, archives and artefacts, relating to the development of the political and cultural institutions of the working class created by the Industr ...

Citations

{{reflist British communists 1891 births 1976 deaths British Army personnel of World War I British Army officers Presidents of the National Union of Teachers