James Oswald Noel Vickers (6 April 1916 – 1 June 2008), known as Jon Vickers from his initials, was a British trade union leader.
Early life and education
Born in London on 6 April 1916, Vickers was educated at
Stowe School
, motto_translation = I stand firm and I stand first
, established =
, closed =
, type = Public schoolIndependent school, day & boarding
, religion = Church of England
, president =
, head_label = Headmaster
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and
Queens' College, Cambridge
Queens' College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Queens' is one of the oldest colleges of the university, founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou. The college spans the River Cam, colloquially referred to as the "light s ...
, where he read History and English.
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 ...
, influenced by the death of his school contemporary,
John Cornford
Rupert John Cornford (27 December 1915 – 28 December 1936) was an English poet and communist. During the first year of the Spanish Civil War, he was a member of the POUM militia and later the International Brigades. He died while fighting aga ...
, in the Spanish Civil War in 1936. It was here he met fellow Cambridge Communist Party member Winifred 'Freddie' Mary Lambert, later to become his wife.
Wartime
At the outbreak of war he was called up in 1939, joining the
Royal Army Service Corps
The Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) was a corps of the British Army responsible for land, coastal and lake transport, air despatch, barracks administration, the Army Fire Service, staffing headquarters' units, supply of food, water, fuel and dom ...
as
2nd Lieutenant
Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces, comparable to NATO OF-1 rank.
Australia
The rank of second lieutenant existed in the military forces of the Australian colonies and Australian Army until ...
. He was posted to the 5th brigade of the BEF. Whilst on leave in February 1940 he married 'Freddie' Lambert in Cambridge.
A few months later, in May 1940, Vickers was wounded and captured shortly before
Dunkirk
Dunkirk (french: Dunkerque ; vls, label=French Flemish, Duunkerke; nl, Duinkerke(n) ; , ;) is a commune in the department of Nord in northern France.Prisoner of War Camps including a period at Stalag XXI-D in Poznań, Poland.
Towards the end of the war, as prisoners were moved ahead of the retreating German army, he managed to escape in woods near
Kassel
Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...
and a few days later made contact with an American tank crew.
In 1942, Freddie was injured by falling timbers in a bombed house in Cambridge and she subsequently had to have both legs amputated below the knee. James and Freddie were finally reunited at Baker Street tube station.
Post-war career
In 1946, Vickers was appointed warden of Wedgwood Memorial College where he worked until, in 1949, he was forced to resign following complaints of 'communist bias'. His next job was with the Electrical Trades Union (ETU) research department and he went on to become its education officer. One of his achievements with the ETU was the establishment of Britain's first residential trade union training facility at Esher Place in 1953.
During his time with the ETU, he became increasingly disillusioned with the Communist Party and, following the Soviet invasion of Hungary in response to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, both he and Freddie left the CP, and both joined the Labour Party soon after.
In 1960 he became deputy general secretary of the Civil Service Union and became general secretary in 1963. He was influential in the success of the women night cleaners' recognition dispute in 1972. He also served as a member, and from 1975 as chairman, of the staff side of the civil service Whitley Council. He was awarded the
OBE
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
in December 1976.
Later life
Vickers retired in 1977 but continued to serve on Industrial Tribunals for several years after. He also taught Industrial Relations on management courses. Freddie died on 23 March 2006 and Jon died on 1 June 2008. They are survived by their daughter,
Salley Vickers
Salley Vickers (born 1948) is a British novelist whose works include ''Miss Garnet's Angel'', ''Mr. Golightly's Holiday'', ''The Other Side of You'' and ''Where Three Roads Meet'', a retelling of the Oedipus myth to Sigmund Freud in the last mon ...
, the literary novelist and their son James, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Southampton.