Thomas Driver (9 September 1912 – 4 November 1988) was a British trade unionist. Born in

Kexborough Kexbrough is a village in the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley (part of South Yorkshire, England), on the border with West Yorkshire. The village falls within the Darton West ward of Barnsley MBC. It is located west of the M1 motorway, just sou ...

near

Barnsley Barnsley () is a market town in South Yorkshire, England. As the main settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley and the fourth largest settlement in South Yorkshire. In Barnsley, the population was 96,888 while the wider Borough has ...

, Driver studied at the University of Sheffield, where he edited the student newspaper, ran the Socialist Club, and 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). After university, he returned to Kexborough, where he picked potatoes and ran the local Labour Party.Driver Tom
, ''Compendium of Communist Biography'' In 1936, he married Thora Senior, the couple having two children. Driver became a French teacher in 1937, initially at Barnsley Central School, then at Keighley Junior Technical School. He also became active in the National Union of Teachers (NUT). In 1947, Driver moved to work at the new Doncaster Technical College. He joined the Association of Teachers in Technical Institutes (ATTI), and was elected as its national president in 1961, also remaining a member of the NUT, and winning election to its national executive. At the time, no teachers' unions were affiliated to the Trades Union Congress (TUC), but Driver consistently spoke in favour of their affiliation. He persuaded the NUT to join the TUC in 1969, and it was gradually followed by the other main unions of teachers. In 1969, Driver was elected as general secretary of the ATTI. He believed that there should be one union representing college lecturers, and in 1976 he completed a merger with the

Association of Teachers in Colleges and Departments of Education The Association of Teachers in Colleges and Departments of Education (ATCDE) was an organisation dedicated to the training and education of teachers in the United Kingdom, as well as the representation of members in the negotiation of bargaining i ...

, forming the

National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education The National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE) was the British trade union and professional association for people working with those above statutory school age, and primarily concerned with providing education, tr ...

. Teacher training colleges at the time were suffering from job losses, and Driver therefore spent much of the next couple of years supporting redundant lecturers in teacher training. Following his retirement in 1978, Driver was active in the pensioners' movement and sided with the ''

Morning Star Morning Star, morning star, or Morningstar may refer to: Astronomy * Morning star, most commonly used as a name for the planet Venus when it appears in the east before sunrise ** See also Venus in culture * Morning star, a name for the star Siri ...

'' during the CPGB split of the 1980s. In 1977, Driver was made a Fellow of the Educational Institute of Scotland. He was also made an honorary fellow of the

Sheffield City Polytechnic Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) is a public research university in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The university is based on two sites; the City Campus is located in the city centre near Sheffield railway station, while the Collegiate Cr ...

and of the North East London Polytechnic.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Driver, Tom 1912 births 1988 deaths Communist Party of Great Britain members General secretaries of British trade unions People from Barnsley