The Nelsonian Magazine, 1931
Courtesy of Cumbria Archive Service, Archive ref: DEC 4/38
The Nelson School for Boys opened in 1899 and merged with the Thomlinson Girls’ Grammar School in 1953 to form the Nelson Thomlinson School. ‘The Nelsonian,’ the school magazine of 1931, sheds light on the attitude to Citizenship at that time. It reported that the Rev. H. G. Eggleton gave a talk to the school about his travels in Flanders with a party of schoolboys, including one pupil from the school. The magazine commented that travel was essential for a liberal education: parochialism bred narrow-mindedness, ignorance, prejudice and snobbery. It went on to say:‘Efficient Citizenship in the future will demand more and still more understanding of the points of view of other nations, particularly of those of our nearer neighbours on the continent, and it therefore behoves us to make contact with other nations as frequently as possible…. Again the teaching of modern languages as living things and not as chaotic masses of dull grammatical matter is having its effect. Let the League inaugurate and finance on the grand scale a vast scheme of world travel for schoolboys. A million pounds invested in such a scheme would go far to ensure peace for generations, and to solve the problem of disarmament.’
No formal League of Nations Club was formed, but in 1931 Mr Birtwistle lectured on Geneva and the League of Nations and in 1934 the school welcomed Mr Frederick Whelen , who lectured on the League of Nations.
References/Further Reading:
The Nelsonian, 1931-38. Archive ref: DEC 4/38, Cumbria Archive Service.