Mary Warnock, Baroness Warnock
Board member of | Active Training and Education Trust |
---|---|
Spouse | |
Children | 5 |
Relatives | Duncan Wilson (brother) |
Helen Mary Warnock, Baroness Warnock,
Early life and education
Warnock was born Helen Mary Wilson on 14 April 1924[1] in Winchester, England, and was the youngest of seven children. Her mother Ethel was the daughter of the successful banker and financier Felix Schuster.[2] Her father Archibald Edward Wilson (1875–1923) was a housemaster and German teacher at Winchester College and died before her birth.[3][4] Her mother did not marry again.[5]
Warnock was brought up by her mother and a
Warnock said that when she was a child she was embarrassed by her mother, who looked different from most people, often by wearing long flowing dark red clothes and walking with turned out feet. However, when Warnock was about 15 years old, she began to admire her mother's eccentricity and independent thinking.[6]
The family's inherited wealth offered Warnock a privileged education; starting in 1942 she studied classics at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. Her studies were interrupted during the war whilst she taught for two years at Sherborne School for Girls in Dorset. She returned to Oxford and graduated in 1948.[4][5]
Career
Philosophy
From 1949–66, Warnock was a fellow and tutor in
She was Talbot Research Fellow at Lady Margaret Hall from 1972 until 1976. She published a book entitled Imagination in 1976.[4] From 1976–84, she was a senior research fellow at St Hugh's College, and was made an honorary fellow of the college in 1985. She served as mistress of Girton College, Cambridge from 1984 to 1991.[7] She retired in 1992, but continued to serve on public committees and to write and edit books, including The Uses of Philosophy (1992), Imagination and Time (1994) and An Intelligent Person's Guide to Ethics (1998).[4] She delivered the Gifford Lectures, entitled "Imagination and Understanding," at the University of Glasgow in 1992.[8] In 2000, she was a visiting professor of rhetoric at Gresham College, London.[9]
Warnock wrote extensively on ethics, existentialism, and philosophy of mind.[10]
Education
In the early 1960s, whilst still teaching at St Hugh's College, Warnock took a seat on the
Broadcasting
Warnock was a member of the Independent Broadcasting Authority from 1972 to 1983. In 1980, she was considered for the post of Chair of the Board of Governors of the BBC.[2][11]
Public policy
Because of her background as an educationalist, Warnock was appointed in 1974 to chair a UK inquiry on
From 1979–84, she sat on a
From 1984 to 1989, Warnock chaired a Home Office Committee on animal experimentation; she was a member of the Government advisory panel on spoliation from 1998.[11] In 2008, Warnock, a committed advocate of euthanasia, caused controversy with an opinion that people with dementia should be allowed to elect to die if they felt they were "a burden to their family or the state".[13][14] Aged 90, Warnock took part enthusiastically in a review of her public life as documented by BBC Sound Archives (12 July 2014).[15]
Charity appointments
Warnock was the President of Listening Books, a charity providing audiobooks for people who struggle to read due to an illness, disability, learning difficulty or mental health issue.[16] She was a patron of The Iris Project, a charity that promotes the teaching of classics.[17]
Appointments and honours
In the
Warnock was elected an honorary Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) in 2000[22] and an Honorary Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) in 2011.[23] She was awarded an honorary D.Litt. degree by the University of Bath in 1987.[24] She was made an Honorary Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford[25] in 1984, and of Hertford College, Oxford in 1997.[26]
In 2018, she was named as one of the TES ten most influential people in education, in recognition of her work on special educational needs.[27] That same year, she was awarded the 2018 Dan David Prize for her work in bioethics.[28][29]
Personal life
Warnock married
She was often described as an "
Works
As chair of committees of inquiry:
- The Warnock Report (1978): Special Educational Needs. London: HMSO(report by the Committee of Enquiry into the Education of Handicapped Children and Young People)
- The Warnock Report (1984): Report of the Committee of Enquiry into Human Fertilisation and Embryology. London: HMSO
- Warnock, Mary (1978). Meeting Special Educational Needs: A brief guide by Mrs Mary Warnock to the report of the Committee of Enquiry into Education of Handicapped Children and Young People.HMSO
As author:
- ISBN 0-9753662-2-X
- The Philosophy of Sartre (Hutchinson University Press, 1963)[4]
- Existentialist Ethics (London: Palgrave Macmillan, New York: Springer, 1967) ISBN 9780333011782[4]
- Existentialism (Oxford Paperbacks, 1970) ISBN 0-19-888052-9[4]
- Imagination (1976) ISBN 9780520037243[4]
- Schools of Thought (Faber and Faber, 1977); ISBN 0-571-11161-0
- Memory (1987) ISBN 9780571147830
- The Uses of Philosophy (Blackwell, 1992) ISBN 9780631185833[4]
- Imagination and Time (Blackwell Publishers, 1994) ISBN 0-631-19019-8[4]
- Mary Warnock: A Memoir – People and Places (Duckworth, 2001); ISBN 0-7156-3141-1
- Making Babies: Is There a Right To Have Children? (2001) ISBN 9780192805003
- The Intelligent Person's Guide to Ethics (1998) ISBN 9780715646151[4]
- Nature and Mortality: Recollections of a Philosopher in Public Life (2004); ISBN 0-8264-7323-7
- An Intelligent Person's Guide to Ethics (Duckworth, 2004); ISBN 0-7156-3320-1
- Easeful Death, with Elisabeth MacDonald (OUP, 2008) ISBN 9780199561841
- Dishonest to God: On Keeping Religion Out of Politics (Continuum, 2010); ISBN 978-1-4411-2712-9
- Critical Reflections on Ownership (Edward Elgar, 2015); ISBN 978-1-78195-547-5[4]
As editor:
- Sartre: A Collection of Critical Essays (1971)[5]
- Women Philosophers, London, J. M. Dent (1996) ISBN 9780460877381[4]
- Art for All?: Their Policies and Our Culture (2000; with ISBN 978-0953977208[5]
See also
References
- ISBN 9781403939104– via Google Books.
- ^ a b c d e f Brown, Andrew (19 July 2003). "The practical philosopher". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 October 2011.
- ^ ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
- ^ ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
- ^ a b c d "Mary Warnock". The Gifford Lectures. 18 August 2014. Retrieved 22 March 2019.
- ^ a b c "The House I Grew up In featuring Mary Warnock". The House I Grew Up In. 17 September 2008. BBC. BBC Radio 4.
- ^ a b "Girton College, Past Mistresses". Girton College, Cambridge. Retrieved 5 July 2015.
- ^ "Imagination and Understanding". The Gifford Lectures. 18 August 2014. Retrieved 22 March 2019.
- ^ "List of professors". Gresham College. Archived from the original on 19 October 2004. Retrieved 22 March 2019.
- ISBN 0-19-866132-0.
- ^ a b c "Baroness Warnock". UK Parliament website. Archived from the original on 12 October 2011. Retrieved 13 October 2011.
- ^ Warnock, Mary (17 September 2010). "The cynical betrayal of my special needs children". The Telegraph. Retrieved 13 October 2011.
- ^ Beckford, Martin (19 September 2008). "Baroness Warnock: Dementia sufferers may have a 'duty to die'". Telegraph. Retrieved 3 February 2009.
- ^ "Dementia patients' 'right-to-die'". BBC News. Retrieved 3 September 2009.
- ^ "BBC Radio 4 – Meeting Myself Coming Back, Series 6, Mary Warnock". Bbc.co.uk. 12 July 2014. Retrieved 2 January 2017.
- ^ "Listening Books – UK audiobook charity | Our people". www.listening-books.org.uk. Retrieved 21 August 2017.
- ^ "Patrons". Iris website. Archived from the original on 4 October 2011. Retrieved 11 October 2011.
- ^ "No. 49583". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 1983. p. 8.
- ^ "No. 50031". The London Gazette. 11 February 1985.
- ^ "Retired members of the House of Lords – UK Parliament". Parliament.uk. Retrieved 2 January 2017.
- ^ "No. 61803". The London Gazette (1st supplement). 31 December 2016. p. N27.
- ^ Honorary Fellows Archived 29 June 2015 at the Wayback Machine – website of the British Academy
- ^ Fellow Baroness Mary Warnock FMedSci – website of the Academy of Medical Sciences
- ^ "Honorary Graduates 1989 to present". bath.ac.uk. University of Bath. Retrieved 18 February 2012.
- ^ "Honorary and Emeritus Fellows". Lady Margaret Hall. Retrieved 22 March 2019.
- ^ "Baroness Warnock". Hertford College | University of Oxford. Retrieved 22 March 2019.
- ^ "Tes people of the year 2018: Baroness Mary Warnock". TES. Times Educational Supplement.
- ^ "PET patron wins prestigious award - BioNews". www.bionews.org.uk. 12 February 2018. Retrieved 25 October 2020.
- ^ "Science historians, bioethicists head Dan David Prize winners". Haaretz. Retrieved 25 October 2020.
- ^ "Belief transcript: Mary Warnock interview". Wayback Machine. Archived from the original on 6 February 2007.
- ^ "House of Lords". TheyWorkForYou. 25 July 2013. Retrieved 3 August 2013.
- ^ "Obituary: Mary Warnock died on March 20th". The Economist. 28 March 2019.
- ^ "Digitisation activities". Bopcris.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 29 September 2007. Retrieved 12 August 2011.
Further reading
- Brian Lamb (22 October 2019). "Statutory Assessment for Special Educational Needs and the Warnock Report; the First 40 Years". S2CID 204811505.
External links
- Mary Warnock's Top Ten Philosophy Books
- The Practical Philosopher
- Ethics Bites interview on The Right to Have A Baby [Philosophy Bites audio and transcript]
- Philosophy Bites interviews on Philosophy and Public Life and on Sartre's Existentialism
- Biography and summary of Gifford Lectures by Dr Brannon Hancock
- Philosopher Mary Warnock dies aged 94 Guardian Books obituary by Hannah Devlin
- Baroness Warnock obituary in the Sunday Times
- Obituary: Baroness Warnock by Andrew McKie for The Herald
- Baroness Mary Warnock, LMH alumna (1924-2019) Lady Margaret Hall death notice.