Norman MacKenzie (journalist)
This article's lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points. (November 2021) |
Norman MacKenzie | |
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Born | 18 August 1921 Deptford, London, England |
Died | 18 June 2013 Lewes, England | (aged 91)
Occupation |
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Genre | Biographies |
Spouse | Jeanne MacKenzie (m. 1945; died 1986), Gillian Ford (m. 1988) |
Children | 2 daughters (by first marriage) |
Norman Ian MacKenzie (18 August 1921 – 18 June 2013) was a British journalist, academic and historian who helped in the founding of the Open University (OU) in the late 1960s.[1]
Early years
MacKenzie was born in
In 1939, MacKenzie won a Leverhulme scholarship to the London School of Economics (LSE), graduating with a first-class honours degree in government. At LSE he impressed Harold Laski, the Professor of Political Science and a Labour Party activist.[2] It was whilst a student that he joined the Independent Labour Party and briefly the Communist Party of Great Britain, but quickly became dismayed at their eagerness to place members into the armed Forces and public services.
In 1940, while a student at LSE, MacKenzie volunteered for part-time military service in the
Career
Alter leaving the LSE in 1943, MacKenzie spent the next 19 years until 1962 as an assistant editor with the
He was twice unsuccessful at elections as the Labour candidate for Hemel Hempstead in 1951 and 1955. In 1957 he was involved in the formation of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).[3]
MacKenzie was invited by the
In 1962, Asa Briggs recruited him to teach sociology at the University of Sussex. Whilst there he set up the Centre for Educational Technology in 1967. In the mid-1960s he worked with Richmond Postgate of the BBC and the then education minister Jennie Lee to work on ideas about getting more people into university. He subsequently became a member of a planning committee and council that created the Open University. MacKenzie remained a council member of the Open University until 1976.[5] He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate (D.Univ) by the Open University in 1977. He was also an Honorary Fellow of the LSE.
MacKenzie taught as a visiting professor at Sarah Lawrence College, Williams College and Dartmouth College in the US.[6]
MacKenzie was an adviser to
He retired from teaching at the University of Sussex in 1983.[5]
Orwell's list
In 1949 the author
Tubercular people often could get very strange towards the end. I'm an Orwell man, I agreed with him on the Soviet Union, but he went partly ga-ga I think. He let his dislike of the New Statesman crowd, of what he saw as leftish, dilettante, sentimental socialists who covered up for the Popular Front in Spain [after it became communist-controlled] get the better of him.[7]
Books
MacKenzie wrote a number of books, with his first wife,
Later life
Following the death of his first wife Jeanne of cancer in 1986, in 1988 MacKenzie married Dr. Gillian Ford (born 1934), a government medical officer. They lived in Lewes, East Sussex. MacKenzie was a fine painter of watercolour landscapes. He was survived by Gillian and by a daughter from his first marriage.[2]
References
- ^ Hugh Purcell (24 June 2013). "Norman MacKenzie obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 July 2013.
- ^ doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/107035. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ a b "Norman MacKenzie". The Daily Telegraph. London. 5 July 2013. Retrieved 11 July 2013.
- ^ a b Adrian Smith (28 June 2013). "Norman Mackenzie: Editor, teacher, writer . . . spy?". New Statesman. Retrieved 11 July 2013.
- ^ a b "Obituary: Norman Mackenzie". University of Sussex. 26 June 2013. Retrieved 11 July 2013.
- ^ Beinecke Library. Yale University. Retrieved 10 September 2017.
- ^ a b Gibbons, Fiachra (24 June 2003). "Blacklisted writer says illness clouded Orwell's judgement". The Guardian.
- ^ Garton Ash, Timothy (25 September 2003). "Orwell's List". The New York Review of Books. 50 (14). Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 26 April 2016.
- ^ Burrell, Ian (6 November 2005). "Ben Brown: 'I am lucky to be alive'". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 21 June 2022. Retrieved 10 September 2017.
External links
- Norman Ian and Jeanne MacKenzie papers at the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College Special Collections