Politics, Societies and Associations

This series of papers reflects Bernard Crick’s involvement with a number of societies and associations throughout his life, some official, including those relating to his work concerning citizenship and teaching, politics in Northern Ireland and Scotland and work for the Labour Party. Some of the society’s files also reflect his outside interests such as art and culture. The records include correspondence, information about meetings and lectures, research papers and pamphlets.

The files in CRCK 3/1 were largely found to be maintained (alphabetically) in a filing cabinet drawer, and these include some official correspondence relating to work on teaching and citizenship.

Those files relating to the Political Association and Hansard, which represent the activities of these organisations whilst Bernard Crick was involved with them, were in a number of locations, and have been arranged into sub-series. The papers of the Labour party and Gower Street Group have also been added as a separate sub-series.

The Northern Ireland convention papers were in a number of locations, and the cuttings files represent Bernard Crick’s interests in the four nations, a subject he was planning to write about, but never completed (drafts of two chapters were found and are in CRCK 5).

CRCK 3/1 Societies, Boards and Associations

CRCK 3/2 Hansard Society

CRCK 3/3 Political Association

CRCK 3/4 Northern Ireland Convention and Republic of Ireland

CRCK 3/5 Scotland and Wales

CRCK 3/6 Labour Party and Gower Street Group

CRCK 3/7 British South Africa Conference Committee

There is some overlap between these files and those in CRCK 4 Talks, Tours and Conferences, but many of the files in this series cover the administration of the organisations, and not just material relating to conferences, which Bernard Crick filed separately. This has therefore been maintained in the final arrangement, and the two have not been merged.