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Jack Dormand AI simulator
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Jack Dormand AI simulator
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Jack Dormand
John Donkin Dormand, Baron Dormand of Easington (27 August 1919 – 18 December 2003) was a British educationist and Labour Party politician from the coal mining area of Easington in County Durham, in the north-east of England. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for the Easington constituency from 1970 until his retirement in 1987.
Described as an "old-style centre-right socialist", Dormand was a working-class child who progressed through grammar school education to study at Durham, Oxford and Harvard and on to a career as an educational administrator before entering Parliament at the age of 50, where he was noted as an advocate for education and for mining areas. He never achieved ministerial office, but as a skilled administrator he played a significant role as a government whip in the 1970s, and as Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party when the party was in opposition in the 1980s. An atheist and a staunch republican, he reluctantly accepted a life peerage when he retired from the House of Commons and was an active working peer until his death 16 years later.
Dormand was born near Easington in 1919 at the workingmen's club in the village of Haswell, when his father Bernard, a former miner, was steward. He was educated locally at Wellfield Grammar School. Although he later took up rugby, he was a skilled footballer in his youth, good enough to have professional trials with both Manchester United and Charlton Athletic. Sport remained a major part of his life; until his death he remained a member of Houghton-le-Spring Rugby Club and of Burnmoor Cricket Club, last playing both games at the age of 63.
After training as a teacher at Bede College, Durham University, he was not called up for military service during World War II, because teaching was a reserved occupation. After the war he improved his qualifications by taking a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) at Loughborough College in 1947. In the 1950s he studied at St Peter's College, Oxford, where he was awarded a diploma in public and social administration with distinction and won a Fulbright Scholarship to Harvard in his second year (1954), becoming a friend of the future Senator Ted Kennedy.
From 1940 to 1948 Dormand worked as a teacher in the coal mining community of Easington, teaching at Hordern Modern School and his old school, now renamed Wellfield A.J. Dawson Grammar School. In 1948, he gave up teaching to become an education advisor to Durham County Council, and in 1957 moved to be adviser to the National Coal Board. He stayed with the NCB for only two years before returning to Durham to be Further Education organiser; from 1963 to 1970 he was Director of Education for Easington Rural District Council. He was also the President of the Easington branch of the National Union of Teachers.
Dormand had been a member of the Labour Party since the age of 18. He was elected to Haswell parish council at the age of 26, and at 30 to Easington rural district council.
Manny Shinwell, the then 85-year-old veteran Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for the Easington constituency, announced in 1969 that he would not contest the next general election. Dormand, who had been secretary of the Easington Constituency Labour Party throughout the 1960s and Shinwell's presumed successor, was selected as the new Labour candidate to contest the ultra-safe seat (Shinwell had been re-elected in 1966 with over 80% of the votes). At the 1970 general election in which Harold Wilson's Labour government was defeated, Dormand was returned to the House of Commons with a barely reduced 79.8% share of the vote.
His maiden speech on 8 July 1970 focused on education and on the needs of Durham as an "excepted district", and in particular on those classed as "slow learners". It was well received, and the then Secretary of State for Education Margaret Thatcher was seen to be making notes. Dormand's views on education were supportive of comprehensive education, and in July 1973 he urged the abolition of private schools (attacking particularly those Labour MPs who sent their children to be educated privately).
Jack Dormand
John Donkin Dormand, Baron Dormand of Easington (27 August 1919 – 18 December 2003) was a British educationist and Labour Party politician from the coal mining area of Easington in County Durham, in the north-east of England. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for the Easington constituency from 1970 until his retirement in 1987.
Described as an "old-style centre-right socialist", Dormand was a working-class child who progressed through grammar school education to study at Durham, Oxford and Harvard and on to a career as an educational administrator before entering Parliament at the age of 50, where he was noted as an advocate for education and for mining areas. He never achieved ministerial office, but as a skilled administrator he played a significant role as a government whip in the 1970s, and as Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party when the party was in opposition in the 1980s. An atheist and a staunch republican, he reluctantly accepted a life peerage when he retired from the House of Commons and was an active working peer until his death 16 years later.
Dormand was born near Easington in 1919 at the workingmen's club in the village of Haswell, when his father Bernard, a former miner, was steward. He was educated locally at Wellfield Grammar School. Although he later took up rugby, he was a skilled footballer in his youth, good enough to have professional trials with both Manchester United and Charlton Athletic. Sport remained a major part of his life; until his death he remained a member of Houghton-le-Spring Rugby Club and of Burnmoor Cricket Club, last playing both games at the age of 63.
After training as a teacher at Bede College, Durham University, he was not called up for military service during World War II, because teaching was a reserved occupation. After the war he improved his qualifications by taking a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) at Loughborough College in 1947. In the 1950s he studied at St Peter's College, Oxford, where he was awarded a diploma in public and social administration with distinction and won a Fulbright Scholarship to Harvard in his second year (1954), becoming a friend of the future Senator Ted Kennedy.
From 1940 to 1948 Dormand worked as a teacher in the coal mining community of Easington, teaching at Hordern Modern School and his old school, now renamed Wellfield A.J. Dawson Grammar School. In 1948, he gave up teaching to become an education advisor to Durham County Council, and in 1957 moved to be adviser to the National Coal Board. He stayed with the NCB for only two years before returning to Durham to be Further Education organiser; from 1963 to 1970 he was Director of Education for Easington Rural District Council. He was also the President of the Easington branch of the National Union of Teachers.
Dormand had been a member of the Labour Party since the age of 18. He was elected to Haswell parish council at the age of 26, and at 30 to Easington rural district council.
Manny Shinwell, the then 85-year-old veteran Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for the Easington constituency, announced in 1969 that he would not contest the next general election. Dormand, who had been secretary of the Easington Constituency Labour Party throughout the 1960s and Shinwell's presumed successor, was selected as the new Labour candidate to contest the ultra-safe seat (Shinwell had been re-elected in 1966 with over 80% of the votes). At the 1970 general election in which Harold Wilson's Labour government was defeated, Dormand was returned to the House of Commons with a barely reduced 79.8% share of the vote.
His maiden speech on 8 July 1970 focused on education and on the needs of Durham as an "excepted district", and in particular on those classed as "slow learners". It was well received, and the then Secretary of State for Education Margaret Thatcher was seen to be making notes. Dormand's views on education were supportive of comprehensive education, and in July 1973 he urged the abolition of private schools (attacking particularly those Labour MPs who sent their children to be educated privately).