You cannot involve the whole university in a personal emotion
- H.B. Chrimes, Liverpool University Treasurer, on opposition to apartheid, 9 March 1970
The rain had been catching their hair and the wind had been rapping at their overcoats now for just on thirty minutes. The wait was almost over. It would not be long.
A red banner caught in the wind as a black car came sliding through the rain haze. The crowd surged forward over the rough pavement and the slippery road. It swirled past in a curtain of spray and vanished up a ramp. Cheers, claps, and a few boos broke the gloom. People fidgeted. She had come and that was that.
Three hours later, the gathering quietly melted into the afternoon sun, and the slums and streets of Liverpool 8 gently faded into the shadows. They would vaguely remember a royal blessing.
One thousand workers, tenants and students had witnessed the arrival of Princess Alexandra. It was 2:15 p.m. the afternoon of May 15th, 1969. The Senate House was born…
- Dave Robertson, Sphinx magazine, summer 1970
This blog documents the student occupation of the Senate House of Liverpool University in March 1970. It traces the sequence of events that began with an expose of the University as the owner of slum housing in which families experienced dreadful living conditions; that brought tenants and students together to protest at the official opening by Princess Alexandra of the new Senate House in May 1969; that led to growing tensions between students and the university authorites which came to a head with the occupation of Senate House in March 1970; and that culminated in the disciplinary hearings which resulted in nine students being suspended and one expelled.
For a detailed survey of these events, download the essay, An Emotional Involvement (pdf).
The main events
The first significant student protest at Liverpool University (in the period under scrutiny) occurs with the joint tenant-student demonstration on the occasion of the formal opening of Senate House by Princess Alexandra in May 1969.
However, there had been earlier signs of the growing radicalisation of sections of the student body, such as the sit-in at the Social Sciences building in solidarity with anti-racialist protests at the LSE and the Presidential election campaign fought by Dave Robertson (February/March 1969). And Liverpool students did, of course, participate in national protests, such as the VSC demonstration against the Vietnam War in London in October 1968.
But it was the start of the spring term in January 1970 that marked the beginning of a period of intense political activity among students at the university, as the issues that eventually became ‘The Five Demands‘ emerged, leading eventually to the occupation of Senate House in March. All this against the backdrop of the collapse of Guild government and fierce debates about the nature of democracy in the Union.
- January 27: Open letter to Vice-Chancellor seeks answers on University involvement in CBW research
- January 30: The ‘Dinner protest’ against Lord Salisbury and racism
- February 9: President and Guild Executive resign after vote of no confidence
- March 9: Occupation of Senate House begins
- March 19: University charges 10
- April 6: Disciplinary Board begins hearings
- May 14: The appeals
What united the Liverpool actions – from the protest over University-owned slum housing to the issue of the racist beliefs of the Chancellor and the questions about University investments – was a critical questioning of the nature of a university, its relationship and responsibilities to the wider world.
This page has the following sub pages.
Gerry,
This is a magnificent contribution.
Like Nev Bann, I was a first year politics student. I was stuck out in digs in Bootle and paid over £5 5 shillings each week for full board so the opportunity to occupy the Senate was not just a political act but an amazing social opportunity girls, dope, music.
I particularly remember hearing ‘Volunteers’ by Jefferson Airplane for the first time. Later, in June that year I saw them at Bath Festival. Hot Ratz was another biggie at that time. I remember being on a rota to call the Vice Chancellor throughout the night. Don’t know whether it was official action but it must have wound him up.
I remember looking up at the stars from the roof at night (Wow Maaan, far out! etc) I was pleased to see my face cross legged on the floor in the photo published in Jon Snow’s book ‘Shooting History’ a few years back.
I still feel shame faced that I slunk off at the end of term and didn’t see it through.
I too, was a politics first year student in digs in Thomas lane, feeling a bit lost and lonely. Thinking of giving up and going back to Nottingham. My first experience of a critique of the university and in particular of one member of the politics dept. staff was reading the graffiti on the toilet walls -”Kilroy-Silk is a careerist”. Who was the prophet who wrote that? Sadly I could not repeat the present level of graffiti on the Union toiet walls.
The campaign that winter and the occupation gave me inspiration both personal and political. Without forgetting the great sacrifices made by people like Pete, I’m glad someone else has been honest enough to admit, like Andy Lowe, that it was an “amazing social opportunity girls dope,music etc” aswell as a politicising experience. I too shamefacedly went home at easter, I can’t remember when exactly.
I think that it shaped my views and education so that hopefully (unlike many of us as we age) my politics moved further left as my hair thinned.
The Senate was warmer and more comfortable than my digs also.
I too was there. ! attended that meeting in the Student’s Union with the Vice-Chancellor. I made a rousing speesh in response to what he said. I remarked that on ethical issues the University cannot and should not be neutral. ! quoted a former Director of the BBC, Sir Hugh Green, who once said that the BBC cannot be neutral on Apatheid. After I sat down (to thuderous student applause) the VC declined to reply. Pandemonium was unleashed and the students rushed to occupy Senate House. If ever there was a reference to An African student in that meeting that student was me!
Those were beautiful times. Can any one arrange a reunion?
Abdel-Malik M. Abdel-Rahman
Ph.D. Applied Math Student at Liverpool (1967-1971) (Known then as Malik)
Professor of Applied Mathematics & Former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Khartoum-Sudan