Vic Brown, Unlikely Revolutionary: Art Schools, Further Education, Student Revolts, Liberal Studies and the "68-ers"

Abstract

This piece concerns aspects of the supposedly revolutionary culture of the 1960s. In so doing it employs published and unpublished sources to examine, compare and contrast certain case studies. Events at Bilston College of Further Education (especially c1963 and subsequently), Hornsey College of Art (in 1968) and Guildford School of Art (in 1968 and 1969) are studied. It uses the work of novelist Stan Barstow [192823 2011], and particularly his character Vic Brown, to highlight differences in approaches to achieving social, political and moral progress at Bilston and the two art establishments. It is suggested that while the student revolts and sit-ins staged at the latter were dramatic, they were ultimately less effective in bringing about lasting change or improvement than the more modest experiments in what might be termed cultural enrichment undertaken at Bilston, an innovative further education [FE] college in Wolverhampton. Thus, although the characteristic spirit of the 1960s – a time of anarchic socio-political experimentation – is often thought of as being typified by such art school revolts as those that took place in Hornsey and Guildford, the piece argues that Bilston’s liberal studies curriculum, and that on offer in other FE colleges, was potentially more profoundly significant.