ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses Clara Rackham’s experience during the Second World War and her position on two major pieces of legislation, the Butler Education Act, and the Beveridge Report, which laid the foundations of the Welfare State. On the death of Arthur Rackham she donates an important collection of his signed, numbered, and illustrated books to the Cambridge Central Library. She signs up for Air Raid Precautions (ARP) duties and serves on the Cambridge Tribunal determining the fate of conscientious objectors. She strongly supports the new egalitarianism of the People’s War and is active in initiatives to ‘win the peace’ based on the ambitious policy document, ‘Labour’s Plan for Cambridge’. There is a massive expansion of adult education and she works in the WEA Eastern district to use the war as a unique opportunity to develop working-class and rural education. She follows international development closely and supports the Indian independence movement. Rackham refuses the OBE. She is devastated by the death of Harris Rackham and deeply affected by the bombing of Romsey and working-class areas of Cambridge. She joins the committee of the Cambridge Anglo-Soviet Friendship Society working closely with Joseph Needham and the campaign for a Second Front in Europe, attends meeting of the China Campaign Committee, and supports the boycott of Japanese silk. The chapter ends with the Labour landslide of 1945 and a Labour victory in Cambridge.
