Learning and liberal education: the case of the Simon family, 1912–1939

Abstract

Ernest and Shena Simon were leading liberal thinkers and activists in early twentieth‐century England who were committed to preparing their children for public life by educating them in liberal values and active citizenship. They produced two sons, Roger and Brian, and a daughter, Antonia (Tony). Their ‘liberal education’, and the learning that accrued, provide significant insights into the potential tensions that have underlain these processes in the modern world, and also into the character of civic leadership and education for citizenship that was championed by Ernest Simon in the 1930s. The privileged family environment of the Simons provided a key basis for their learning, as did the avowedly progressive public school Gresham’s under its headmaster J.R. Eccles. The social organisation of learning, framed by social class and gender, accommodated a transition between the liberalism of the father and the Marxism espoused by the sons in their adult lives.