‘Forgotten Voices’: The Debating Societies of Durham and Liverpool, 1900–1939

Abstract

Within histories and accounts of student life, debating societies are often overlooked in preference to comments upon more popular extracurricular pursuits such as sports. This diminishes not only their importance as arenas in which the arts of civilised argument and public speaking are honed, but also as reflections of what students see as issues relevant to their lives. Where debating is addressed, it is usually narrowed to an almost exclusive focus on the deliberations of the Oxford Union Society and the Cambridge Union Society. Addressing this imbalance, the chapter reviews the debating societies of the universities of Durham and Liverpool, the third and sixth oldest within England, during the first half of the twentieth century. Using a range of hitherto neglected primary sources, the chapter discusses how the undergraduate debaters of both universities were actively engaged, beyond their studies, with ‘the issues of the day’: primarily focusing on education, international relations and militarism, and UK politics. In so doing, it examines how these altered—and recurred. Further, it considers how the location and educational purpose of older universities, such as Durham, contrasted with those of the newer redbricks, such as Liverpool, affecting both student intake and the nature of the debates held. Relating, where appropriate, the debates to broader movements within their respective student bodies, it is finally suggested that, as the period progressed, there was a gradual convergence in the opinions of student debaters among England’s provincial universities that could not have been foreseen at the start of the century.