Bletchley Park College was a teacher training college for women, established in 1947 and officially opened in January 1948, as the last of 55 'emergency teacher training' colleges which operated after the Second World War. These were run nationwide by the Ministry of Education in response to the post-war shortage of teachers.
The papers in this catalogue were collected by Miss Dora Cohen, the first Principal of the College, who remained in her post until her retirement in 1967. Miss Cohen's energy and dedication to her work saw the College grow and expand from a small, temporary institution, which was housed in barracks-like derelict buildings, previously occupied by military intelligence, and awarded a Teaching Certificate to a handful of students, to a well-established college, closely affiliated with the University of Oxford School of Education, offering a course leading to an Oxford BA degree, and situated on a purpose-built campus in Wheatley, where it moved in 1965. In that same year, the College was renamed as Lady Spencer-Churchill College. In 1976, the Lady Spencer-Churchill College was incorporated into the Oxford Polytechnic, which in 1992 became Oxford Brookes University.
This collection contains papers relating to the College, and the bulk of it is almost equally split between administrative records, concerning the running of the College, and papers relating to the corporate life of the College, including its Student Union and numerous formal occasions. Two smaller sections pertain to the emergency teacher training scheme as a whole and to the Principal's career as head of a teacher training institution.
These papers are divided into four sections.
O48/1 relates to the governance of the College.
O48/2 relates to the corporate life of the College (Students Union, special occasions).
O48/3 relates to the emergency teacher training scheme as a whole.
O48/4 contains Dora Cohen's personal papers.
The records were deposited at the Oxfordshire History Centre as Acc 3023 in January 1990 and catalogued by Marta Lomza, February-April 2017.
For more information on the history of the College, see the following publications:
''The Lady Spencer-Churchill College of Education'' (PA WHEAb 378); Mary Hodges, ''The Lady Spencer-Churchill College of Education: A History'' (PA WHEAb 378); and Peter S Forsaith, ''<in my end is my beginning>: Dora Cohen and the Bletchley Park Training College'' (PA 429).