Obituary: Professor Campbell Stewart

Campbell Stewart died while on a visit to Keele University. This was peculiarly fitting as he had given 30 years of his life to the university, first as founding Professor of Education and later as its Vice-Chancellor.

To the wider world of scholarship Stewart was well-known for his substantial studies of the Quakers in education, of their "progressive" school movement, and for editing Karl Mannheim's posthumous papers, as well as for serving on many public bodies. In retirement he lived in Sussex and his five-year Honorary Visiting Professorial Fellowship at Sussex University enabled him to complete Higher Education in Postwar Britain (1989), a survey he was well placed to undertake.

William Alexander Campbell Stewart was born in Glasgow in 1915 but grew up in London, attending Colfe's Grammar School and University College, London. An enthusiasm for acting and many sports can be blamed for the modest class of his first degree in English and made the polio which left one arm paralysed in 1954 a particularly cruel blow.

His first teaching post was at the Friends' School, Saffron Walden, where he was a housemaster from 1938 to 1943, before moving to Abbotsholme, Derbyshire (1943-44), where he was later to serve on the governing body for two decades. These years both reflected his interest in the humane, progressive fringe of the independent sector in education and provided the foundation for two of his major books, The Quakers and Education (1953, based on his PhD of 1947) and his two-volume study of The Educational Innovators (1967-68), which appeared in shortened form in 1972 as Progressives and Radicals in English Education. He lectured in Education at University College, Nottingham, and then at the University of Wales in Cardiff between 1944 and 1950, and it was at this time that he married Ella - the beginning of a wonderful partnership - and his daughter was born.

It is hardly surprising that Stewart was attracted to the new, wholly residential and experimental University College of North Staffordshire. Lord Lindsay, the college's founder, appointed him at the age of 34 to the Chair of Education in 1950 and Stewart's son was the first child to be born at the new college. A daunting task lay ahead in building up first the department and then the Institute of Education. As all students initially took a four-year degree, teacher-training had to be an integrated part of the degree programme with teaching practice arranged in vacation time. The Education Department could not be marginalised and ignored by the rest of the academic community and it is a measure of Stewart's determination and tenacity - qualities which some might see as peculiarly Scottish - that the study of education at every level flourished at Keele.

During this period he held visiting professorships at McGill University in Montreal and the University of California in Los Angeles; and a senior Simon Fellowship at Manchester University. As Acting Principal at Keele after the death of Sir George Barnes in 1960 he kept a steady hand on the tiller and it was unsurprising that his colleagues chose him as Vice-Chancellor in 1967, the university's fifth Principal in its short history.

It was a difficult time: Keele had been an awkward adolescent born during the post-war period of austerity. The new universities of the early Sixties had profited from Keele's experience, adopted many of its innovations and stolen the limelight. The four-year degree and residence for all students were seen by the government as unsustainable extravagances. Difficult decisions had to be taken. Moreover, the universities were soon overtaken by the student troubles of which Keele had, perhaps, more than its fair share.

Some of the events of the hot summer of 1970 were serious cases of criminal damage, others merely comic. One night hundreds of students surrounded the Vice-Chancellor's residence and tried to levitate it by humming. Legend has it that another noisy demonstration was dispersed not with a whiff of grapeshot but by a porter reminding the demonstrators that Dr Who was about to start on television. Throughout, Stewart retained his sense of humour, and his unruffled moderation and good sense ensured that the university's business of teaching and examining continued uninterrupted despite sit- ins and much adverse publicity.

The leadership he gave the university in calmer times was similarly marked by tact, patience, a belief in democratic decision-taking and unfailing courtesy. He brought the same qualities to the work of many public bodies on which he served both before and after his retirement, among them the National Advisory Council for Childcare, the Advisory Council on the Supply and Training of Teachers, the Universities' Council for Adult Education and the Council of the Open University.

In private, Campbell Stewart was a warm and humorous man, an engaging conversationalist and raconteur and a loyal friend, husband and father.

William Alexander Campbell Stewart, educationist and university administrator: born Glasgow 17 December 1915; Assistant Lecturer and Lecturer, University College, Nottingham 1944-47; Lecturer in Education, University of Wales (Cardiff) 1947-50; Professor of Education, University College of North Staffordshire (Keele University from 1962) 1950-67 (Emeritus), Vice- Chancellor 1967-79; married 1947 Ella Burnett (one son, one daughter); died Keele, Staffordshire 23 April 1997.