Digby Jacks (16 May 1945 – 21 October 2011) was a British student activist and trade union official. Jacks became the

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of the UK's National Union of Students in 1971, serving until 1973, and was subsequently an official for the Manufacturing, Science and Finance trade union. Jacks was raised in Charlton, south London, the son of a building surveyor, and read biology at

King's College, London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV ...

, and gained a teaching diploma at the

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. He taught for a time at Holland Park Comprehensive School before his election to the NUS Executive in 1969. A member of the

Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPGB ...

when elected NUS President, Jacks was the second candidate from the left, in this case the Radical Student Alliance, succeeding Jack Straw, also elected on the RSA ticket, to win since the beginning of the

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: national student politics having previously been dominated by an anti-Communist alliance. Proposals from

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013), was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of th ...

, then Education Secretary in the Heath government, which would have affected the union's autonomy and finances, were dropped after Jacks led a successful campaign mixing protest and argument. After his term as NUS President, he wrote ''Student Politics and Higher Education'' (), a book which examines the broad left's political strategy in student politics. Retiring as a regional officer for the Amicus trade union in 2005, he was a Labour councillor in the London Borough of Hounslow until 2006 and secretary of the lobbying group Alliance for Finance. Digby Jacks died in October 2011.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jacks, Digby 1945 births 2011 deaths British trade unionists Communist Party of Great Britain members Councillors in the London Borough of Hounslow Labour Party (UK) councillors Presidents of the National Union of Students (United Kingdom)