Sir (Edward) Graham Savage CB (31 August 1886 – 18 May 1981) was an English civil servant who largely invented the concept of

comprehensive school A comprehensive school is a secondary school for pupils aged 11–16 or 11–18, that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude, in contrast to a selective school system where admission is restricted on the basis ...

s and originated the phrase.

Early life

Born in

Erpingham Erpingham ( ) is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. Erpingham is located north of Aylsham and north of Norwich, along Scarrow Beck. The parish also includes the nearby village of Calthorpe. History Erpingham's na ...

, Savage was the son of Edward Graham Savage and Mary Matilda Dewey, teachers at the Upper Sheringham elementary (primary) school. He was the eldest in the family and had two brothers and two sisters. He attended

Upper Sheringham Upper Sheringham is a village and a civil parish in the England, English county of Norfolk. The village is north-north-west of Norwich, west of Cromer and north-north-east of London. The village is from the town of Sheringham. The nearest ...

School, King Edward VI Middle School,

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of the county of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. It lies by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. The population of the Norwich ...

(merged with the Presbyterian School to become the

City of Norwich School The City of Norwich School, more commonly known as CNS, is a coeducational secondary school and sixth form with academy status in Norwich, England. History In 1910, the Education Committee decided to merge the King Edward VI Middle School in ...

) and

Downing College, Cambridge Downing College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge and currently has around 950 students. Founded in 1800, it was the only college to be added to the university between 1596 and 1869, and is often described as the oldest of ...

. He gained firsts in Part 1 of the

Natural Science Tripos The Natural Sciences Tripos is the framework within which most of the science at the University of Cambridge is taught. The tripos includes a wide range of Natural Sciences from physics, astronomy, and geoscience, to chemistry and biology, which ...

in 1905 and in Part 2 of the Historical Tripos in 1906.

Career

He became a schoolteacher and later an educational administrator. He became an education officer for

London County Council The London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today ...

. He was a tutor at

Bede College, Durham The College of St Hild and St Bede, commonly known as Hild Bede, is a Colleges of Durham University, constituent college of Durham University in England. With over 1000 student members, The co-educational college was formed in 1975 following the ...

then assistant master at St. Andrews College,

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

and Tewfikieh School,

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

. He became a lecturer at Khedivial Training College, Egypt. From 1914 to 1919 he served in the

Royal West Kent Regiment The Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army based in the county of Kent in existence from 1881 to 1961. The regiment was created on 1 July 1881 as part of the Childers Reforms, originally as the Queen' ...

Gallipoli The Gallipoli Peninsula (; ; ) is located in the southern part of East Thrace, the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles strait to the east. Gallipoli is the Italian form of the Greek name (), meaning ' ...

, becoming a

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

then a

major Major most commonly refers to: * Major (rank), a military rank * Academic major, an academic discipline to which an undergraduate student formally commits * People named Major, including given names, surnames, nicknames * Major and minor in musi ...

. He was injured at

Ypres Ypres ( ; ; ; ; ) is a Belgian city and municipality in the province of West Flanders. Though the Dutch name is the official one, the city's French name is most commonly used in English. The municipality comprises the city of Ypres/Ieper ...

. After the war he was assistant master at

Eton College Eton College ( ) is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school providing boarding school, boarding education for boys aged 13–18, in the small town of Eton, Berkshire, Eton, in Berkshire, in the United Kingdom. It has educated Prime Mini ...

. He became a District Inspector for the Board of Education from 1919 to 1927, then Chief Inspector of Technical Schools and Colleges in 1932. He was a Senior Chief Inspector from 1933 to 1940, then Education Officer to the LCC from 1940 to 1951. This was during

The Blitz The Blitz (English: "flash") was a Nazi Germany, German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom, for eight months, from 7 September 1940 to 11 May 1941, during the Second World War. Towards the end of the Battle of Britain in 1940, a co ...

. Labour had controlled London County Council since 1934.

Comprehensive schools

From 1925 to 1926 he visited America specifically the states of

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

and

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

, and was impressed by the ''democratic'' nature of the

high school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...

s in terms of social diversity, although overall academic performance of such schools was less well-researched; it was of secondary interest. He noted that the system did not account for the different needs of the school population, but he nonetheless liked the general nature of the schools. The Labour Party had been a champion of

grammar school A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a Latin school, school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented Se ...

s in the 1940s, but by the 1950s had begun to look at Graham Savage's ideas instead which had been implemented partly in London. In 1947 he introduced the London School Plan of comprehensive schools, wholly driven by the wishes of the incumbent Labour council. Although largely responsible for their first introduction, he had some misgivings about the comprehensive system; he hoped these could be alleviated, specifically that although at the same school, pupils would study different courses in keeping with their abilities. In this his ideas were more for bi-lateral schools than comprehensives. He explicitly did not want all pupils of differing abilities studying the same courses. To achieve this, schools would have to be very large – up to 400 in each year. In many comprehensive schools this is simply not possible. He was knighted in 1947. He thought highly of

direct grant grammar school A direct grant grammar school was a type of selective secondary school in the United Kingdom that existed between 1945 and 1976. One quarter of the places in these schools were directly funded by central government, while the remainder attracted ...

s, saying in 1965 that they were ''the scaffolding on which a good state system of secondary education is slowly being built''. Most of London's fifty five state

s would stay until the 1970s. He retired in 1951.

Outcome of his work

In later life, despite his satisfaction with lending British national pedagogy a more democratic character, he thought that the educational standards of comprehensive schools might have declined more than the marginal amount he had predicted in 1928.

Personal life

He married May Thwaites, from

Southchurch Southchurch is a suburb and former civil parish in the city of Southend-on-Sea in the ceremonial county of Essex, England. England. In 2011 the ward had a population of 9,710. History In 824 AD, a Saxon thegn, Leofstan presented the manor o ...

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

, in 1911 in

Rochford Rochford is a town and civil parish in the Rochford (district), Rochford District in Essex, England, north of Southend-on-Sea, from London and from Chelmsford. At the 2011 census, the Civil parishes in England, civil parish had a population ...

. They had two sons and a daughter.

References