The Peace Contribution in England

Abstract

The world war proved the value of the refugees to the Allied cause in manifold branches of science and scholarship. The end of the war opened new opportunities for utilising the talents in England. For the need for experts, brains and for academic teachers was not diminished. The large postwar extension of British Universities, which had in a few years to double their capacity, meant that Unliversity teachers were, as the warjargon goes, in short supply. The valuable war service of the refugees had broken down the lingering prejudices of professional bodies; and those who had found posts during the war for the most part retained them in peace, though the nature of their work might be changed. Men came back from war departments and research laboratories established for war purposes to the Universities, the Colleges and Research Institutes. The chemists, the physicists, the mathematicians, the biologists, and the masters of the various branches of the Humanities carried on as permanent members of the academic staff; and, as we have seen, they now became British subjects.