Betty Campbell

Betty Campbell MBE (1934 – 13 October 2017) was a community activist and Wales' first black head teacher. Born into a poor household in Butetown, she won a scholarship to the Lady Margaret High School for Girls in Cardiff. She later took the opportunity to train as a teacher and in due course become head teacher of Mount Stuart Primary School in Butetown. She put into practice innovative ideas on the education of children and was actively involved in the community.

Early life

Betty Campbell was born Rachel Elizabeth Johnson^[1] in Butetown, Cardiff, in 1934.^[2] The area was formerly known as Tiger Bay, which was built up around Cardiff docklands and was one of the UK's first multi-cultural communities. Betty's father, Simon Vickers Johnson, who had come to the UK from Jamaica when he was 15, was killed in World War Two, when his ship The Ocean Vanguard was torpedoed in 1942, and her mother Honora was a street bookmaker. Betty won a scholarship to the Lady Margaret High School for Girls in Cardiff and wanted to be a teacher from a young age, but faced discouragement from one of her teachers who told her the problems for a working class, black girl would be "insurmountable". She became pregnant at the age of 17, while she was doing her A levels and left school when she married Robert Campbell in 1953.^[3]

Career

In 1960, when Campbell already had three children, she discovered that Cardiff Training College was taking on female students. She resurrected her dream of becoming a teacher, applied and was accepted. Although her first teaching post was in Llanrumney, she soon returned to Butetown getting a job at Mount Stuart Primary School. As a black teacher she experienced hostility from some parents. She was inspired by anti-slavery activists like Harriet Tubman and the US civil rights movement. When she became Wales' first black head teacher at Mount Stuart in the 1970s she began teaching children about slavery, black history and the system of apartheid which operated at the time in South Africa.^[3]

She served as an independent Councillor for Butetown on Cardiff Council from 1999-2004.^[4]

Influence and recognition

Under Campbell's leadership, Mount Stuart School raised its profile across the United Kingdom. In 1994, Prince Charles attended the school's annual St David's Day eisteddfod.^[5] In 1998, as a member of the Commission for Racial Equality, Betty Campbell was invited to meet Nelson Mandela on his only visit to Wales.^[3] She was invited to be part of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Commission on Education which published a number of research papers on education. In 1993, it published the book "Learning to Succeed" where practice examples from Mount Stuart Primary School were cited. She was a board member of BBC Wales in the 1980s, and was made an honorary fellow of Cardiff Metropolitan University.^[5] In 2003, she was awarded an MBE for services to education and community life.^[5]

Death

Campbell died on 13 October 2017, having been ill for several months.^[6] Race Council Cymru immediately called for a statue to be erected in her memory, with possible locations being near the Wales Millennium Centre or the newly redeveloped Central Square.^[7]

References