Michael Young
Encyclopedia
Michael Young, Baron Young of Dartington (9 August 1915 – 14 January 2002) was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 sociologist, social activist and politician who coined the term "meritocracy
Meritocracy
Meritocracy, in the first, most administrative sense, is a system of government or other administration wherein appointments and responsibilities are objectively assigned to individuals based upon their "merits", namely intelligence, credentials, and education, determined through evaluations or...

".

During an active life he was instrumental in shaping Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 thinking, when secretary of the policy committee of the Labour party was responsible for drafting "Let Us Face the Future", Labour's manifesto for the 1945 general election, was a leading protagonist on social reform, and founded or helped found a number of socially useful organizations. These include the Consumers' Association
Consumers' Association
The Consumers' Association is the umbrella organisation that houses the trading arm Which? Ltd. The Consumers' Association is a charity, registered in England and Wales No 296072. Which? Ltd is its wholly owned trading subsidiary....

, Which? magazine, the National Consumer Council
Consumer Focus
Consumer Focus is a statutory consumer organisation in England, Wales, Scotland, and, for postal services, Northern Ireland, formed in 2008 by the merging Postwatch, Energywatch and the Welsh, Scottish and National Consumer Councils...

, the Open University
Open University
The Open University is a distance learning and research university founded by Royal Charter in the United Kingdom...

, the National Extension College
National Extension College
The National Extension College was set up over 40 years ago as a not-for-profit organisation to help people of all ages fit learning into their lives. Originally founded in 1963 as a pilot study for the Open University....

, the Open College of the Arts
Open College of the Arts
The Open College of the Arts is a distance learning independent arts college, with a Head Office in Barnsley in South Yorkshire, England...

 and Language Line, a telephone-interpreting business.

Early life

Young was born in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

. His father was an Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n violinist and music critic, his mother a Bohemian
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...

 painter and actress, and until he was eight, he grew up in Melbourne, returning to England shortly before his parents' marriage broke up. He attended several schools, eventually entering Dartington Hall
Dartington Hall
The Dartington Hall Trust, near Totnes, Devon, United Kingdom is a charity specialising in the arts, social justice and sustainability.The Trust currently runs 16 charitable programmes, including The Dartington International Summer School and Schumacher Environmental College...

, a new progressive school in Devon, in the 1920s. He had a long association with the small school, as student, trustee, deputy chairman and historian. He studied economics at the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...

 and was called to the Bar in 1939.

Political career and thought

Young served under the Labour Party government led by Clement Attlee
Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...

 into office. He left the post in 1950 and began PhD studies at the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...

 in 1952. His studies of housing and local government policy in East London left him disillusioned with the state of community relations and local Labour councillors. This prompted him to found the urban studies think tank, the Institute for Community Studies
Institute for Community Studies
The Institute of Community Studies based in London is an urban studies think tank. Founded in 1954, it had been the main vehicle through which Michael Young created over 60 organisations including the Open University and the Consumers' Association. A registered charity, its main purpose is to...

, which was Young's principal vehicle for exploring his ideas of social reform and creating over sixty institutions. Its basic tenet was to give people more say in running their lives and institutions

With Peter Willmott, he authored the study, Family and Kinship in East London (known affectionately by sociologists as Fakinel - invariably pronounced with a cockney accent),Suggesting "fuckin' 'el" (fucking hell) and alone, he wrote the influential satire The Rise of the Meritocracy in 1958, originally for the Fabian Society
Fabian Society
The Fabian Society is a British socialist movement, whose purpose is to advance the principles of democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist, rather than revolutionary, means. It is best known for its initial ground-breaking work beginning late in the 19th century and continuing up to World...

 although they refused to publish it. It led to a change in Labour's thinking on equal opportunities and coined the word meritocracy
Meritocracy
Meritocracy, in the first, most administrative sense, is a system of government or other administration wherein appointments and responsibilities are objectively assigned to individuals based upon their "merits", namely intelligence, credentials, and education, determined through evaluations or...

. Young intended the word to have negative connotations, and he later became disappointed with the way in which subsequent governments (especially New Labour) came to suggest that a meritocracy is something worth striving for. It was at this time too that Young began work on the Consumers' Association
Consumers' Association
The Consumers' Association is the umbrella organisation that houses the trading arm Which? Ltd. The Consumers' Association is a charity, registered in England and Wales No 296072. Which? Ltd is its wholly owned trading subsidiary....

, the National Consumer Council, the Open University and the Open College of the Arts. He founded Language Line, a telephone interpreting business, to enable non English speaking people to have equal access to public services. He fostered the work of many younger researchers and "social entrepreneurs", founding the School for Social Entrepreneurs in 1997. Among the former was the collection of social studies in medical care, led by Dr. Ann Cartwright
Ann Cartwright
Ann Cartwright is a statistician and socio-medical researcher whose Institute for Social Studies in Medical Care was launched by Michael Young, initially under the auspices of his Institute of Community Studies. The Institute produced numerous books and reports for the Department of Health which...

. Aspects of the work of Michael Young were developed by the Young Foundation
Young Foundation
The Young Foundation was launched in the spring of 2006 following the merger of the Institute of Community Studies and the Mutual Aid Centre. It is named after Michael Young, the British sociologist and social activist who created over 60 organisations including the Open University, Which? and...

, under the direction of Geoff Mulgan
Geoff Mulgan
Geoff Mulgan is Chief Executive of the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts and Visiting Professor at University College, London, the London School of Economics and the University of Melbourne...

, a former policy advisor to Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...

.

Throughout his life, and particularly in later life, Young was concerned for older people. He co-founded the University of the Third Age
University of the Third Age
The University of the Third Age is an international organisation whose aims are the education and stimulation of retired members of the community - those in the third 'age' of life. It is commonly referred to as U3A.- France :...

 and Linkage, bringing together older people without grandchildren, and young people without grandparents. For his work, he was made a life peer
Life peer
In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the Peerage whose titles cannot be inherited. Nowadays life peerages, always of baronial rank, are created under the Life Peerages Act 1958 and entitle the holders to seats in the House of Lords, presuming they meet qualifications such as...

 as Baron Young of Dartington, of Dartington in the County of Devon
Devon
Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...

, in 1978. He was a fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge
Churchill College, Cambridge
Churchill College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.In 1958, a Trust was established with Sir Winston Churchill as its Chairman of Trustees, to build and endow a college for 60 fellows and 540 Students as a national and Commonwealth memorial to Winston Churchill; its...

, from 1961-66, and President of Birkbeck, University of London
Birkbeck, University of London
Birkbeck, University of London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It offers many Master's and Bachelor's degree programmes that can be studied either part-time or full-time, though nearly all teaching is...

, from 1989-92.

Personal life

Young married three times. In 1945, he married Joan Lawton, with whom he had two sons and a daughter. They divorced, and in 1960 he married Sasha Moorsom, the novelist, sculptor and painter, with whom he had a son and daughter. They worked together on several projects, including in the township
Township (South Africa)
In South Africa, the term township and location usually refers to the urban living areas that, from the late 19th century until the end of Apartheid, were reserved for non-whites . Townships were usually built on the periphery of towns and cities...

s of South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

. After Moorsom's death in 1993, Young married Dorit Uhlemann in 1995, with whom he had a daughter. Toby Young
Toby Young
Toby Young, MA, FRSA is a British journalist and the author of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, the tale of his stint in New York as a contributing editor at Vanity Fair magazine...

, Michael Young's son with Moorsom, is a celebrity journalist and writer, best known for his book How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (memoir)
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People is a memoir by Toby Young about his failed five-year effort to make it in the U.S. as a contributing editor at Condé Nast Publications' Vanity Fair magazine...

.

External links

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