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James Walsh papers

Archive Collection: MS 1774

Details

Type of record: Archive

Title: James Walsh papers

Level: Collection

Classmark: MS 1774

Creator(s): Walsh, James J()

Date(s): 1950s-1990s

Language: English

Size and medium: 7 boxes.

Persistent link: https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/8812

Description

The core of the papers relate to the research project Walsh was engaged in for a study of British University Expansion between 1955 and 1968 (boxes 1-4). The project was funded by the Nuffield Foundation. There are transcripts and tape recordings of interviews with a number of leading academic and administrative personalities of the time. Relating to this work, the collection includes correspondence and material of W. G. V. Balchin regarding the new universities that were founded in 1940-1960 (boxes 5-6). There is also material relating to Walsh's unpublished autobiography, including diaries and journals (box 7).

Biography or history

Dr James (Jim) Walsh (1930-2008), Emeritus Registrar at the University of Leeds, was born in Lancashire in 1930. Walsh was a pupil at Nelson Grammar School before coming to Leeds in 1948 to read English. Graduating with first class honours in 1951, he was awarded a research scholarship and completed a thesis on Edmund Burke for his MA degree, which he received in 1953. Two years of National Service in the RAF followed, after which he entered university administration in 1955, at the University of Manchester. Successive promotions came his way, and in 1969 he was appointed Assistant Registrar. In 1971 Walsh took up appointment as Deputy Registrar at the University of Leeds. When Dr James MacGregor retired in 1979, Walsh succeeded him as the fifth Registrar in the history of the University. He was to remain in office for the next thirteen years. Walsh was a founder member, in 1961, of the Meeting of University Academic Administrative Staff (MUAAS), its first Secretary and later, with
Geoff Lockwood, Joint Secretary. MUAAS later metamorphosed into the Conference, and subsequently the Association of University Administrators. He also served on the Administrative Training Committee of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals and, in conjunction with Ken Kitchen, was responsible, in 1969, for initiating and devising what became the Northern Universities' Administrative Training Programme. In 1975 Walsh was appointed to serve as an adviser to the Bangladesh Universities' Commission and in the following year was awarded a Commonwealth Travelling Fellowship to give seminars in India, Australia and the USA. He visited a number of other countries at the invitation of the British Council, often as part of a delegation of specialists in higher education. One of the outstanding University Registrars of his generation, Walsh retired from his post in September 1992. On his retirement, the title of Emeritus Registrar was conferred upon him and in the following year he was
awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters by the University. Walsh died in 2008. Source: Obituary, Campusweb, University of Leeds, 5 February 2008.

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