100 years ago

AT a meeting of the Executive of the York Traders’ Association, the president spoke of the effects of the war upon trade.

All of the traders and employers of labour knew how disastrously it worked upon our commercial life, he said, and he spoke with authority when he said that practically every trader in the city of York was feeling the ill-effects of war by a decrease in his weekly takings of 30, 40, and 50 per cent, and in some instances even more.

The cause of these decreases were to be found in the panic of public who in an access of mistaken economy cut down expenses on every hand without regard to the probable result.

On the other hand the Chancellor of the Exchequer was appealing to the traders and manufacturers throughout Great Britain to hold together, maintain their staffs, and go on “business as usual,” advice they all wanted to obey, but were finding their efforts futile because the people of our cities and our villages were not doing their part in helping to maintain that motto, “business as usual”.


50 years ago

DR N France, County Inspector of Schools and Chief Educational Psychologist for Kent said GCE statistics showed an average failure rate of about 40 per cent of candidates for individual subjects at O-level.

Among candidates in secondary modern schools the failure rate was just over 50 per cent. “This suggests that O-level is not a suitable discriminating measure for the modern school, nor, indeed for the selective school.”

Only now had the proportion of an age group achieving five O-levels reached 15 per cent.

“The inauguration of the new regional boards for the Certificate of Secondary Education may well mark the beginning of the end for the O-level examination as at present devised,” said Dr France.

“The CSE should provide a much more suitable measure of attainment at the end of five years of the secondary school course for a much greater proportion of the population.”


25 years ago

A NEW £1.9 million college was to be built at the University of York.

The seventh college, agreed by university chiefs, would be built on the Heslington campus and provide 144 study bedrooms for graduate students.

Work was due to start in November, with the first phase expected to be complete by autumn 1990.

The decision represented a huge investment in York’s future as a seat of learning.

The university bursar, Mr Roger McMeeking, said: “this is an expression of the university’s health and confidence in the future. We have got to keep moving to retain our potential for expansion.”