| Biography | The Society for the Protection of Science and Learning was founded in 1933 as the Academic Assistance Council, by a small group of academics (notably William Beveridge, Leo Szilard and Lord Rutherford). Aware of the potentially large-scale dismissal of university teachers by the Nazi régime in Germany, the council aimed to provide short-term grants for refugee lecturers, and to help them in finding new employment. This operation was funded with money raised by appeals to the academic community and others in Britain. In 1936, faced with growing demands on its services, the Council was more formally reestablished as the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning, with an advisory council, executive committee, grants allocation committee, and a small secretariat. By the outbreak of war, some 2000 individuals had been registered with the Society, the German refugees now being joined by those from Austria, Italy, Spain and a few from Soviet Russia. During the war years, the Society moved to Cambridge. Its financial support for refugees was largely taken over by the government through the Central Committee for Refugees. The Society could therefore devote its energies to finding war work for its grantees, and to alleviating the effects of the internment regulations on the many foreign scholars resident in Britain. The Society has maintained a continuous existence since 1945 assisting successive groups of émigré scholars from Hungary, Poland, Chile, South Africa and many other countries. In 1959 the Society was again reconstituted, this time as a registered company run by a council of management evolved from the previous executive committee. In recent years, following the retirement of its long-serving Secretary, Esther Simpson, it has shared London offices with the World University Service.
The archives of the AAC and the SPSL are held at the Bodleian Library, Oxford. |