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Name: SHRUBSOLE, Alison Cheveley
Birth Date: 7 Apr 1925 Sutton, Surrey
Death Date: 4 Oct 2002 Motril, Spain
Profession: Educationalist, principal of Machakos Teacher Training College, principal of Homerton College
Married: In Gibraltar 1983 George Huntly Hilton Brown (1904-2002)
General Information:
Guardian 25 Oct 2002 Became principal of Homerton College, Cambridge, in 1971, and was immediately faced with a battle for its survival as a college of education in Cambridge. The three-year degree course for all students of education proposed by the James Report in 1971 was not compatible with Cambridge honours degrees, and Homerton's future was in jeopardy.
In a climate still nurturing a good deal of hostility, Shrubsole succeeded none the less in making good friends within the university and exercised her considerable skills of tact and diplomacy to negotiate a four-year Cambridge B.Ed honours course, with the first two years taught at Homerton, followed by two years teaching in the university.
In 1976, Homerton, traditionally a women's college, began to admit men, and in the same year, its position within the university was consolidated with a ballot by the dons in favour of its formal affiliation as an "Approved Society".
Shrubsole was born in Sutton, Surrey, the youngest of three children. Her father was a Congregationalist minister and her mother a bank cashier and suffragette; a gardening uncle fondly called her "Alison Subsoil". She was educated at Milton Mount College and took a degree in history at Royal Holloway College followed by a PGCE at the London Institute of Education before gaining an MA at Cambridge.
In 1950 she was appointed senior lecturer in history at Stockwell College in south London, a post she held until 1957 when she accepted the challenge of becoming the first principal of Machakos Teacher Training College in Kenya.
The first task for her and her students was to construct the building, which was achieved with characteristic efficiency and team leadership despite primitive conditions and shortage of resources. To obtain a water supply for the college, Shrubsole had to argue her case with the district commissioner. He initially refused, but later relented and agreed - in exchange for a date. A deal was struck and many years later the two would marry. In 1962 she returned to Britain to become principal of Philippa Fawcett College in London.
Throughout her time at Homerton, Shrubsole represented the college as an active member of the then Association of Voluntary Colleges, a body of mainly church-based colleges of education directly funded by central government. Although she was a committed Christian and a regular worshipper at Emmanuel United Reformed Church in Cambridge, she was always sensitive to others with different beliefs and was careful in her public life to ensure that her own faith caused no problem or embarrassment for anyone.
Shrubsole applied a distinctive style of leadership and excelled at bringing the best out of all those around her. She had a lively sense of fun and, above all, a genuine concern for the well-being of all her colleagues and students. She was unfailingly modest, making light of her achievements, preferring instead to encourage the efforts of others.
She was a fellow of Hughes Hall, Cambridge, and was awarded the CBE in 1982. In 1985 she received an honorary degree from the Open University.
In 1983, to the delighted astonishment of her colleagues at Homerton, Shrubsole returned from the "long vac" to announce that she had been married in Gibraltar to George Hilton Brown, the one-time district commissioner of Machakos. In the final two years before her retirement she made it her business to learn Spanish, and it was to Andalusia she went upon leaving Cambridge, to join her husband in farming and breeding rabbits. There, in the village of Rubite, she soon became a much loved and respected member of the community, continuing the habit of a lifetime in caring for the interests of others.
Alison Shrubsole maintained close contact with Homerton and her many friends in this country, making regular visits back to her pied-à-terre in Kent.