Alexander Dunlop Lindsay, 1st Baron Lindsay of Birker, CBE (14 May 1879 – 18 March 1952),^[1] known as Sandie Lindsay, was a Scottish academic and peer.^[2][3][4]

Lindsay worked at a number of universities, beginning his career as a fellow in moral philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and as an assistant lecturer at Victoria University of Manchester. He then moved to Balliol College, Oxford where he had been elected a fellow in 1906. He served in the British Army during the First World War. He was Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow from 1922 to 1924, before returning to the University of Oxford as master of Balliol College 1924. He also served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1935 to 1938. Having retired from Oxford in 1949, he became the first principal of the University College of North Staffordshire (now Keele University).

Lindsay had unsuccessfully stood for election to the House of Commons in the 1938 Oxford by-election, as an independent candidate opposed to the Munich Agreement. He was, however, made a baron on 13 November 1945, and thereby sat as a peer in the House of Lords.

Early life

He was born in Glasgow on 14 May 1879, the son of Anna and Thomas Martin Lindsay. Lindsay was educated from 1887 at the Glasgow Academy, then at the University of Glasgow, where he gained a Master of Arts degree in 1899, and lastly at University College, Oxford, where he took a Double First in 1902.^[5]

Career

In 1903 he won the Shaw fellowship in moral philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, as had his father, the first recipient of this award. He was assistant lecturer in philosophy at the Victoria University of Manchester from 1904 to 1906, when he was elected a fellow and tutor in philosophy at Balliol College, Oxford.^[5]

During the First World War he served in France, was mentioned twice in dispatches, and was a Lieutenant-colonel.^[5]

He was Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow (1922–24). He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1924 to 1925. In 1924 he became master of Balliol College and became Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1935 to 1938. He worked with Lord Nuffield who donated £1 million to fund a new physical chemistry laboratory and a postgraduate college for social studies, Nuffield College, Oxford^[5] in 1937.

At Oxford, Lindsay was a leading figure in the adult education movement. On his retirement from Balliol, in 1949, Lindsay was appointed the first Principal of the University College of North Staffordshire which opened in 1949 and is now Keele University.^[5]

In 1938, Lindsay stood for Parliament in the Oxford by-election as an 'Independent Progressive' on the single issue of opposition to the Munich Agreement, with support from the Labour and Liberal parties as well as from many Conservatives including the future Prime Ministers Winston Churchill, Harold Macmillan and Edward Heath, but lost to the official Conservative candidate, Quintin Hogg.

In 1949 Lindsay became the Founding Principal of the University College of North Staffordshire, which opened at Keele Hall in 1950. This unique institution - the first UK University of the 20th Century - tested many of Lindsay's educational principles and reflected the postwar idealism of its day. Known by many as the "Keele Experiment", many of the features of the New Universities of the 1960s were tested at Keele. The University College became the University of Keele in 1962.

Personal life

Lindsay married Erica Violet Storr (1877 - 28 May 1962), daughter of Francis Storr, in 1907 and they had one daughter and two sons.^[5]

He was elevated to the peerage on 13 November 1945 as Baron Lindsay of Birker, of Low Ground in the County of Cumberland. He was introduced to the House of Lords on 5 December 1945.^[6] He was succeeded in the barony by his eldest son Michael Francis Morris Lindsay.

Selected bibliography

• Socratic Discourses with an Introduction by A. D. Lindsay (1910)
• Berkeley's A New Theory of Vision and Other Select Philosophical Writings with an Introduction by A. D. Lindsay (1910)
• The Philosophy of Bergson (1911)
• Five Dialogues of Plato, bearing on Poetic Inspiration with an Introduction by A. D. Lindsay (1913)
• Mill's Utilitarianism, Liberty & Representative Government with an Introduction by A. D. Lindsay (1914)
• The Republic of Plato translated by A. D. Lindsay (1923)
• Karl Marx's Capital an introductory essay (1925)
• Kant, Ernest Benn Limited / Oxford University Press, 1934. 1970 edition, Folcroft Press. ASIN: B0006C6R8G
• The Two Moralities (1940)