Adam Curle, educationalist and peace activist

Adam Curle was born in 1916. He studied anthropology at Oxford then served in the British Army during the Second World War. He returned to the world of social psychology with work at the Tavistock Institute, followed by appointments as Lecturer in Social Psychology at Oxford (1950), Chair in Education and Psychology at Exeter University (1956), consultant on Pakistan’s education policy (1956-64), and Professor of Education at the University of Ghana (1959). He set up the Harvard Center for Studies in Education and Development in 1962, and from 1973 to 1978 was the first professor of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford. An active member of the Society of Friends (Quakers), he was particularly involved in mediation and reconciliation in areas of conflict, working as a mediator and promoter of peace in India and Pakistan, Nigeria/Biafra, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, Bosnia and Croatia. He wrote widely on the theory and practice of peace-making and in 2000 received the Gandhi International Peace Award. He died on 28 September 2006.