Former General Secretary dies

By Ken and Marie Muir

One of the great General Secretaries of the Federation, Ivor Lancaster, died July 24, aged 89.

Ivor was born in Lithgow December 1914, the third child of a family of one girl and three boys. He was educated at Cooerwull Public School and Lithgow Intermediate High School. In 1933 he started teacher training at Sydney Teachers College. In May 1935 he was appointed to Lithgow Intermediate High School as a relief teacher and stayed for the rest of the year. This was followed by service at a provisional school at Tullamore and after four years to Lithgow Public School. Arising out of his concern over salaries reductions, negative changes to the Superannuation Fund and the dismissal of married women teachers and lecturers, he became an active member of Federation from his first year of teaching and he was soon elected to positions of responsibility in the Lithgow branch.

In 1943 at Federation Annual Conference he successfully moved for the Federation to affiliate with the ACTU and NSW Trades and Labor Council.

Federation, at this time, decided it would campaign for federal funding for public education. Lithgow Association was approached to hold a conference as it was in Ben Chifley's seat. Ivor as Secretary and the President, Ted Coyle, organised a very successful conference in Lithgow which saw delegates attend from a very wide area. Federal funding became a major issue of the 1946 federal election. Ivor organised what was probably the first deputation ever by a local association to the Prime Minister of the day.

In November 1947 Ivor was elected as an Organiser and remained with the Federation until his retirement in February 1975.

Ivor had great organisation skills and the ability to liaise and co-opt people, organisations and the media. He organised national education conferences in Canberra in 1948 and in Sydney in 1958 that dealt with federal funding. In 1954 he organised the statewide Advance of Education Conference which also dealt with federal funding. Ivor was very effective in co-opting the support of parent, education, and child centred organisations, building up an excellent rapport so that these organisations joined with the Federation in calling for federal funding. The initial federal funds were for science education only and it grew from there.

In 1962 Ivor became Deputy General Secretary/Treasurer and in 1963 General Secretary, a position he held until his retirement.

Staffing was a major industrial issue in the late 1960s. The combination of actions of teachers in the Illawarra area and Dover Heights High School, supported by many teachers throughout the state, and Ivor's excellent organisational skills and ability to mediate resulted in casual teaching staff being employed if a permanent teacher was absent for three days or more. This was quite a victory as prior to this development, casual teaching staff could not be employed unless a permanent teacher was absent for a fortnight.

1968 was an historic year in the history of the NSW Teachers Federation. It was the first time that teachers took strike action on a statewide basis. The organisation required to get the support of teachers was carefully and meticulously planned. Mass meetings were called and the resolution for strike action was put to these meetings in the major centres in the state, so that teachers themselves had to commit to taking the strike action. The organisation for these mass meetings and finally the statewide strike meetings, and the use of landline for the first time, was the brainchild of Ivor Lancaster.

Ivor Lancaster was General Secretary at a period in the political history when there were wide divisions within society. This division was reflected in Federation forums and in the Labor Party. It was this atmosphere that made the achievements of Federation during the period when Ivor was General Secretary all the more credible. The change of policy to include mass action was not easily achieved.

During the 1960s Ivor was a committed supporter and one of the first Directors of the Teachers Club which provided a great social venue.

All through his life he had a strong social conscience and was a committed family man who could not have been successful without the full support of his wife Tem, and daughters Stephanie and Anne, and son Richard.

Vale Ivor Lancaster.

Marie and Ken Muir are Life Members.

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