Author: William Owen Lester Smith

Date of birth: September 4 1888
Date of death: May 4 1976
Website:

W. O. Lester Smith was born in Montgomeryshire in 1888, and educated at the King's School, Chester, and Merton College, Oxford. After teaching in a Grammar and a Public School, he served as an assistant education officer in Warwickshire and Lancashire. He was for seven years Chief Education Officer for Essex, and from 1931 to 1949 Manchester's Chief Education Officer. He has served on several of the national councils and committees referred to in this book, and has been President of the Education Section of the British Association, the Association of Directors and Secretaries of Education, the College of Preceptors, and the School Library Association. From 1949 to 1953 he was Professor of the Sociology of Education in the University of London. Among his publications are *To Whom do Schools Belong?*, *The Impact of Education on Society*, *Education in Great Britain*, and *Compulsory Education in England*.