J. C. Stobart

John Clarke Stobart (5 March 1878 – 11 May 1933), commonly known as J. C. Stobart, was a classical scholar, a University of Cambridge lecturer, an HM Inspector of Schools and the BBC's first Director of Education.

Early life

Known as 'Jack' to his relations and friends, Stobart was born in Swyre Rectory, Dorset, England, on 5 March 1878. His father, William Stobart, was the Rector, his mother was Susan Elizabeth (née Morris), the daughter of a farmer in Rutland, and he had two elder sisters. Soon after his birth his father was appointed Rector of Bermondsey in London and the family moved to London. He was educated at Rugby School and as a Bell Scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge, obtaining his BA in 1901 (MA in 1904). He also studied briefly at Greifswald University in Germany and in Edinburgh, before becoming a teacher at Merchant Taylor's School in London.

In 1904, he married Mary Currey Gibson, daughter of the Reverend Thomas Gibson, Vicar of St Sepulchre's in London. They had two daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, both born in Cambridge, where in 1907 Stobart became a lecturer at Trinity College. Two years later he was appointed one of His Majesty's Inspectors of Schools and during the First World War worked for the Ministry of Munitions before acting as Assistant Secretary to the British War Cabinet of 1917–18.

BBC

After the war, he helped organise the 1924 British Empire Exhibition at Wembley and in 1925 joined the BBC as its first Director of Education. He was responsible for two long-lasting programmes, Children's Hour and The Epilogue and according to one source suggested the BBC's motto, 'Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation]'. He also proposed creating a new cultural network, to be named the Minerva programme, after the Roman goddess of wisdom, but this idea was turned down and was not realised until the creation of 'The Third Programme' at the end of the Second World War.