Common Ground

Common Ground Ltd. was the largest filmstrip-maker in postwar Britain, producing more than 500 filmstrips between 1946-1951. Crucially, Common Ground was an independent firm, in a filmstrip market dominated either by State-supported businesses – through the Central Office of Information or Ministry of Education committees – or backed by media powerhouses such as the Daily Mail School-aid department. From the 1940s till at least the 1970s Common Ground filmstrips were used to teach generations of students, leaving behind a significant yet overlooked pedagogical legacy.

After the Second World War, the filmstrip emerged as the medium to form and inform British (and global) social, political, educational, and occupational life, and Common Ground’s coverage of topics is representative of the wide reach of the medium. The company made filmstrips for school and technical education (Tea, Optical Sound Recording), agriculture and industry (Science and the Farmer, Coal Mining), civics and politics (People of Other Lands, Local Government), religion and rural life (The Spread of Christianity, The Development of the Plough), and health and hygiene (Carbohydrates and the Calorie, Sex and Society).

Common Ground also established connections with intellectuals and experts in a diverse variety of fields who authored and prepared the filmstrips. This included the British writer, educator, and political scientist G.D.H. Cole, who made over thirty filmstrips and later implemented his methods to shape United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (UNESCO) global visual education programmes; the Austrian thinker and scientist Marie Neurath who (along with her husband Otto) is known for establishing Isotype Institute (International System of Typographic Picture Education); the British film director Roger Manvell who adapted his works on the history of cinema to the filmstrip format; and the German animator Lotte Reiniger who used the silhouette cut-outs of her animation fairy-tale films to prepare complementary filmstrips. The filmstrip thus responded to other media forms and represented the socio-political life in postwar Europe (The Neuraths and Reiniger had escaped Austria and Germany respectively, moved to Britain, and made significant contributions to art and education). In fact, over 100 writers, illustrators, thinkers, and educators were involved with Common Ground, producing filmstrips and instructing postwar Britain and – through the distribution of their filmstrips by UNESCO and other international organisations – the world.

The reception of some of Common Ground’s filmstrips also highlights the (enduring) importance of the media form in discourses surrounding British education. The Company’s series on sex education – made with the help of sexologist Cyril Bibby at the Institute of Education, London – was commended by some teachers’ groups for raising matters of “vital significance.”[1] However, it also caused a brief media storm for being “disgusting.”[2] The reactions seemingly recognise the importance of filmstrips as part of a postwar education that sought to shape the future of Britain [3] and, more specifically, suggest that the Common Ground sex education filmstrips may have offered a more ‘progressive’ or ‘modern’ perspectives on the matter.

Common Ground also believed in the filmstrip’s potential for revolutionising education more fundamentally. In communications with the British Government and other educationally-minded organisations, the company’s founder Conrad Rawnsley argued that the filmstrip plus some additional documents to aid the teacher would and should “replace the [text-]book in junior and middle grade of education” (emphasis as in original letter).[4] The hyperbole notwithstanding, Rawnsley’s positioning of the filmstrip in relation to the book is noteworthy. In a postwar era of paper rationing, Rawnsley recognised that the filmstrip – with a short accompanying booklet – could offer “a more economical means” to deliver information and knowledge.[5]

Rawnsley’s instincts, though, were found wanting when it came to commercial and corporate decisions. His over-production of filmstrips drove Common Ground Ltd. into debt and receivership. Moreover, his aggressive lobbying of the Publishers’ Association to challenge what he saw as a state monopoly on visual aids in British education, played a significant part in bringing a swift end to Common Ground’s Association membership.[6]

Common Ground Ltd. was dissolved in July 1951. In a rebrand that saw the concern become Common Ground (1951) Ltd., the company itself and all its filmstrips were salvaged. Rawnsley was no longer involved and new directors included Ian Carter – who also served as its new managing director and was previously the managing editor at Common Ground Ltd – and the educationalists R.A.W. Caine, and J.A. Lauwerys (another prominent British educationalist and a significant figure in UNESCO history). The ‘new’ business was a more stable success and continued to work with many of the existing filmstrip authors. It added 8-10 new titles a year, while maintaining, and regularly updating the filmstrips produced in the Rawnsley era.[7]

After Ian Carter’s death in 1954, Clifton Ackroyd, who had previously founded the Visual Aids Department of the United Council for Missionary Education and extensively collaborated with the older Common Ground to prepare filmstrips for missionary use, was appointed as the company’s new Managing Director. Under his stewardship, Common Ground (1951) Ltd. remained a leading producer of filmstrips. Ackroyd continued in this role until 1969, when Common Ground merged with the educational book publishers, the Longman Group Ltd., and was subsumed in their visual aids section. In fact, significant records of Common Ground’s history – its author agreements, master scripts, artworks, and of course, filmstrips – only survive because Longman donated their materials to the University of Reading.

The history of Common Ground here reflects a broader tension around the identity of the filmstrip; is it a visual media form or the visual illustration of a textual media form? Or is it something else altogether? This uncertainty continues to affect the filmstrip’s afterlife. Variously categorised with film, paper, or photography collections, the filmstrip often remains misplaced or ‘lost’ within archives. Recovering Common Ground, the filmstrips it produced, and the authors, pedagogues, and thinkers it brought together, provides a novel perspective on how media documented and shaped postwar British life.

References:
[1] Filmstrip, March 1950, 21
[2] Sunday Mirror, 16 October 1949, 2
[3] For instance, the audio-visual aids journal, Instructional Screen (later retitled Look and Listen), who regularly championed the filmstrips, claimed that visual aids could have a transformational impact in broadening “possibilities of personal development and fulfilment” for the next generation, which would then result in the “greater well-being of the nation.” Instructional Screen, ‘Editorial’, January 1947, 1
[4] Private letter from CA Furth to Stanley Unwin, AUC 294/12, Special Collections Service, University of Reading;
[5] Ibid.
[6] Members Circular of the Publishers Association (The Publisher’s Association, 1949), 112-113. Later life Rawsley, also faced a tough time while running the National Trust in England.
[7] Research conducted through the Common Ground catalogues, author agreements, and other documents housed at the University of Reading (Special Collections and Museum of English Rural Life)

Images:
Top: Common Ground’s author agreements, master scripts, artworks, catalogues and the filmstrips themselves housed at the University of Reading.

Left: The filmstrip Tea by L.J. Simpkin. Common Ground made filmstrips on all topic related to British education. From the author’s personal collection.