T Arts: Arts Enquiry

DATE: 1941-1950

LEVEL: Series

Records of the Arts Enquiry are divided into five subseries, general, visual arts, music, film and theatre.

General Arts Enquiry records include reports, memoranda, press cuttings, notes made during group discussions, and copies of correspondence, some of which has been obtained from the Public Record Office. There is also a copy of notes taken during a conversation between Christopher Martin and Miss Glasgow (CEMA), wherein the scope of the enquiry was discussed.

Visual arts records include drafts, reports, report summaries and conclusions and also include minutes, reports and memoranda on postwar industrial design, visual arts education, art teacher training, and museum studies. Also includes a report on postwar development of Art Schools by Clifford Ellis, and a report on art collections and museums in England and Wales.

Arts Enquiry music records include information on professional and amateur musicians and musical activity and training, including examples of union contracts, memoranda, area surveys (with a report by the Musician's Union), report on amateur musicians by Imogen Holst, discussions and secondary material.

Film records include group meeting minutes, an interim report on film, and memoranda.

Arts Enquiry theatre records include memoranda, publications, correspondence, reports and notes studying specific regional, provincial and national theatres; Labour Party Policy for Leisure; verbatim notes of the final plenary session of the British Theatre Conference, and a study of ownership and control of theatres; and a study of pre and postwar rents effecting theatres.

There are letters from a variety of individuals involved in the arts and education. Correspondents include: Peggy Ashcroft; J B Priestley; Tyrone Guthrie; Allardyce Nicholl; Christopher Lee; Lewis Casson; Basil Dean; Thomas Taig; Llewellyn Rees; Frederick Piffard; A Steward Cruikshank; Reginald Salberg; Bronson Albery; Hugh Beaumont; John Burrell, John Maynard Keynes, G D H Cole, Julian Huxley.

The Arts Enquiry was a fact-finding research project initiated by Arts administrator Christopher Martin, and sponsored by the Dartington Hall Trustees, it arose out of the work that was being done for the Nuffield College Social Reconstruction Survey, for the Devon County Committee for Music and Drama, and for CEMA. In starting the Arts Enquiry, Martin was also considering the future of the Dartington Arts Department, and the part it should play during and after the World War II.

Martin saw the need to collect and assess accurate information about contemporary conditions existing in the arts, in order to consider the place of the arts in a post-war society. Accordingly, an Arts Enquiry Committee was established by the Trustees, holding its first meeting on 6 Nov 1941. Committee members included F A S Gwatkin (Chair), A P Cox (Secretary), with Miss M C Glasgow (CEMA), G D H Cole (Nuffield College), Mrs M A Hamilton (Reconstruction Secretariat), A D K (David) Owen (Political and Economic Planning), Ifor Williams (British Council), Dorothy Elmhirst (Dartington Hall Trustees), J Wilkie (Carnegie Trust), E W White (National Council of Social Service), and Dr Julian Huxley, although they sat in a private capacity rather than an offical one. The Enquiry conducted surveys and visited theatres, galleries and museums. Major arts subjects included the visual arts, industrial design, music, and drama. Factual film was added later.

The main conclusion the Enquiry came to was that a permanent Arts Council should be set up within Britain and it also recommended that a permanent Design Council be established. The scope and depth of the enquiry itself however, alongside the loss of Christopher Martin, delayed the printing of each of the individual reports, so that by the time the final report was published in 1945, the recommendation was out of date as the Arts Council and the Council of Industrial Design had already been created.

It is impossible to know how much sway the Dartington Hall Trustees' Art Enquiry held since it was not a government white paper, but it was undoubtedly an effective tool to help change attitudes and official policy toward the Arts in the post war period.

For more information see: Victor Bonham-Carter, Dartington Hall 1925-56, A Report (1956).

Information for Researchers

All papers belonging to The Dartington Hall Trust Archive (with the exclusion of Dartington Hall School pupils individual records) are held at the Devon Record Office. All enquiries relating to research should be made to Devon Records Office, Great Moor House, Bittern Road, Sowton, Exeter, Devon EX2 7NL
+44 (0)1392 384253
+44 (0)1392 384256
devrec@devon.gov.uk
www.devon.gov.uk/record_office

The following requests should be made direct to the Archives & Records at The Dartington Hall Trust as shown below:
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