Wales' first Black headteacher has been awarded a posthumous degree by one of the country's top universities. Betty Campbell has received an honorary Doctor of Letters (DLitt) from the University of South Wales (USW).
The university said this is the first posthumous honorary degree it has ever awarded. Born Rachel Elizabeth Campbell in 1934 in Cardiff's docklands area to a Jamaican father and Welsh Barbadian mother, Mrs Campbell is known for paving the way to equality and diversity in the capital and beyond.
Growing up in Tiger Bay in a working class family, she was determined to be a primary school teacher - and was one of the first nine women to attend Cardiff Teacher Training College (now Cardiff Metropolitan University) after it lifted its gender ban. Her teaching career saw her work in diverse areas of the city - first in Llanrumney, then at her local Mount Stuart Primary School, where she was appointed headteacher in the 1970s and taught for 28 years.
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She was an early advocate of decolonising Wales' curriculum and piloted innovative educational programmes both in the school - such as teaching her students about slavery and Black history - and in other public settings. From the 1970s onwards she made many trips to the USA, and through this cultivated a wealth of resources for her innovative approach to education. In this way Mount Stuart Primary School became a blueprint for multicultural education, USW notes.
Away from the classroom, Mrs Campbell was on the race relations board between 1972 and 1976, a member of the Broadcasting Council for Wales from 1980 to 1984, joined the Home Office's race advisory committee, worked for the Commission for Racial Equality and was among those who created Black History Month in the UK. She was also a member of the preparation committee for the opening of the National Assembly of Wales (now referred to as the Senedd) in 1998 and a former councillor for the Butetown ward.
In 1998, she was invited to meet Nelson Mandela on his only visit to Wales. In 2003, Mrs Campbell was made an honorary fellow of UWIC – now Cardiff Metropolitan University – for services to education and community life for which she was also awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list. She died in 2017, aged 82.
A monument commemorating Mrs Campbell was unveiled in Cardiff city centre on September 29, 2021. It was created following a campaign by Monumental Welsh Women, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to recognising the contribution of women to the history and life of Wales. Remarkably, her monument was the first statue of a real, named Welsh woman in Wales.
Elaine Clarke, Mrs Campbell's daughter, said: “Her ultimate passion was being an educator and educating others as she passionately believed in education being the vehicle to achieving and succeeding in life. Her achievements were many and becoming Wales’s first black headteacher was an accolade for which she was very proud and honoured. The family are truly honoured to receive the award from the University of South Wales.”
Michelle Campbell-Davies, her granddaughter, said: “We are really honoured to receive this award. She was so passionate about education, about driving equality, about people just taking up that space and being who they were put on this earth to be. She would have been immensely proud, and as her family, we are immensely proud and grateful of this recognition.”
Roiyah Saltus, professor of Sociology at the University of South Wales who nominated Mrs Campbell to receive the award, said: “I was privileged to learn about, observe from afar, and be inspired by Mrs Campbell’s career and her post-retirement life. By the time she died, Mrs Betty Campbell was well known as a Welsh community leader, social activist, and pioneering educationalist. Education was her medium, the school was her piloting site, the students her focus, with the community serving as validation of the difference she sought to make, and lastly, the national and international recognition bestowed on her the telling testimony of the impact she continues to have.
“Her spirit, her drive, and her determination to make a difference and shape the lives of the students she taught, her community, Welsh society and the wider world is a true inspiration. Mrs Campbell is most deserving of an honorary doctorate for her huge contribution to education, community life and social justice. I so glad that the family accepted the award on her behalf.”
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