1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:01,000 Open Forum 6 1974 00525/7040 2 00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:04,000 (Naomi McIntosh) To present anyone for an honorary degree is a difficult task 3 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:09,000 ..to present a Prime Minister is a daunting one. In the first place 4 00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:13,000 ..one can, indeed one must, assume that his biography 5 00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:17,000 ..his political and intellectual achievements are so well known 6 00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:23,000 ..as to make their recapitulation blatantly a work of supererogation. 7 00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:27,000 Thus I am denied all the usual material for this citation. 8 00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:33,000 What then can I say of this man, who at the early age of thirty-one 9 00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:37,000 ..became the youngest Cabinet Minister of modern times, and who... 10 00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:42,000 ..ever since has lived in a positiv e blaze of publicity, sometimes not... 11 00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:46,000 ..as he has made clear, of his own choosing. 12 00:00:47,000 --> 00:00:50,000 Mr Wilson, before that time, had followed an academic career 13 00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:55,000 ..and had studied and taught in a rather older OU. 14 00:00:56,000 --> 00:01:01,000 Indeed since the new OU did not then exist, he could be held to have been 15 00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:08,000 ..if not educationally deprived, at least educationally constrained. 16 00:01:09,000 --> 00:01:13,000 My Lord Chancellor we did not, in the Senate, ask the Prime Minister 17 00:01:14,000 --> 00:01:18,000 ..to accept an honorary degree, we asked Harold Wilson to accept it 18 00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:22,000 ..for it was offered last December. It was offered because it was he 19 00:01:23,000 --> 00:00:26,000 ..who gave the concept of a university of the air... 20 00:01:27,000 --> 00:01:31,000 ..later to be translated into The Open University, a political reality. 21 00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:35,000 Harold Wilson is a man already honoured by many academic institutions. 22 00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:40,000 We honour him for the same reasons that they did but as I have tried to show 23 00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:44,000 ..we have another very special reason and it is consequently fitting 24 00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:48,000 ..that we should add to the burden of his distictions. 25 00:01:49,000 --> 00:01:53,000 And so my Lord Chancellor, it is my privilege by the authority of the Senate 26 00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:57,000 ..to present to you for the award of The Open University's highest academic honour 27 00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:02,000 ..the honorary degree of Doctor of the University The Right Honourable Harold Wilson 28 00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:11,000 (Applause) (Lord Gardiner) In the name of the congregation 29 00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:16,000 ..I confer upon you the honorary degree of Doctor of the University. 30 00:02:17,000 --> 00:02:20,000 (Wynne Brindle) After Mr Wilson, who himself is Chancellor of the University of Bradford 31 00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:23,000 had received his scroll from our Chancellor the replying speech 32 00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:28,000 on behalf of the honorary doctors was made by Lord Feather