James Hemming had been a member of the British Humanist Association (BHA) since its formation in 1963 and gave many years of dedicated service to the Association on its executive committee, as its President and – until his death – as a Vice President. For thirty years, from the 1960s until the 1990s, he played a major role in the BHA’s Education Committee. During the 80s and 90s he was one of the Humanist representatives on the Religious Education Council of England and Wales. He was an Honorary Associate of the Rationalist Association and a Vice President of the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association. Despite failing eyesight, he remained an active and keenly interested supporter of the BHA and its work in education well into his 90s. In July 2001 he was a signatory to a letter published in The Independent which urged the Government to reconsider its support for the expansion of state-funded religious schools.

On education, in his book The Betrayal of Youth (1980) he criticised an education system designed mainly to produce measurable results and proposed a curriculum which would mobilise all pupils’ resources, social and affective as much as intellectual, and encourage them to see themselves as competent. His contributions to education included spells as governor of St. George’s in the East Secondary Modern School in the East End, and Mayfield School, a girls’ comprehensive in Putney. He also spent some time lecturing in Africa, and wrote widely used books for schools. He was educational adviser to the World Education Fellowship. He instigated many initiatives on moral education, developing hisviews on this subject in several books and booklets.

James Hemming was one of the many prominent writers and academics who appeared as witnesses for the defence in the trial of Penguin Books for publishing Lady Chatterley’s Lover. In 1978 he was among the signatories to ‘A Statement Against Blasphemy Law’ published by the Committee Against Blasphemy Law. In 1987, during the public debate on the notorious (and now repealed) ‘Section 28’, he declared homosexuality to be ‘morally acceptable as a way of life’ in a BBC2 Day to Day programme. He said in that year: ‘What is necessary for children is that they should have a complete, profound understanding of the full range of human sexuality, without any special bias being put on here and there, or trying to sell one particular line or another. Let them know honestly. If we don’t tell them what the facts are through education, they will pick up distorted and garbled views from the mass media and their friends. That is the choice: whether we give children the information they need to grow up as mature citizens, or whether we deliberately seem to be withholding part of it because it’s “wicked”.’ and was also a member of the Television Research Committee, set up to investigate the impact of mass media on the moral development of young people. He was a strong advocate of sex education in schools.

Andrew Copson is Director of Education and Public Affairs, British Humanist Association