Burnham committee

The Burnham committee – properly the Burnham Primary and Secondary and Burnham Further Education Committees – was responsible for setting teachers' pay in the United Kingdom.

The committees were established by H. A. L. Fisher in 1919 when he was President of the Board of Education. On each committee there was a Teachers' Panel on which places were allocated to the various teachers unions in proportion to their membership, and an Employers' Panel.{{cite news|title=What Is Burnham?|url=http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/15th-december-1950/7/what-is-burnham|accessdate=6 November 2016|publisher=The Spectator|date=15 December 1950}} The committees were abolished by the Teachers' Pay and Conditions Act 1987. The Teachers Panel for Primary and Secondary Education was dominated by the National Union of Teachers. The National Association of Schoolmasters was not represented until 1961.{{cite news|title=BURNHAM COMMITTEE (NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOLMASTERS)|url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1960/apr/14/burnham-committee-national-association|access-date=6 November 2016|work=Parliamentary Debates (Hansard)|date=14 April 1960}}

Equal pay was a recurring question for the Committee, being a key aim of the National Union of Women Teachers (NUWT) which predated the Burnham Committee. By the 1950s the NUWT was part of the Equal Pay Campaign Committee (EPCC) whose campaign focused on public sector workers, including civil servants, teachers and nurses.{{Cite web |title=Records of the Equal Pay Campaign Committee |url=https://archives.lse.ac.uk/records/6EPC |access-date=2024-12-10 |website=archives.lse.ac.uk |language=en-gb}} Irene Ward MP, who sat on the Burnham Comittee in 1944 and 1948, repeatedly asked in Parliament when the Burnham Committee would commit to equal pay.{{Cite web |title=EQUAL PAY (Hansard, 2 August 1951) |url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1951/aug/02/equal-pay |access-date=2025-03-05 |website=api.parliament.uk}} The principal of equal pay in the public sector was agreed in 1955, albeit to be introduced in stages.{{Cite journal |last=Potter |first=Allen |date=1957-02-01 |title=The Equal Pay Campaign Committee: A Case-Study of a Pressure Group |url=https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.1957.tb00859.x |journal=Political Studies |language=en |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=49–64 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-9248.1957.tb00859.x |issn=0032-3217 |s2cid=145104289}}{{Cite web |title=Records of the Equal Pay Campaign Committee |url=https://archives.lse.ac.uk/records/6EPC |access-date=2024-12-10 |website=archives.lse.ac.uk |language=en-gb}}{{Cite web |title=Equal Pay (Implementation) - Hansard - UK Parliament |url=https://hansard.parliament.uk/%E2%80%8CCommons/1955-04-07/debates/99e4f9c4-9568-4547-8b9d-7abcb57c8575/EqualPay(Implementation) |access-date=2025-03-05 |website=hansard.parliament.uk |language=en}}

The archives of official papers of the Burnham Committees and their Teachers' Panels are held at Warwick University library.{{cite web |title=Burnham Committees |url=http://mrc-catalogue.warwick.ac.uk/records/NUT/B |website=Warwick University |accessdate=6 November 2016}} The papers of Brian Rusbridge, who was Secretary to the Burnham and Allied Committees, are held in the Institute of Education Archives at University College London.{{Cite web |last=UCL Special Collections |title=Records of the Burnham Committee |url=https://archives.ucl.ac.uk/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=BUR |access-date=2024-06-25 |website=UCL Archives Catalogue}}

The committees came to be known informally as "Burnham Committees" after their first chairman, Harry Levy-Lawson, 1st Viscount Burnham, and were officially renamed as such after his death in 1933.{{cite web|url=https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C822|title=Records of the Salaries Branch and Burnham Committees|work=The National Archives|access-date=18 December 2021}}