Arthur Bryant - Early Adult Life

Early Adult Life

Bryant started work at a school operated by the London County Council, where he developed a strong sense of social justice and became convinced that education would be an effective way of uniting the people. This conviction led him to become a historian. Tall, dark, and attractive, he was popular at the debutante balls he regularly attended, where he often persuaded his dancing partners to help him teach some of the less fortunate children at a children's library he had established in Dickens's old house in Somers Town, London.

He became a barrister at the Inner Temple in 1923, but left later that year to take the headmaster position of the Cambridge School of Arts, Crafts, and Technology, becoming the youngest headmaster in England. Altogether he proved remarkably successful in enrolling students, growing from three hundred to two thousand students in his three years there. During 1926 he married Sylvia Mary Shakerley, daughter of Walter Geoffrey Shakerley, the third Baronet Shakerley, and the following year became a lecturer in history for the Oxford University delegacy for extramural studies, a position he retained until 1936. His marriage was dissolved in 1930. He also served as an advisor at the Bonar Law College at Ashridge. His first book, The Spirit of Conservatism, appeared in 1929 and was written with his former students in mind.