WOODCOCK, GEORGE

born Oct. 20, 1904, Bamber Bridge, Lancashire, Eng. died Oct. 30, 1979, Epsom, Surrey English labour leader who was general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) from 1960 to 1969. A weaver at the age of 12, Woodcock won a scholarship to Ruskin College in 1929 and then received high honours in philosophy and political economy at Oxford in 1933. He joined the TUC staff in 1936, becoming assistant general secretary in 1947 and general secretary in 1960. In 1969 he resigned to become chairman of a new Commission on Industrial Relations and held that post until 1971. Woodcock was known as an adroit administrator and conciliator who fought to make the TUC more of a partner of government and industry in solving national economic ills. He was successful in convincing English unions to accept wage restraints and higher productivity standards. Woodcock was made a Commander of the British Empire in 1953 and appointed a Privy Councillor in 1967. born May 8, 1912, Winnipeg, Man., Can. died Jan. 28, 1995, Vancouver, B.C. Canadian poet, critic, historian, travel writer, playwright, scriptwriter, and editor, whose work, particularly his poetry, reflects his belief that revolutionary changes would take place in society. Woodcock's family returned to England soon after he was born. Too poor to attend university, he worked as a farmer, railway administrator, and freelance writer. In the 1940s he founded and edited the radical literary magazine Now and also worked for the anarchist publisher Freedom Press. He and his wife moved to Canada in 1949. Woodcock then taught at the University of Washington, Seattle (195455), and at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, where he became an associate professor. He stopped teaching in 1963 to concentrate on writing and editing. Woodcock published more than 100 books. His poetry, particularly that published before World War II, expressed his anarchistic, rather than communistic, expectation of revolutionary changes in society. His poetry includes The White Island (1940), Notes on Visitations (1975), and Collected Poems (1983). Among his travel books are To the City of the Dead (1957), Faces of India (1964), and Caves in the Desert (1988). Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements appeared in 1962. Woodcock also wrote several social histories of Canada, as well as innumerable essays on Canadian literature, many for the quarterly Canadian Literature, which he helped found in 1959 and edited until 1977. He published biographies of his friend George Orwell (1966), Mordecai Richler (1970), Herbert Read (1972), and others, as well as two volumes of autobiography: Letter to the Past (1982) and Beyond the Blue Mountains (1987).