It is with sadness, fondness and a smile that I remember Nigel de Gruchy who served as General Secretary of NASUWT between 1990 and 2002 and who passed away on Saturday 29 November.
I first met Nigel in 1998 after my appointment as NASUWT staff member to lead on the Union’s education and equalities. Nigel’s was a name everyone knew. If you asked the public to name a trade union leader, Nigel’s name was on everyone’s lips throughout much of the 1990s. Nigel was instrumental in reshaping the language of trade unions and industrial relations and in firing the national debate on education. Above all, throughout his life, Nigel was passionate about the need for workers to stand together to insist upon fairness. Whilst the fight for justice at work - for fair pay and conditions for teachers - was a driving force in Nigel’s time as NASUWT General Secretary, he believed that partnership is preferable to the traditional and confrontational ways of the past, but that trade unions can only adopt such an approach in a context where employees are treated with dignity and justice.
Nigel de Gruchy was a pivotal figure in education and beyond. Rarely off our TV screens or radio news broadcasts, well before the advent of social media, Nigel had a knack of being able to communicate directly to teachers, parents and the public that many politicians can only dream of. I recall a humble cabbie assailing me at length about Nigel de Gruchy - he saw him on the telly again last night. Whatever Nigel had said about the state of schools had clearly struck a chord with that taxi driver and many others. The politics of soundbite was something Nigel claimed as his own. His choice of words may not always have been comfortable, but it was always memorable.
Nigel was born in 1943 in the Channel Island of Jersey, then under the occupation of Nazi Germany. He was educated at De La Salle College and was a graduate in economics and philosophy from Reading University in 1965. He briefly taught in Spain and France where he gained political fire in the belly witnessing the 1968 student riots and general strike. That political courage and voice was nurtured, challenged and sustained throughout by his patient and wonderful wife Judy.
Nigel and Judy settled in the UK in 1969, where Nigel taught economics at St Joseph’s Academy in the Inner London Education Authority. And it was in London that Nigel got hooked on trade union activism. He rose rapidly through the ranks of NASUWT before being elected Deputy General Secretary in 1983 and General Secretary in 1990. In 2002/03, Nigel served as TUC President before retiring from trade union politics. But politics was forever in his blood, becoming an active member of his local Labour Party and contesting the Orpington parliamentary seat at the 2015 general election at the grand age of 72.
Nigel’s adage throughout his trade union career was putting teachers first. In ground-breaking industrial campaigns pursued under the Conservatives and Labour Governments of the day, Nigel spoke for NASUWT and its members, demanding Time for a Limit to end the excessive workload driving teachers out of the profession, and to Let Teachers Teach, helping to forge the conditions for the creation of an historic national agreement between unions, employers and the Labour Government on Raising Standards and Tackling Workload.
Many of Nigel’s achievements can be plotted alongside the successes of NASUWT. His tireless campaigning on pupil behaviour which culminated in a precedential victory in the High Court in 2001 (P v NASUWT) securing the legal right of all teachers to refuse to teach violent pupils and resisting the misapplication of the Human Rights Act. Nigel’s leadership shone too in the NASUWT’s boycott of national curriculum tests. Nigel understood the art of capturing public opinion in support of teachers, through pupil-friendly industrial action with a halo - utilising the tactic of action short of strike action to win industrial disputes without disrupting children’s education.
One of Nigel’s proudest moments was to chair the TUC Congress in 2003 as President. I remember Nigel laughing uncontrollably on the Congress platform with the late great Bill Morris, another of the trade union heroes on whose shoulders I and many others have been privileged to stand. And it was the leadership of Nigel and others that forged the creation of the international coalition of education trade unions Education International which today represents more than 32 million teachers and educators worldwide.
In 1997, the new Labour Government hosted an event to launch its national teacher recruitment drive. ‘No-one forgets a good teacher’ was the message to lure in graduates. But, Nigel, being Nigel, was not to be upstaged, winning the news headlines by commenting that no-one forgets a good teacher, they just forget to pay them well - reminding the government that paying teachers more remained and remains to this day key to solving the teacher recruitment and retention crisis. A thorn in the side of the then Education Secretary, David Blunkett, Nigel was a trade unionist who told it straight. His insight and sharp turn of phrase may have offended some, but his skill of getting to the heart of the issues remains unrivalled today.
Nigel was also a man of apparent contradiction, with some of his public statements clashing with the person I knew who gave of his time and who created space for the union to develop and take forward and champion progressive and campaigning work on equalities and diversity. Whilst there were questions raised over Nigel’s choice of words at times, his determination to secure a better deal on teachers’ pay and conditions was always and unquestionably his guiding mission.
Like him or not, Nigel was a public figure who demanded and secured attention. An irritant to many a politician, and unafraid to say whatever he was thinking, he will be remembered as a gifted, determined and influential trade union leader, whose sharp words were often the spur for action.
Nigel de Gruchy, teacher and trade unionist - born 28 January 1943; died 29 November 2025.
