Cambridgeshire ACRE started as Cambridgeshire Rural Community Council in 1924 as part of a national movement to support the rural life of Britain at a critical time after the First World War.
After the Carnegie Foundation Report on the English Countryside in 1919, the government set up the National Council of Social Service recognising the massive changes in the economy and social structures in rural areas in England.
Rural Community Councils were born, the first being set up in Oxford in 1921. Cambridgeshire was the sixth Council created by the Local Education Council working together with academics at the University of Cambridge.
Henry Morris (right), a founding trustee of the Rural Community Council, took up the post of Secretary of Education for Cambridgeshire in 1922. Henry is well known for his vision of integrating secondary and community education, setting up the village colleges that exist in the county. Furthermore, he recognised the need for better educational and social facilities in the countryside.
“The work of re-establishing the life and welfare of the countryside is admitted to be really urgent; it is required in the interests of national life and health.”
Henry Morris, Memorandum on the Provision of Education and Social Facilities in the Countryside
Our purpose then and now
The newly formed Rural Community Council was charged with two principal aims during the depression between the First and Second World Wars, when agriculture and its ancillary industries were at a low ebb: to work with local people to build village halls, and to revitalise the countryside and its economy.
Cambridgeshire ACRE’s role, as an advocate for rural communities, is just as relevant today as it was when it was founded. Issues facing countryside residents such as a cost-of-living crisis, housing shortages and rural isolation are still present.
Our mission today is remarkably similar: to drive positive change and work with others to improve the lives of those that live and work in rural communities.
