ABSTRACT
Charles Judd, the Secretary of the Education Committee, identified three major causes for this sharp decline in membership: the low opinion of the League among the school pupils themselves; parents' refusal to allow their children to join Junior Branches; and the hostility of headteachers and governors to their schools being connected with such a controversial body.4 Even more seriously embarrassing was the unease of the bodies officially represented on the Education Committee. As Judd reported in a memorandum of 18 November:
We have already been told that the associations of local educational authorities (as local government bodies) and at least some of the associations of teachers which exist mainly for professional purposes find it embarrassing and might find it impossible to be formally associated with the Union through official representation on its Education Committee when the Union is the centre of controversy of this kind.s
Educators complained about the Union being diverted from its main task. The Headmaster of Rugby was one who warned in 1938 that the Headmasters' Conference would break its ties with the LNU and that junior branches everywhere would soon fail if this did not stop.6
