page_title: Josephine Macalister Brew
section_title: Life and work
hierarchical_section_title: Josephine Macalister Brew / Life and work
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph from the Martin Ridley Collection, which documents the towns and villages of South Wales c.1900-1910
context_page_description: Josephine Macalister Brew was a British educationist and youth worker. A 'pioneer of social groupwork as a vehicle for social education,' her 1946 work Informal Education was the 'first text to deliberately employ the term' and the first solo-authored work on the subject.
context_section_description: Josephine Macalister Brew was born Mary Winifred Brew in Llanelli, Wales, the daughter of Frederick Charles Brew, a boot and shoe dealer. She studied history at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and graduated in 1925, after which she became a history teacher at Shaftesbury High School for Girls, Dorset. In 1932, Brew moved to Cardiff to study for her Doctor of Law.  
  In Cardiff, Brew began her lifelong involvement in youth and community work, working with the Butetown Women and Girls' Club, and South Wales educational settlements. She later became a youth officer in Lincoln, where she acted as secretary of the Lincoln Federation of Girls Clubs. Subsequently, Brew served on the executive committee of the National Association of Girls' Clubs (later the National Association of Girls' Clubs and Mixed Clubs) for whom, following a comparatively short period as youth officer for Oldham, she was appointed Education Secretary in 1942. Among her colleagues there were Eileen Younghusband and Pearl Jephcott. The National Association of Girls Clubs and Mixed Clubs boasted, in 1944, 108,000 affiliated clubs, described as 'a training-ground for citizenship, giving a foretaste of the responsibilities and joys of an adult life, as well as an experience of community life.'  Brew herself was a vocal advocate of mixed clubs, arguing for their benefits to young people and the society in which they lived. 
  Brew also played a key role in creating the pilot Girls' Award (launched in 1958), part of the Duke of Edinburgh's Award scheme, initiated two years earlier in 1956. 
  As well as active youth work, Brew was a sought after speaker, and contributor to numerous publications. These included pieces for the Times Educational Supplement, as well as national newspapers.  Brew's writing has been described as having 'a characteristic flowing style that moves between erudition and the plain talking of a sensible aunt.'
caption: St Woolos School, Newport, which Josephine Macalister Brew attended as a child. [4]
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