Vaughan Tom

Tom Vaughan

Thomas Hugh Vaughan was born in Calcutta (Kolkatta) on May 8th 1911; he studied English at Oxford and was a member of the drama society there. He became a shop floor worker at Morris Motors at Cowley during the war and joined the Communist Party there, which he remained a member of until 1968.

Vaughan went to Yugoslavia as a volunteer building a railway extension line towards Zenica, in the immediate post-war period. He was a lecturer and ATTI (later NATFHE, then UCU) member for much of his later working life at the Borough Polytechnic, teaching maths, later to become South Bank University, where he ran an evening drama group of which the young Richard Briers and Brian Murphy were members.

In the 1950s, he had joined Unity Theatre and was involved in both directing and acting, collaborating with Joan Littlewood. He served on the governing bodies of the Old Vic, Sadler’s Wells and Morley College and as chair of the Royal Victoria Hall Society, which provides grants to small theatres. He wrote several unpublished plays and novels. Married to Esther, he took up the role of Theatre critic Morning Star at age of 70. he died, aged 82, in 1994.

Morning Star 4th February 1994; Guardian 21st February 1994