WEST, Michael Philip. Cheltenham, Gloucestershire 26.9.1888 — Painswick, Gloucesterhire 19.3.1973. British Teacher in India. Son of Rev. George Herbert West, a Headmaster, and Florence Mary Middlemore-Whithard. After Marlborough College studies at Christ Church College, Oxford. From 1912 worked in Indian Education Service in Bengal. He did important work developing the teaching of English in Bengal, mainly in Dhaka. On a study leave in 1925-26 completed D.Phil. 1927 at Oxford. In 1932 resigned after disagreement with his superiors, who found his ideas too expensive. After a year in England he became Visiting Lecturer at Ontario College of Education in Toronto, then again worked in England. Married, three sons.
Publications: Bilingualism (with special reference to Bengal). 13+354 p. Bureau of Education, India, Occasional Report 13. Calcutta 1926 (diss.).
– On Learning to Speak a Foreign Language. L. 1933, and other books.
– A number of textbooks; articles.
Sources: Three lines in Wikipedia referring to *M. L. Tickoo, “M.W. in India: a centenary salute”, ELT Journal 42:4, 1988, 294-300; long account of his ideas and methods also listing his writings in https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/research/collections/elt_archive/halloffame/west/life/; dates, parents and sons in ancestry.co.uk.
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