photo: Raymond Williams Society
Western Mail and Echo copyright.
I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.
The Raymond Williams Foundation supports what Williams termed the ‘Long Revolution’ towards ‘an educated and participating democracy’ through its involvement in adult education and collective community-based learning.
RWF has entered a partnership with RED PEPPER magazine. In the new partnership the Red Pepper website will host a ‘Raymond Williams’ section that brings together the Keywords series and other articles, links to the RWF’s website, and updates with details of the RWF grant cycle. In the next print edition of RP coming out shortly (Spring 2026) there will be an announcement of the partnership, background on RP's links with Raymond Williams, and some context/introduction to RWF’s work and this will be supported by an initial scene-setting article on the current state of adult learning, its history (including examples of informal/autodidact/working-class infrastructure) and future possibilities on the grassroots and institutional left, written by Nick Mahony and Sharon Clancy. The aim is that this article will act as a starting-point or conversation opener and responses/contributions can then be invited from past and current RWF grant recipients, the Research Circle coordinated by Sharon, and others These pieces (and any other relevant responses or contributions that are received) will then be published by Red Pepper throughout 2026.
Celebrating 100 Years
To mark the Centenary of Williams’ birth(31 Aug 1921) the Raymond Williams Foundation proudly supported a special programme of activities with the aim of reintroducing some of Williams’ key ideas to contemporary publics.
Through the development of a set of new, freely accessible, resources and by supporting collective dialogue about the contemporary relevance of Williams’ work the Centenary programme aims to foster a renewed public understanding of the ‘long revolution’ today.
To see "What Raymond Williams Means to Me" by members of his family, colleagues such as Terry Eagleton, Derek Tatton and those who have been influenced by him such as politician Leanne Wood and poet John Barnie go to the Centenary page where you can also find media explaining some of Williams' ideas.
“To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing”
Raymond Williams
“There are in fact no masses, but only ways of seeing people as masses.”
Raymond Williams