Bert Massie

Sir Herbert William Massie, CBE, DL, FRSA (born 31 March 1949), known as Bert Massie, is a British disability rights campaigner. He served as Chairman of the Disability Rights Commission from 2000 to 2007, and was a founding Commissioner of its successor the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Massie was born in Liverpool, on 31 March 1949 to Herbert Douglas Massie and Lucy Joan Massie.

He contracted polio in 1949 and spent his first five years receiving care at Liverpool's Alder Hey Children's Hospital. He moved to the Children’s School of Rest and Recovery at the age of five and to Sandfield Park Special School at the age of eleven. As disabled students were not expected to study for O-levels, he left school with no qualifications

After leaving school, he began working for the Liverpool Association for the Disabled. While there he decided to study O-levels and as no evening classes were accessible to a wheelchair user, he received tuition from nuns at a local convent. He then left his job to study for A-levels at Hereward College, a special needs college in Coventry, West Midlands.

He graduated from Liverpool Polytechnic in 1977 with a Bachelor of Arts (BA). He then attended Manchester Polytechnic completing a Certificate of Qualification in Social Work (CQSW).

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