In 1903 Lindsay won the 'Shaw Fellowship' in moral philosophy at the
University of Edinburgh, as had his father, who was the first recipient of the award. In the October of the following year he obntained a post as an assistant lecturer in philosophy at the
Victoria University of Manchester. However, by the following March he had applied for a tutorial fellowship in Balliol College, Oxford, which was finally offered to him in the following September. Consequently in 1906 Lindsay returned to Balliol College as a fellow and tutor in philosophy. In 1910 he was appointed as 'Jowett Lecturer in Philosophy', which included the chief responsibility for the teaching of philosophy in the college. From the latter part of the
First World War, 1917, and afterwards to 1919, he acted as 'Deputy Controller of Labour' in
France, during which he became a
Lieutenant-colonel; he received a
CBE (Military) and he was mentioned in dispatches. From 1922 to 1924, Lindsay was
Professor of Moral Philosophy at the
University of Glasgow. From 1924 to 1925, he was president of the
Aristotelian Society. In 1924 he became master of Balliol College and became
vice-chancellor of the
University of Oxford from 1935 to 1938. He worked with
Lord Nuffield who in 1937 donated £900,000 to fund the creation of a postgraduate college,
Nuffield College, Oxford. At Oxford, Lindsay was a leading figure in the
Adult Education Movement. In 1938, Lindsay stood for
Parliament in the
Oxford by-election as an 'Independent Progressive' on the single issue of opposition to the
Munich Agreement, with support from the
Labour and
Liberal parties as well as from many
Conservatives including the future
Prime Ministers Winston Churchill,
Harold Macmillan, and
Edward Heath, and the President of the Oxford Union,
Alan Wood, but lost to the official Conservative candidate,
Quintin Hogg. In 1949, upon his retirement from Balliol, Lindsay became the Founding Principal of the 'University College of North Staffordshire', which opened at
Keele Hall in 1950. This unique institution - the first UK university of the 20th Century - tested many of Lindsay's educational principles and reflected the post-war idealism of its day. Known by many as the "Keele Experiment", many of the features of the new universities of the 1960s were tested at Keele. The University College became the
University of Keele in 1962. ==Personal life==