He was a key figure in the creation of the British New Left in the period after the Soviet invasion of Hungary; he helped to found the Fair Trade movement in Britain; and he was the first Principal of Northern College, a residential centre for adult learners in South Yorkshire.
Alfred became Principal of Ruskin College, Oxford, where visitors included the philosopher Bertrand Russell, the Indian nationalist leader Gandhi and William Temple, the Anglican primate.
He was one of the founders of New Left Review in 1960, and he contributed to the May Day Manifesto (edited by Stuart Hall, E. P. Thompson and Raymond Williams), which appeared as a Penguin Special in 1968.
[2] The book critiqued the then influential theories of Lenin and Hobson, and offered a historically informed analysis of the growing power of corporate interests in the period following decolonisation.
Based in a former aristocratic mansion, the College not only survived in the hostile political climate of the early 1980s, but rapidly acquired a reputation for educational radicalism and innovation.