Endeavour was founded in 1955 by R S (Dick) Allcock OBE, to provide developmental opportunities for young people. Our work has developed out of a tradition of using the great outdoors to challenge, inspire and change young people’s lives. 

Endeavour works with some of the most disadvantaged and disaffected young people across the U.K.

Dick was an inspiration to young people and all who work with them for over sixty years.  Brought up with a deep love for and an understanding of the countryside, he always strived to share that love and understanding with others.  Having spent his early years walking behind the plough in the fields of his beloved Norfolk, he developed a deep appreciation of the emotional, mental and spiritual understanding that can be found by living and working in the outdoors.  This, along with his deep spiritual faith and his love for the young, remained the bedrock of all he was and all that he achieved, especially with regard to the founding of Endeavour.

Leaving farming for what was to become a lifetime’s commitment to youth work, he influenced the lives of countless people.  Sharing and sometimes leading major expeditions to different parts of the world supplied him with a limitless fund of stories and experiences with which he enthralled his listeners.  Those expeditions frequently changed the lives of those who took part in them.  Dick’s leadership, his character and above all, his readiness to believe in people and his ability to help people believe in themselves are the key memories retained and treasured by expedition members.  

His workplace was remote mountains, rivers and coastlines.  His colleagues were drawn from every walk of life; the young people he worked with came from a wide range of nationalities and backgrounds.  He is known and respected across the world of outdoor education and his thoughts and advice are still influential among others who are active in the field.  Yet in it all, Dick never lost vision or enthusiasm for working with young people in the outdoor environment, nor did he drift away from the principles and faith that first inspired him.  Most of all, he never lost that integrity and humility that makes him the person he was.

Dick was given an Honorary Fellow of the Institute for Outdoor Learning in 2004