Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, 1904–2015 Christopher T

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Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, 1904–2015 Christopher T. Husbands Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, 1904–2015 Sound and Fury Christopher T. Husbands Emeritus Reader in Sociology London School of Economics and Political Science London, UK

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This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland In common things that round us lie Some random truths he can impart— The harvest of a quiet eye That broods and sleeps on his own heart.

William Wordsworth, ‘A Poet’s Epitaph’ (1799)

In memory of Arthur Gerald Husbands (1909–94), BCom, LSE, 1934 Preface

‘The history of a college is hard to write and sometimes hard to read. The reasons are many. Who can be found to write it? It doesn’t pay much. It is a lot of work. Publishers will not jump at it. If it is sponsored by the college in question, discretion will outrank truth, a condition acceptable perhaps to an excessively discreet professor emeritus. Or a more opinionated one, having strong views on the value of his own contributions, and many axes to grind and wield, may produce a livelier unsponsored work, rousing a brief flurry of indignation or approval among his aging colleagues.’

Barbara Jones (née Slatter), BSc(Econ), Special Subject Sociology, LSE, 1927, in Brockway (1981, p. viii)

When I read this statement written by a long-ago LSE1 graduate of sociology, I immediately felt a frisson, even a pang, of recognition. I knew what she had had in mind, though at least she had not had to struggle to find a catchy title for the work that she introduced. A frivolous first thought for a title of my own book was Not the London Stock Exchange, in defiant riposte to the institution that has in recent years managed to arro- gate to itself a set of initials formerly identified uniquely with the School. However, more sober considerations prevailed and I opted instead for a title that encapsulates at least some of the elements of this history. This book is partly a general history of sociology, of sociology teaching and its

vii viii Preface teachers, and of institutions and activities associated with sociology as these featured at LSE; it is also a discussion of the personalities who have contributed over the years to the variable reputation that LSE Sociology has had. The book is also something more even than that, for it has been written with the ‘quiet eye’ of an author who worked for more than thirty years in LSE’s Department of Sociology. I was employed there continuously from 1977 to 2011, in the first and the final years part-time. Thus, some of the concerns that Jones identified above may therefore apply to my work. The book focuses on a number of principal topics arising from the subject: the teaching of sociology at LSE; those who taught the subject; the achievements and opinions of students who studied the subject; some of the institutions within and outside LSE connected with it: and the contributions of LSE sociology to the overall discipline. It comments on research in sociology and on the publications of sociology by LSE members. The aim is to write a history that includes a range of new material not included in previous writing about LSE Sociology, but it is not an intellectual history since the style of LSE’s early sociology has been well covered by numerous previous writers (e.g., Abrams 1968; Owen 1974; Hawthorn 1976, pp. 107–11; Collini 1979; Renwick 2012, esp. pp. 147–80 passim). With necessary minor exceptions concerning the early period, the book purposely and principally confines itself to sociology sensu stricto, as institutionally defined by LSE in its publications and in its bureaucratic organization. At least one university department of sociology with a history of having taught sociology for a far shorter period than at LSE, that of the University of Warwick, has published a recent history of its sociology teaching (Proctor 2007). My history of LSE Sociology has a rather different tone, partly because its history and its accumulated records go back much further. However, a lot of the quite substantial amount that has been written so far about the teaching of sociology at LSE is relatively unsystematic and incidental. Because of the initial status of LSE for teaching sociology, it naturally features strongly in standard general his- tories both of the discipline, such as Halsey (2004), and also of related themes. There is material on the history of sociology teaching in Dahrendorf (1995)’s standard history of LSE. However, there is no overall history seeking to cover the subject for the whole period from its Preface ix beginnings in the early twentieth century to the present. That is the gap that this work wants to fill, albeit that some periods are more thoroughly written about than others. My incentive to write this history arose partly from primary research that I did on the occasion of LSE Sociology’s one-hundredth anniversary event in 2005. Some of this was reported in articles in the Department’s ‘house’ newsletter (Husbands 2004, 2005a, 2005b) and I have drawn on and revised these in the early chapters of this book. Some of that research also contributed to a joint publication (Scott and Husbands 2007) on the life and work of Victor Branford. Some of the early historical material has appeared in two earlier contributions (Husbands 2014, 2015) and in this book I have drawn on some of this where necessary to give continuity to my present account, though I have sought not to recycle too much earlier- published material. Having been employed in the LSE Department for almost a third of the period about whose history I am writing, I have ‘lived’ some of that history, although inspection of file materials often revealed to me events and controversies that were happening and of which I was unaware at the time. Although I have sought to be reasonably detached and dispassion- ate, some personal views and judgements do necessarily intrude; I have sought to keep these as fair as consistency with discovered facts permits. My views about some matters and individuals, as well as elements of my own autobiography, do sometimes appear. Even if it is usually obvious where that has been the case, I have sought, as said, to back up my several critical judgements with evidential documentation. Even so, some of the tone of this book, especially in parts of Chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5 and in Chapter 9, may seem to many readers unflattering. My overall judgement on the history of LSE Sociology and on what it has done for the status of the discipline in Britain may sometimes appear excessively partial. Others may feel that the judgement is broadly true but it was wrong or in dubious taste to set it out so forthrightly. Hamlet had an analogous reaction when confronted by reading matter that gave, in his view, unnecessary detail about the physical ailments of old men, end- ing with noting their ‘most weak hams’. ‘All which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down.’2 In response to any such objections, I plead, in defiance of x Preface

Hamlet, that part of my judgement is based on a cascade of evidence of damaging personality clashes often related to views of the discipline that had long ceased to be mainstream, after the early attempts by Hobhouse and especially Ginsberg to define the essence of the subject failed to con- vince most of its later practitioners elsewhere. In no sense is the book, or any part of it, intended as a personal intellectual odyssey – as, for example, are various contributions in Sica and Turner (2005), several – though not all – of which tend in any case towards pomposity or self-indulgence. However, I have included the occasional anecdote based in personal experience where this seemed pertinent or where it had a degree of whimsical relevance. The title of the book may seem to claim full coverage from 1904 to 2015, but that is not strictly true. Individual chapters explain and give reasons for their particular departures from these dates. For example, I was presented with a dilemma when discussing the more recent period, especially in Chapter 4, which reviews the staff of Sociology at LSE appointed from 1950, and to a degree in Chapter 9, which discusses whether LSE Sociology can claim to have been a disciplinary success and why, in my view, its history has been punctuated by disappointments. When discussing those who are deceased, I have in some cases allowed myself the occasional judicious criticism of their sociology or their personality, hopefully based on evidence provided therewith. However, it might well be insensitive to have done this when discussing those who are in the most recent cases still alive, most of whom were at one time or another my colleagues. Individual persons might have published more, or might have published less ephemerally, might have paid greater attention to their tutoring or lecturing duties, might have been more collegial in relationships with Departmental colleagues, or might have had a less blinkered view of the scope of the discipline – these are the sort of comments about living persons that, even if sometimes true, would come across as petty in a history such as this. In any case, perhaps some similar reproaches for limitations or peccadilloes might be made against me. Thus, in order to avoid the possibility of committing any offence and in the interests of discretion and good taste, I made a decision to discuss in detail only those whose first employment in the Department was in or before 1981; of course, some of these more recent cases are, though Preface xi retired, still living and I trust that none will be offended by what I say about them. For similar but slightly different reasons I have been reticent in the degree of my inclusions about two of the sociologists who became recent Directors of the School, Anthony Giddens (from 1997 to 2003) and Craig Calhoun (from 2012 to 2016). Their Directorial duties obviously involved many matters well beyond the concerns of the Department of Sociology, though the former especially took a keen proprietorial interest in the Department’s business. As to whether any interest that each may have had made a determining impression upon the Department’s affairs or its trajectory, one may recall the perhaps apocryphal response that Zhou Enlai may, or may not, have said about what the effect of the French Revolution, or perhaps the 1968 student revolution in France, had been, ‘It’s too soon to tell’. This does not apply to the earlier Directorial regime of a third sociologist, Ralf Dahrendorf (from 1974 to 1984), who appears also by virtue of his earlier graduate student career at LSE and his centenary history of the School (Dahrendorf 1995). Chapter 1 includes some summary details about courses taught in the UK that were either on sociology or on subjects which could be regarded as sociological according to one of the several definitions of the subject at the time and that were taught before LSE’s first course in 1904. Indeed, the book contains illustrations of the institutions where these were taught; both may be seen as impressive buildings, to be compared very favour- ably with another illustration showing the distinctly less salubrious character of the neighbourhood where LSE was located when its first sociology course was taught. However, the treatment in the book of pre-LSE sociology in the UK has been kept at an incidental level because I have dis- cussed these matters more extensively in a previous publication (Husbands 2014). Giving more detail in the book would have been difficult without extensive self-plagiarism. It is also true that there are other recent accounts of the early presence of sociology in the UK before LSE’s first course; one of these covers some, though not all, of the same material that I mention, though at greater length and with a lesser emphasis on taught courses (Scott and Bromley 2013, pp. 5–20). The principle that structures much of the account is chronological, and where relevant I have sought to apply this successively to different strands and themes, such as staff structure, the numbers and performances xii Preface of Sociology students, and so forth. I have indulged in a degree of peri- odizing when discussing some subjects but, except for my use in some analyses of decade-specific breakdowns, I have attempted to periodize using relevant caesuras in the history of Sociology, recognizing that this is nonetheless often likely to contain an element of arbitrariness. The years from 1900 to 1914 have a unitary character. This period saw the early days of teaching sociology at the School, the foundation of the first Chairs, the emergent dominance of the philosophical style of sociology associated with Leonard Hobhouse at the expense of the more socially involved and empirically informed discipline favoured by the subject’s original benefactor, James Martin White, whose initially favoured candi- date for Hobhouse’s appointment was reportedly Patrick Geddes. It was also the period when there was a concordance with the original Sociological Society, particularly under the aegis of Victor Branford, before a later cooling, if an amicable one, of the intellectual relationship between Hobhouse and Branford. The years from 1914 to 1929 (the year of Hobhouse’s death) were the period that established a particular style of sociology at LSE, later continued, if not consolidated, by Morris Ginsberg. They were also the years in which the first degrees with ‘Sociology’ in their title were awarded. Sociology continued to grow during the 1930s, marked by an increase in the number of graduates, though – except for the inputs of Thomas Marshall – the decade was essentially a continuation from the previous one. The years of the Second World War, when the School was evacuated to Cambridge, were also a caesura and so the post-war years have a distinc- tive character. In 1945 Sociology had eight staff of various statuses and graduated eight students in the BA Honours in Sociology degree. By 1960 the expansion had been substantial. By that year there were eigh- teen staff, twenty-six graduates from the BA Honours programme and nineteen from the BSc in Sociology that was also offered from 1951, plus twelve majoring in Sociology in the BSc(Econ) degree (an unusually low number for the years around 1960). It is not easy or even relevant to devise and pursue a consistent the- matic scheme through so many different chapters covering so many different aspects within the subject. LSE Sociology has long ceased to have Preface xiii any particular epistemological identity. In the early years there were some similarities of interest between Hobhouse and Westermarck and, of course, Ginsberg carried on Hobhouse’s evolutionary perspectives. However, by the 1950s staff interests had diversified and that continued in later decades, so that LSE Sociology had no homogeneous identity – partly because there was little effort to exert any single one. The history of one hundred years and more may therefore appear to be one of institutional and intellectual decline from the now-superseded certainties of the Hobhouse era – as though it is a sociology equivalent of Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks – but that would be wrong and unfair. Instead, if there is a single word that describes most of LSE Sociology’s history, it may be ‘solipsism’, to refer to the diversity with which different staff members independently pursued their personal research interests. That is the point of citing in the subtitle of this book the phrase used by Macbeth. It is in homage to the observational and analytic role of the protagonist of the satirical Rose Macaulay novel whose title derives from the same speech by Macbeth. The sound here was produced by the high disciplinary reputation over the years of the research certainly by some LSE sociologists. On the other hand, the solipsism had its downside and sometimes led to a fury of personal and intellectual rivalries that in various periods and between some individuals was destructively venomous – almost as if there was a deliberate attempt to give substance to Francis Bacon’s apho- rism, ‘There is little friendship in the world, and least of all between equals’.3 Although the LSE Sociology Department has often arrogated to itself the kudos of being the first ‘department’ of sociology in the UK, it was not always widely admired and regarded at the time even by those who might have been thought at least moderately sympathetic. One was the School’s one-time Director, William Beveridge, writing demob-happy and rather bitterly in his final year as Director. In an article on the place of the social sciences in human knowledge he made barely a reference to sociology (Beveridge 1937) – upset about how his attempt to introduce a more eugenicist and biological component to the School’s sociology cur- riculum had been rebuffed, in part by Morris Ginsberg. Any sociologist reading the work of a professional historian has to concede that the writing of history and of a historical narrative is an art, xiv Preface whether acquired or inherent. It is not an accomplishment to which a non-historian sociologist can readily aspire without training or practice. The task of combining pertinent facts into a coherent narrative is not as straightforward as the unschooled might imagine. I have attempted to avoid the larger forms of sociological self-indulgence, although I concede a doubt whether I have done so altogether. It will also be immediately clear that some subjects are better covered in earlier time periods than in later ones. The reason is not that there is less to be said but rather that there is less to be immediately discovered, in part due to the greater avail- ability of earlier source materials on some topics and the fact that many later files, especially personal ones of students and staff, remain closed. It was also felt expedient to respect the sensitivities of those still alive by giving only a limited and neutral discussion of their role in the overall history. It is also the case, paradoxically, that covering other subjects of the later period (especially after the Second World War) in the same com- prehensive detail as was done for these of previous decades was an insur- mountable challenge as student numbers increased. Thus, a systematic analysis of individual sociology students up to 1939 is possible (partly published separately in an article (Husbands 2015)); after 1945 the numbers become too large and some of the data sources used for researching earlier students are unavailable for later ones; however, all published sociology degree results up to 2015 have been analysed. All postgraduate students and their thesis topics before 1940 have, it is hoped, been identified; there were just too many of these after the War for this to be practi- cable. Thus, this is then a limited account, giving variable prominence to at least some subjects, depending on time period. I was also confronted by a dilemma about whether to attach birth and (if deceased) death years to the names of particular individuals when they were first mentioned. It has seemed sensible to do this particularly in Chapter 2 and, in some cases, in Chapter 4, because many of the individuals named are not likely to be readily recognized and readers may want to have from the context some immediate indication of when these were living. However, that has not otherwise been my general practice.4 Parts of this text will strike some readers as irredeemably tedious, with an empiricist’s fixation on numbers, percentages, trends and trajectories, with even the occasional descent into primitive statistics. However, as Preface xv somebody who is not ashamed to regard himself as an empiricist, I make no apology for that. Anything claiming to approach being a proper history has to include them, tedious though some may find them. If English or British empiricism was good enough for Edvard Westermarck,5 as com- mentators on his thought and work describe (e.g., Ginsberg 1940; Stroup 2004), it is good enough for me. Those readers reacting with ennui to these parts of the book may skip them, and may hopefully find more interesting some of more historical material about Sociology staff or about the institutions associated with Sociology. However, even the biographical summaries about all those principally appointed and employed in the Department from 1904 to 1981, as given in Chapters 2, 3 and 4, may seem overbur- dened by the sort of detail in which only a very few might be interested. Although it would be extreme hubris to equate my efforts with those of the famous seventeenth-century antiquary and biographer John Aubrey, who wrote a series of Brief lives, I can observe that, when taxed by critics for indulging too much in trivialities (being ‘too minute’), he responded, ‘A hundred yeare hence that minutenesse will be gratefull.’ Aubrey, in his let- ter to his intended sponsor, Anthony à Wood, also wrote in 1680 in defence of his biographical project: ‘Tis pity that such minutes had not been taken 100 years since or more; for want whereof many worthy men’s names and inventions are swallowed up in oblivion’ (Aubrey 1975 [1680], p. 15). Finally, it is probably unlikely that my efforts will succeed in correcting some of the several myths about LSE Sociology teaching that have been repeated to become vernacular commonplaces for so many other writers over so many years and will doubtless be repeated in the future, despite some of my own previous best efforts at correction (e.g., Husbands 2014). The continued repetition of some errors that I have here sought to debunk is almost like a barium meal for the detection of what in lexicography is sometimes called ‘servile copying’; in particular:

• that Westermarck taught the first course of sociology in the UK: he did not, since other courses with ‘sociology’/‘sociological’ in their titles pre- ceded this in the UK – one identified from as far earlier as 1888 – and in any case Westermarck’s course was originally intended to have a different title; but what may be legitimately claimed, albeit less gloriously, is that he did teach the first course with ‘Sociology’ as its title that xvi Preface

could be a component (and a rather small one) of a degree programme leading to what would now be regarded as a conventional undergraduate Bachelor’s degree; • that LSE’s Department of Sociology dates from 1904: nothing like a contemporary understanding of a ‘department’ existed till years later and in 1904 Westermarck’s single course was the sole offering in sociology per se; • that Leonard Hobhouse was the first-appointed professor of sociology in the UK: he was not, Edvard Westermarck was; and • that Hobhouse was the first full-time professor of sociology when appointed in 1907: he was not, becoming full-time only in 1925.

These errors will doubtless be repeated by further writers unaware of the exact early history of the discipline or insouciant as to the facts, and so my efforts in the cause of truth and greater accuracy are probably a losing battle. Still, I claim a precedent for this. One of the concluding speeches of John Ford’s 1962 film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance offers an analogy, ‘This is the West, Sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend’!

CTH Battle, East Sussex 31 July 2018

Notes

1. The initials ‘LSE’ are used throughout for the London School of Economics and Political Science, also for variety and where appropriate sometimes referred to instead as ‘the School’. 2. From Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Act 2, Scene 2, lines 198–200); note that standard commentaries on this text explain that ‘honest’ here means ‘honourable’ rather than ‘truthful’. 3. From Francis Bacon’s 1625 essay, ‘Of followers and friends’. 4. Tables W2.1 and W4.1 contain such biographical data for all identified Sociology staff. These tables and other tabular material may be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89450-8, plus an underscore and then a number, where this number corresponds to that of the individual Preface xvii

chapter where the respective material is introduced. A further file enti- tled ‘Significant non-LSE Sociology names mentioned’ is available at: http://extras.springer.com and the book’s Index may also be accessed at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89450-8. 5. I prefer the original spelling in Swedish of Westermarck’s forename, though it is usually anglicized to ‘Edward’.

References

Abrams, P. (1968). The origins of British sociology: 1834–1914: an essay with selected papers. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Aubrey, J. (1975 [1680]). In R. Barber (Ed.), Brief lives: a selection based on exist- ing contemporary portraits. London: The Folio Society. Beveridge, W. (1937). The place of the social sciences in human knowledge, Politica, 2(9), 459–479. Brockway, T. P. (1981). Bennington College: in the beginning. Bennington, VT: Bennington College Press. Collini, S. (1979). Liberalism and sociology: L. T. Hobhouse and political argu- ment in England, 1880–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dahrendorf, R. (1995). LSE: a history of the London School of Economics and Political Science, 1895–1995. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ginsberg, M. (1940). The life and work of Edward Westermarck.The Sociological Review, 32(1/2), 1–28. Halsey, A. H. (2004). A history of sociology in Britain: science, literature, and society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hawthorn, G. (1976). Enlightenment and despair: a history of sociology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Husbands, C. T. (2004). One hundred years of sociology at LSE – but who really was the first Martin White Professor of Sociology? LSE[ ] Sociology Research News: Newsletter of the London School of Economics and Political Science Sociology Department, 3(1), November, 2–5 (also, One hundred years of sociology at LSE – but who was the first Martin White Professor of Sociology? Network: Newsletter of the British Sociological Association, 90, Spring 2005, 8–9). Husbands, C. T. (2005a). James Martin White (1857–1928) as the godfather of British sociology? – perhaps, but what do we really know about him? [LSE] Sociology Research News: Newsletter of the London School of Economics and Political Science Sociology Department, 3(2), April, 1–2. xviii Preface

Husbands, C. T. (2005b). British sociology in its early years: LSE and the University of Liverpool. [LSE] Sociology Research News: Newsletter of the London School of Economics and Political Science Sociology Department, 4(1), November, 4–5. Husbands, C. T. (2014). The first sociology ‘departments’. In J. Holmwood & J. Scott (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of sociology in Britain (pp. 153–188). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Husbands, C. T. (2015). Rescuing from oblivion: social characteristics and career destinations of early British ‘sociology’ graduates, 1907–39. British Journal of Sociology, 66(4), 645–672. Owen, J. E. (1974). L. T. Hobhouse, sociologist. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons. Proctor, I. (2007). Sociology at the University of Warwick: a history. Coventry: Department of Sociology, University of Warwick. Renwick, C. (2012). British sociology’s lost biological roots: a history of futures past. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Scott, J., & Bromley, R. (2013). Envisioning sociology: Victor Branford, Patrick Geddes, and the quest for social reconstruction. Albany: State University of New York Press. Scott, J., & Husbands, C. T. (2007). Victor Branford and the building of British sociology. The Sociological Review, 55(3), 460–484. Sica, A., & Turner, S. (Eds.). (2005). The disobedient generation: social theorists in the sixties. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Stroup, T. (2004). Westermarck, Edvard Alexander [Edward] (1862–1939). Oxford dictionary of national biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Acknowledgements

This book is a history of sociology and the teaching of it at the London School of Economics and Political Science and, in compiling it, I have accumulated many debts. I have benefited from views given to me, or material supplied by, several past students or past or present members of the Department, to whom I express my gratitude. They are in no way responsible for anything that I have said, and even on matters on which they told me their account, they may disagree with my interpretation. They include Sara Arber, Chris Badcock, Martin Bulmer, Colin Crouch, Paul Gilroy, Frances Heidensohn, Mick Mann, Claire Moon, the late Michael Banton, the late Terence Morris, and the late John Westergaard. I have also used material in various personal reminiscences written or spoken by former members of the Department. I am further grateful to the staff of the LSE Archives, who have been of unfailing assistance in unearthing material and locating relevant files, and to members of the LSE Academic Registry, who on several occasions have supplied to me spreadsheet files of recent results in LSE Sociology degree and Diploma programmes. I have also consulted in person materials in the British Library, the London Metropolitan Archives, the Institute of Education Library, the Library of the University of London in Senate House, the Special Collections of Cambridge University Library, the John Rylands Library of the University of Manchester, the archives of Harris Manchester College, Oxford, the Library of the Imperial War Museum, the Brotherton Library of the xix xx Acknowledgements

University of Leeds, the Archives & Special Collections of the University of Strathclyde, the Department of Special Collections of the University of St Andrews, Manchester Central Reference Library, and Bury Archives and Local History Department: for all their facilities I am also grateful. For many further matters I have resorted by email to the archive librari- ans of other institutions in Belgium, the People’s Republic of China, the UK, the USA and Canada – these are too many to list individually but to all I am grateful. Finally, I thank Palgrave Macmillan for their general willingness to publish works on the history of sociology and, specifically in my case, to publish a work on a topic that might have been regarded as excessively recherché. They have defied Barbara Slatter Jones’s comment, expressed at the opening of the Preface, of publisher reluctance to take on an institutional history. Contents

1 Early Sociology and the State of ‘Sociology’ in Britain in the Early Twentieth Century 1 Introduction: Early Intellectual History and Definitions of ‘Sociology’ 1 ‘Social Science’ and the Nineteenth-Century Institutional Presence of ‘Sociology’ 5 ‘Sociology’ in Britain in the Edwardian Era, 1900–12 10 LSE’s First Course in Sociology 12 The Role of James Martin White as an Educational Innovator 24 References 35

2 Staff and Teaching in Sociology at LSE: The First Half- Century 41 Introduction 41 1904–19: The Era of Part-Time and Transient Teaching 44 1920–29: Stasis and the Death of Hobhouse 54 1930–39: The Makings of the Modern Subject 56 The Department of Social Biology Interlude 57 Later Developments in the 1930s 64 1940–49: Stability, Then Growth 68

xxi xxii Contents

Conclusion 72 References 79

3 The Department’s Mid-Century Personalities and Their Role in Shaping LSE Sociology: Ginsberg, MacRae, and Glass 85 Introduction 85 Ginsberg: The Forgotten Sociologist? 86 MacRae: Scotch Mist, or the Promise Never Delivered 89 Glass: Not Really a ‘Proper’ Sociologist? 97 Conclusion 101 References 105

4 Staff and Teaching in Sociology at LSE, 1950–: The Short Half-Century 115 1950–59: Consolidation at Last? 116 1960–69: Growth and Turmoil 130 The 1970s Onward:Sturm und Drang? 143 Other Appointments 154 Research Clusters 157 The Departmental Conveners/Heads of Department 158 Conclusion 159 References 161

5 Four Horsemen of a Sociological Apocalypse: Episodes of Dysfunction 173 Introduction 173 The Edward Shils Episode: The Not So Quiet American 174 Charles Skepper and His Legacy: A Tale of How Fifteen Rooms Became One – And Then None 185 LSE Sociology and the ‘Troubles’, 1965–71: Both Scylla and Charybdis 194 The 1966–67 Events 195 The 1968–69 Events 199 The Sociology Professors and the Secretarial-Help Affair, 1966–70 210 References 221 Contents xxiii

6 LSE Sociology Students: Their Performances and Achievements 223 Introduction: The First Sociology Graduates 223 Undergraduate Degree Results, 1907 to 2015 227 The Significance of Gender at the Undergraduate Level 233 Some Significant LSE Sociology Graduates Before the Second World War 237 Master’s Degree Results, 1997 to 2015 247 The Significance of Gender at the Master’s Level 253 Prizes and Awards Won by Sociology Students 256 Postgraduate Degree Programmes in Sociology Before 1940 258 Postgraduate Master’s Programmes to 1940 261 Postgraduate Doctoral Programmes 263 Social Characteristics of Recipients of LSE Postgraduate Degrees in Sociology Alone or as a Cognate Subject, 1912 to 1940 272 Non-completed Postgraduate Registrations to 1940 274 Conclusion 282 References 287

7 The Student Culture and the Political and Social Orientations of LSE Sociology Students 293 Introduction: The Problem of Evidence 293 The Culture of Sociology Students 295 Sociology Students’ Political and Social Orientations 298 Conclusion 328 References 330

8 LSE Sociology and Its Associated Institutions 333 Foundation Support 334 The Hobhouse Memorial Trust Fund and Lectures 336 The Population Investigation Committee [PIC] 338 The Relationship of the PIC to Sociology 338 Glass, the PIC and Other Organizations Involved 339 The Social Research Division 341 The Sociological Research Unit 344 xxiv Contents

Appendix 1: ‘… et cetera’ 351 References 356

9 Institutional Reputations and Influences 359 Introduction: The Forms of Reputational Analysis 359 LSE Sociology: What Were Its Early Reputation and Influence? 362 LSE Sociology: Did It Have a Role in the Establishment of New Departments of Sociology, 1950–1974? 364 LSE Sociology: Did It Produce the Works That Every Sociology Student Was Expected to Read? 368 LSE Sociology: To Which Topics Did Its Research Contribute: And to Which Did It Not? 374 LSE Sociology: How Was It Assessed by Others and by Itself? 376 External Views of LSE Sociology 376 Reviews of LSE Sociology by the School 382 Reviews of LSE Sociology by Itself 385 Conclusion 388 References 399

Index 403 A Note on Sources

As inspection of my many endnote references will show, I have heavily used many materials held by the LSE Archives, as well as materials from certain other archives, as is referenced. I have also used some ephemeral documents from various LSE sources, such as the student newspaper The Beaver or the Students’ Union Handbook. The LSE records are for the most part good and have been well maintained over the years, although there has perhaps been a certain falling-off in a degree of assiduousness in the last several decades – meaning, ironically, that it has sometimes been easier to find information about the further past than the recent past. An example is the search for certain recent Memorial Trust lecturers, as described in Chapter 8. Early student and staff files have often been used, though some early student files seem no longer to exist. Of course, data- protection requirements mean that the files of the more recent subjects, if still alive, are normally closed. However, many of the data about LSE that are not directly referenced were taken from issues over the years of the School’s Calendar. The degree of content in these varies greatly. During the years of the First and Second World Wars only minimalist Calendars were issued, an excusable conse- quence of wartime paper shortages. Concerning degree results, these were not published in the School Calendars until 1921, the only previous source being Calendars of the University of London. Also, BSc(Econ) results were published as a single list up to and including those for 1982 xxv xxvi A Note on Sources without a breakdown by Special Subject specialism. A further source of degree results up to 1935 is the School’s Register (LSE 1934) and its three subsequent annual supplements. An attempt in the early 1950s to produce an updated version of this record was abandoned as no longer feasible. Sadly, however, the School Calendar has since 1997 become a source of variable quality for basic data, after the School became seduced by the purported economy and supposed convenience of accessing institutional data from the School’s website and its other electronic communications. Thus, degree results – with the Calendar usually being a good source of these data except for the wartime years – were for a number of years no longer published there. Instead, one seeking them was therefore obliged to apply to the School’s Academic Registry, to have them supplied in anonymized form. One small benefit of receiving the data like that was the receipt of the number of Failures, which were obviously not included in the pre-1997 Calendar publications. In more recent years the results have been given in annual publications of an LSE Digest, also available on the LSE website, which contains some of the information in the old Calendars; however, this Digest, though produced annually since 2003–04, did not contain degree results until several issues after the first and, when they did, Failures were, of course, not included. Entire data sets of all recent years’ sociology results, including Failures, were kindly supplied to me in spreadsheet form by the LSE Academic Registry; these included the further bonus of a code for gender, which would not always have been easy to determine even from published names in this age of androgynous and foreign-language forenames. The inclusion of staff details in the Calendar has since 1997 been simi- larly variable. In several Calendars after 1996, specifically 2002–03, 2004–05 and 2005–06, there were lists of academic staff, though not prepared with the care to detail of the pre-1997 staff lists, since degree qualification details of many included staff were often not given. From 1997 to 1998, with the three exceptions noted before, the so-called Calendar became merely a compilation of Course Regulations, though there were of course later many more individual courses. From 2006 to 2007 even the title ‘Calendar’ was no longer used. However, staff lists were given in those LSE Digests that were produced. A Note on Sources xxvii

The slimming-down of the content of the traditional LSE Calendar of earlier years was a retrograde step that will greatly aggravate the data issues faced by any future historians of the School seeking details about the years from 1997, except for the modest degree to which the LSE Digest has supplied some of the same data. A similar point may be made about academic journals and the enthu- siasm in recent years of so many institutional libraries, including LSE’s, for junking their historic collections of hard copies of many journals and so of relying henceforth solely on versions accessible by subscription on the internet. Such reliance is fine to the point that humanity can con- tinue to rely on the permanence and accessibility of the internet, except that most internet versions of academic journals give only actual articles and book reviews and neglect to include the outside covers of the original issues, on the inside of which would normally be ancillary information about the journals’ editorial arrangements and perhaps subscription rates. Thus, interesting historical material risks being lost since publishers’ web- sites, when they give such data, do so only for the current situation. After a while, whose length probably varies between publishers, few seem to keep even a single hard copy of back issues of their published journals, treating them as though yesterday’s newspapers. The only sure reposito- ries for the hard copies containing cover-content information seem to be the national copyright libraries, such as the British Library. A lot of information of potential interest to future historians of a subject thus hangs on that rather slender single thread.

Reference

LSE [London School of Economics and Political Science]. (1934). Register, 1895–1932. London: LSE. List of Figures

Figure 1 A mid-nineteenth century image of University Hall, Gordon Square, Bloomsbury, the location of Manchester New College from 1853 to 1889 (Reproduced by permission of Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre) 109 Figure 2 Lancashire Independent College in 1890 (Reproduced by permission of Manchester Libraries and Archives) 109 Figure 3 The corner of Houghton Street and Clare Market in 1906, with the façade of the newly completed Passmore Edwards Hall visible in the background (Reproduced by permission of Historic England Archive) 110 Figure 4 The front entrance of the recently completed LSE Old Building, early 1920s; taken from a postcard sent by Vera Anstey (Reproduced by courtesy of LSE Library) 110 Figure 5 Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse, 1920s; the first permanent Martin White Professor of Sociology, 1907–29 (Reproduced by courtesy of LSE Library) 111 Figure 6 The elderly Edvard Westermarck in retirement, early 1930s; the first-appointed Martin White Professor of Sociology, 1907–30 (Reproduced by courtesy of LSE Library) 111 Figure 7 James Martin White and an unidentified woman in the gar- den of Balruddery House, probably mid-1890s (Reproduced by permission of Libraries, Leisure and Culture Dundee) 112

xxix xxx List of Figures

Figure 8 Morris Ginsberg, about 1923; Martin White Professor of Sociology, 1930–54 (Reproduced by courtesy of LSE Library) 113 Figure 9 Thomas Humphrey Marshall, about 1950; Martin White Professor of Sociology, 1954–56 (Reproduced by courtesy of LSE Library) 113 Figure 10 David Victor Glass, 1970s; Martin White Professor of Sociology, 1961–78 (Reproduced by courtesy of LSE Library) 114 Figure 11 Eileen Vartan Barker, early 1990s; LSE’s first woman Professor of Sociology, 1992–2003 (Reproduced by courtesy of LSE Library) 114 List of Tables

Table 6.1 Degree results by class of award and time period, all Bachelor degree programmes identifiable with Sociology as a major or predominant component, 1907–2015 (exclud- ing BSc(Econ), Special Subject Sociology, between 1936 and 1982 inclusive), in percentages 229 Table 6.2 Degree results by class of award of BSc(Econ) programme, Special Subject Sociology, 1952 to 1961 230 Table 6.3 Male-to-female ratios of Sociology Bachelor degree graduates, by time period of graduation, 1907–2015 233 Table 6.4 Degree results by class of award, gender and time period, all Bachelor degree programmes identifiable by gender of recipient and with Sociology as a major or predominant component, 1907–2015 235 Table 6.5 Results of Master’s degrees in Sociology from 1997 to 2015, by programme and by pre-2000 and 2000–15 periods 252 Table 6.6 Male-to-female gender ratios of graduates of Master’s degrees in sociology, by year of graduation, 1997–2015 254 Table 6.7 Results of Master’s degrees in Sociology from 1997 to 2015, by gender and time period 255 Table 6.8 Results of Master’s degrees in Sociology from 1997 to 2015, by programme and gender, in percentages 257

xxxi xxxii List of Tables

Table 6.9 Occupational-sector backgrounds and occupations of LSE Sociology postgraduate degree recipients, from 1912 to 1940 273 Table 7.1 Attitudes of LSE students on five items about particular political issues, by Department of registration, 1985–86 310 Table 7.2 Attitudes of LSE students on four items about women’s roles, by Department of registration, 1985–86 316 Table 7.3 Attitudes of LSE students on two items about the use of violence or criminality for political ends, by Department of registration, 1987–88 321 Table 7.4 Support for a student occupation of Connaught House in March 1987 to support campaign for LSE to divest from firms with business with South Africa, by Department of registration, 1987–88 323 Table 7.5 General-election voting intentions of LSE students in answer to ‘if a British General Election were held tomor- row, which party would you vote for?’, 1985–92, by Department of registration 324

List of Web Tables

The tables listed below may be accessed athttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319- 89450-8, plus an underscore and then a number, where this number corresponds to that of the individual chapter where the respective material is introduced.

Table W1.1 Recipients of Martin White Scholarships in Sociology, 1924 to 1944 Table W2.1 Sociology teaching staff at the London School of Economics and Political Science, by decade of start year, 1904 to 1949 Table W4.1 Sociology teaching staff at the London School of Economics and Political Science, by decade of start year, 1950 to 2015 Table W4.2 Identified Morris Ginsberg Fellows [MG] and T. H. Marshall Postdoctoral Fellows [THM], 1974 to 2006 Table W4.3 Conveners (Heads of Department) and Departmental Tutors of the Department of Sociology of the London School of Economics and Political Science, 1963 to 2016 List of Tables xxxiii

Table W4.4 Identified Visiting Professors to the Department of Sociology and Cognate Divisions of the London School of Economics and Political Science, 1998 to 2006 Table W6.1 Winners of the Hobhouse Memorial Prize and of the Free Press Prize in Sociology, with degree and class received, 1931 to 2015 Table W6.2 Identified Master of Arts in Sociology degrees awarded at LSE, 1931 to 1936 Table W6.3 Identified Masters of Science in Economics awarded in Sociology or Sociology with Anthropology, 1935 to 1938 Table W6.4 Identified advanced doctoral degrees in Sociology or Sociology with Anthropology, 1912 to 1943 Table W6.5 Identified Doctorates of Philosophy in Sociology or in relevant cognate subjects, 1929 to 1940 Table W8.2 Identified David Glass Memorial Lecturers on Social Trends, 1980 to 2012 Table W8.3 Identified Auguste Comte Memorial Trust Lecturers, 1971 to 2017 Table W9.1 Level of LSE connection of first holders of Chairs of Sociology in UK universities, with surnames of holders and their institution(s), 1950 to 1974