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 Additional material to this book can be downloaded from http://extras.springer.com. ISBN 978-3-319-89449-2 ISBN 978-3-319-89450-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89450-8 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018950069 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and trans- mission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © James Winspear-VIEW / Alamy Stock Photo 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 soci- ology, 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 contrib- uted 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 mem- bers. 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 sociol- ogy 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 hav- ing 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 differ- ent 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 over- all 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 intel- lectual 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 per- tinent or where it had a degree of whimsical relevance.