The committee comprised representatives of organisations affiliated to, or eligible for affiliation to the Labour Party. They discussed the relief of civil distress, food prices, housing and pensions.
Leonard Henry Courtney, 1832 - 1918, was born in Penzance and educated at St John's College, Cambridge. He was called to the Bar in 1858 and became a Bencher in 1889. He left law to became Professor of Political Economy at University College, London in 1872, a post that he held until 1875. He also entered politics, becoming the Liberal Party MP for Liskeard from 1875 to 1885, and then MP for the Bodmin Division of Cornwall until 1900. He was made Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department 1880 - 1881, and for the Colonial Office 1881 - 1882. In 1884 he resigned the office of Financial Secretary to the Treasury. His last post was as Chairman of Committees and Deputy Speaker, which he held 1886 - 1892. Leonard Courtney was also a contributor to The Times and The Nineteenth Century. He married Catherine (née Potter, sister of Beatrice Webb) in 1883.
Anthony Crosland was educated at Highgate School and Trinity College, Oxford. He graduated in PPE in 1946, following war service in Italy, and was a lecturer and fellow of Trinity College from 1947-1950. He was Labour MP for South Gloucester 1950-1955 and for Grimsby 1959-1977. He was Minister of State for Economic Affairs 1964-1965, Secretary of State for Education and Science 1965-1967, for Local Government and Regional Planning 1969-1970, and for the Environment 1974-1976, and Foreign Secretary 1976-1977. He was also secretary of the Independent Commission into the Co-operative Movement, 1956-1958, and a member of the Consumer's Council, 1958-1963. He married Susan Catling in 1964.
Charles Vickery Drysdale, 1874 - 1961, was educated at Finsbury Technical College and Central Technical College, South Kensington. He became the Associate Head of the Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics Department at the Northampton Institute 1896 - 1910. After a brief period as a partner in the firm of H. Tinsley and Co from 1916 to 1919, he joined the Admiralty Experimental Station at Parkston Quay in 1918. From there he went on to become Scientific Director at the Admiralty Experimental Station, Shandon, 1919-1921, Superintendent at the Admiralty Research Laboratory, Teddington, 1921-1929 and Director of Scientific Research at the Admiralty 1929-1934. From 1934 onwards he was a member of the Safety in Mines Research Board. This collection focuses on Drysdale's interests in population and birth control. He was Honorary Secretary of the Malthusian League and Editor of 'The Malthusian', 1907-1916, and president of the Neo-Malthusian Conferences in London 1921 and New York 1925. He was the author of a number of works on population control and eugenics, and was also the first witness to be called before the National Birth-Rate Commission in 1913. He married Bessie Ingman Edwards in 1898.
Sir Ronald Edwards was Assistant Lecturer, then Lecturer, in Business Administration with special reference to Accounting at the London School of Economics (LSE), 1935-1940. During World War Two, he worked in the Ministry of Aircraft Production. In 1946 he returned to LSE as Sir Ernest Cassel Reader in Commerce, becoming a Professor in 1949. He was Deputy Chairman (1957-1961), then Chairman (1962-1968) of the Electricity Council; Chairman (1968-1975), then President (1975-1976) of Beecham Group Ltd; Director, ICI Ltd, 1969-1976; Director, Hill Samuel Group, 1974-1976; and, Chairman of British Leyland Ltd, 1975-1976. He was a member of several other bodies too, including the Advisory Council of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, 1949-1954; the University Grants Committee, 1955-1964; the National Economic Development Council, 1964-1968; and, the British Airways Board, 1971-1976. He chaired the Government committee of inquiry into the civil air transport industry, 1967-1969. He was a Governor of LSE, 1968-1976.
Stephan R. Epstein, 1960-2007, was brought up in Switzerland and graduated cum laude from the University of Siena. He obtained his PhD in History from Cambridge University and continued there as a postdoctoral research fellow until 1992, when he was appointed to a lectureship on Economic History at the London School of Economics. By 1997 he had been promoted to a readership and he became Professor of Economic History in 2001. At the time of his death he was Head of the Department. Epstein's field of expertise was the economic history of medieval and early modern Europe. He established a formidable reputation in this area early in his career, and left an impressive publication record. He is the sole author of Alle origini della fattoria toscana. L'ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala di Siena e le sue terre, c.1250-c.1450 (Salimbeni, Florence, 1986); An island for itself. Economic development and social transformation in late medieval Sicily Past and Present (Publications Series: Cambridge, 1992); and Freedom and Growth, Markets and states in Europe, 1300-1750 (London: Routledge, 2000). He edited four volumes including Town and country in Europe, 1300-1800 (Cambridge, 2001). He is also the author of dozens of articles in journals and books.
The Fabian Society was founded on 4 January 1884 by Edward Pease and his friends, who wanted to found a "Fellowship of the New Life". The name 'Fabian Society' was derived from that of Quintus Fabius Cunctator, whose policy of holding his forces in reserve until the optimum moment for attack was considered worthy of emulation. The society's aim was "to help on the reconstruction of society in accordance with the highest moral possibilities". This was to be achieved by holding meetings to read papers, hear reports on current political matters and discuss social problems; by delegating members to attend other meetings held to discuss social subjects, to attempt to disseminate their own views at such meetings and to report back to the society on the outcome; and by collecting articles concerning social movements and needs from contemporary literature as a source of factual information. The Society's early members included George Bernard Shaw, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Emmeline Pankhurst and H G Wells.
Soon after its foundation the society established the Fabian News in order to keep members informed of what was going on in the society. This was later followed by the Fabian Quarterly and the Fabian Journal. A publishing firm called Palm and Pine was established in 1938. This was originally independent of the society, but became Fabian Publications Ltd in 1942. It published Society literature until it was dissolved fourteen years later. The society also spread its message by organising public lectures, conferences and various schools.
The Fabian Society is the oldest socialist organisation in Britain, but does not itself issue policy statements or put forward candidates for election to local or national government. Therefore, the society became affiliated to the Labour Party, although it also collaborated with the Independent Labour Party on specific projects. From 1949 onwards, it became customary for the Fabian Society to hold a tea meeting at the Labour Party Conference, at which guests were addressed by a leading Fabian politician.
There have been a number of special interest groups within the society, and these produced their own research and publications. When women's suffrage was a burning issue, a separate Women's Group was established. Similarly, the Fabian Nursery was set up in response to a perceived need to encourage the younger members of the society.
The society has also absorbed a number of organisations that were established independently of it. The New Fabian Research Bureau was set up by G.D.H. Cole with the support of Arthur Henderson as a separate organisation. It developed its own methods of research and propaganda and became much more effective than the original society. After eight years the Fabian Society and the New Fabian Research Bureau amalgamated. However the Fabian Society took on many of the ideas and methods of the New Fabian Research Bureau and these continue to influence it.
The Fabian Colonial Bureau also functioned as a separate organisation from the Fabian Society. The Fabian Society made it an annual grant which was later augmented by the TUC and the Labour Party. The bureau acted as a clearing house for information on colonial affairs and became a pressure group acting for colonial peoples. The bureau was renamed the Commonwealth Bureau in 1958. In 1963 it was amalgamated with the International Bureau and a few years later absorbed back into the main society.
The Fabian International Bureau was set up along the same lines as the Colonial Bureau. The aim of the bureau was the exchange of views on socialist subjects and the future of Europe after the war. After 1945 the main interest of the Bureau was the part that Britain should play in Europe, Anglo-American and Anglo-Soviet relations. During the 1960's they widened their scope to include defence, international agreements, the Common Market, aid to developing countries and the Labour Parties foreign policy.
The Home Research Committee was set up in 1943 to co-ordinate the committees and sub-committees working on social, economic and political issues in Britain. The committee produced reports, pamphlets and submitted evidence to Royal Commissions. They also distributed detailed questionnaires to members on these issues.
The Fabian Society continues to influence political thought in the UK. In the 1990s the society was a major influence in the modernisation of the Labour Party. Its report on the constitution of the Party was instrumental in the introduction of 'one member one vote' and made the original recommendation for the replacement of Clause IV. Since the 1997 general election there have been around 200 Fabian MPs in the Commons, amongst whom number nearly the entire Cabinet, including Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Robin Cook, Jack Straw, David Blunkett and Clare Short.
For a more extensive history of the Fabian Society, see Pugh and Mackesy's catalogue of the papers.
The Federal Union was founded in 1938 to advance the cause of federal government among democratic states in order to achieve international peace, economic stability and civil rights, by means of research, debate and political activity. The Federal Union flourished throughout the war years and established a series of active local and regional organisations. During the 1950s and 1960s, the Union was involved in political debates on topics such as the United Nations charter, international monetary reform and disarmament. It also concerned itself with post war reconstruction and, through this, the cause of European integration and the British entry into the European Economic Community. Federal Union continues to campaign for federalism for the UK, Europe and the world and argues that democracy and the rule of law should apply between states as well as within them. In 1945, on the initiative of Sir William Beveridge, the Federal Educational & Research Trust, an educational charity, was established. The purpose of the Trust was to encourage the study of international relations and co-operation and further research into federal principles and institutions by conducting enquiries, seminars, conferences and reports. Now known as the Federal Trust for Education and Research it continues to operate as a think tank studying the interaction between regional, national, European and global levels of government. Federal Trust has always had a particular interest in the European Union and Britain's place in it. In more recent years, it has supplemented its European work with studies on devolution and regional government in the United Kingdom and reports on global governance.
The 'Tactical Voting 87' group was a left of centre group set up to try and prevent the Rt Hon Margaret Hilda Thatcher gaining another term of office by persuading the public to vote for the candidate most likely to defeat the Conservative candidate in their constituency. TV 87 was wound up following the 1987 general election. Some of its members then formed 'Common Voice', which widened the scope of the campaign to include both tactical voting and a complete reform of the electoral system. Fishman was a member of both groups.
Professor Maurice Freedman, 1920-1975, was educated at Hackney Downs school and took a shortened two year degree in English at Kings College London in order to enter the army. He served in the Royal Artillery from 1941 to 1945, three years of which were spent in India. In 1946, he entered the Anthropology Department of the London School of Economics, where he became interested in social anthropology. His main interest was the study of Chinese society, a subject on which he produced many works, spending two years from 1949 to 1950 in field research among the Hokkien speaking Chinese of Singapore. In 1950 he was made a lecturer, in 1957 a reader, and in 1965 a professor. In 1970 he left LSE to take over the chair of social anthropology at Oxford on the retirement of Sir Edward Evans Pritchard. Freedman's interest in Asia prompted him to become first organising secretary and them chairman of the London Committee of the London-Cornell Project for research in south and south-east Asia. He was also greatly interested in Jewish culture and ideas, becoming the managing editor of the Jewish Journal of Sociology, which was founded to provide a forum for serious writing on Jewish affairs.
Alfred George Gardiner, 1865-1946, was born in Chelmsford and worked for the Chelmsford Chronicle and the Bournemouth Directory as a boy. In 1887 he became a member of staff of the Northern Daily Telegraph in Blackburn and in 1899 became editor of the Blackburn Weekly Telegraph. In 1902 he was appointed editor of the Daily News which he made into one of the leading liberal journals of the day. After a period of disagreements with the Cadbury family, who owned the Daily News, over his opposition to Lloyd George, he resigned. From 1915 he also contributed to the Star under the pseudonym 'Alpha of the Plough'.
Born 1925; educated Prague English Grammar School, St Albans County School, and Balliol Coll., Oxford University; Private, Czechoslovakian Armoured Brigade, BLA, 1944-45; on staff of London School of Economics, 1949-84, where he received a PhD in Social Anthropology, 1961, and became Professor of Philosophy, 1962-84; Visiting Fellow at Harvard, 1952-53; Co-editor of European Journal of Sociology, 1966-84, and Government and Opposition, 1980; Visiting Fellow, University of California, Berkeley, 1968; FBA, 1974; Visiting Fellow, Centre de Recherches et d'Études sur les Sociétés Méditerranéens, Aix-en-Provence, 1978-79; Member of the Council, Social Science Research Council (later Economic and Social Research Council), 1980-86 (Chairman, International Activities Committee, 1982-84); Member of Council, British Academy, 1981-84; Visiting Scholar, Institute of Advanced Studies, Tel Aviv University, 1982; William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology, Cambridge University, 1984-93; Professorial Fellow, 1984-1992, and Supernumerary Fellow, 1992-1995, King's College, Cambridge University; Honorary Fellow, LSE, 1986; Guest of Academy of Sciences of USSR, Moscow, 1988-89; Honorary Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1988; President, Royal Anthropological Institute, 1991-94; First President, Society for Moroccan Studies, 1990-[1995]; Tanner Lecturer, Harvard University, 1990; Member, American Philosophical Society, 1992; FRSA, 1992; Member, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Europaea, Salzburg, 1993; Resident Professor, and Director, Centre for Study of Nationalism, Central European University, Prague, 1993-[1995]; Visiting Lecturer, Center for European Studies, Harvard University, 1994; Erasmus Visiting Professor, Warsaw University, 1995; Member of Senate, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, 1994-[1995]; Member, Editorial or Advisory Boards for the British Journal of Sociology, the American Journal of Sociology, Inquiry, Middle Eastern Studies, Journal of Peasant Studies, Society and Theory, Government and Opposition, Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Journal of Mediterranean Studies, Third World Review, Nations and Nationalism, Anthropology and Archaeology of Eurasia, Sociological Papers, Moderniyzzazio e Sviluppo; died 1995.
Publications: Cause and meaning in the social sciences (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London 1973); Contemporary thought and politics (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1973); Legitimation of belief (Cambridge University Press, 1974); Options of belief (South Place Ethical Society, London, 1975); Saints of the Atlas (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1969); The devil in modern philosophy (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1974); Thought and change (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1964); Words and things: a critical account of linguistic philosophy and a study in ideology (Victor Gollancz, London, 1959); editor of Arabs and Berbers: from tribe to nation in North Africa (Duckworth, London, 1973); editor of Populism: its meanings and national characteristics (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1969); editor of The nature of human society (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1962); Language and solitude: Wittgenstein, Malinowski and the Hapsburg dilemma (Cambridge University Press, 1998); Nationalism (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1997); Encounters with nationalism (Blackwell, Oxford, 1994); Anthropology and politics: revolutions in the sacred grove (Blackwell, Oxford, 1995); Liberalism in modern times: essays in honour of José Merquior (Central European University Press, Budapest and London, 1996); Conditions of liberty: civil society and its rivals (Hamish Hamilton, London, 1994); The psychoanalytic movement: the cunning of unreason (Granada, London, 1985); Postmodernism, reason and religion (Routledge, New York and London,, 1992); Reason and culture: the historic role of rationality and rationalism (Blackwell, Oxford, 1992); The concept of kinship, and other essays on anthropological method and explanation (Blackwell, Oxford, 1987); Nations and nationalism (Blackwell, Oxford, 1983); Culture, identity and politics (Cambridge University Press, 1987); Relativism and the social sciences (Cambridge University Press, 1979); Spectacles and predicaments: essays in social theory (Cambridge University Press, 1979); Muslim society (Cambridge University Press, 1981); Transition to modernity: essays on power, wealth and belief (Cambridge University Press, 1992); State and society in Soviet thought (Blackwell, Oxford, 1988); Plough, sword and book: the structure of human history (Collins Harvill, 1988); editor of Islamic dilemmas: reformers, nationalists and industrialisation (Mouton, Berlin, 1985); editor of Soviet and Western anthropology (Duckworth, London, 1980); editor of Patrons and clients in Mediterranean societies (Duckworth, London, 1977).
Requests for donations of election ephemera were sent out by the BLPES to candidates of all parties throughout the United Kingdom during the 1992 general election campaign, and major deposits were received. Material was also collected by BLPES staff and students.
Requests for donations of election ephemera were sent out by the BLPES to candidates of all parties throughout the United Kingdom during the 1997 general election campaign, and major deposits were received. Material was also collected by BLPES staff and students.
The general election was held in June 2001 and was won by the Labour Party with a large majority. Requests for donations were sent out to candidates of all parties throughout the country and major deposits were received from all parts of the United Kingdom. Parties represented include: Conservative Party, Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, Green Party, UK Independence Party, Socialist Alliance, Plaid Cymru, Scottish National Party and a range of parties from Northern Ireland. The collection also includes a wide range of addresses and material from smaller parties and Independent candidates.
The collection also contains ephemera from the County Council election, held at the same time, and holds material covering the major parties. The ephemera has been listed by party and entered onto the election ephemera database where material can be located by party, candidate, constituency or region.
Sir Robert Giffen, 1837-1910, was educated at Glasgow University and then went on to work as a clerk in a solicitors office, 1850-1855. However he spent the majority of his career working with statistics. He became sub-editor of The Globe, 1862-1866, and then assistant editor of The Economist, 1868-1876. He then left journalism to become chief of the statistical department of the Board of Trade, 1876-1882, Assistant Secretary of the Board of Trade and afterwards Controller-General of Commercial Labour and Statistical Departments, 1882-1897. From 1882 to 1884, he was president of the Statistical Society.
Dianne Hayter was General Secretary of the Fabian Society for many years and Chair of the Fabian Society 1992-1993.
The Hall-Carpenter Archives were instituted as a registered charity in 1982.
The history of the Albany Trust is inextricably linked with that of the Homosexual Law Reform Society or HLRS. The HLRS was founded in June 1958 following the recommendation of the Wolfenden Report that homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offence. Its first Chairman was Kenneth Walker (succeeded by Cecil Hewitt Rolph in 1964), and its first Secretary the Revd Andrew Hallidie Smith. The work of the HLRS was undertaken by a small working group liasing with an honorary committee. The first public meeting was held on 12 May 1960 at Caxton Hall, and culminated with a vote in favour of reform, resulting in a letter to the Home Office. This was closely followed by a parliamentary debate in June 1960. The Society was reconstituted in 1970 as the Sexual Law Reform Society in order to campaign for further legal changes, particularly relating to the age of consent.
The Albany Trust was founded as a registered charity in May 1958 as a complimentary organisation to the HLRS with a remit 'to promote psychological health in men by collecting data and conducting research: to publish the results thereof by writing, films, lectures and other media: to take suitable steps based thereon for the public benefit to improve the social and general conditions necessary for such healthy psychological development'. The founding Trustees were Anthony Edward Dyson, Jacquetta Hawkes, Kenneth Walker, Andrew Hallidie Smith, and Ambrose Appelbe. The Albany Trust developed into a pioneering counselling and investigating organisation for gay men, lesbians and sexual minorities. It published a journal Man and Society from 1961-1973, and a newsletter entitled Spectrum from 1963-1970, as well as a series of pamphlets. It also provided speakers for numerous organisations and established a network of counsellors. Antony Grey became the Acting Secretary of both HLRS and the Albany Trust in 1962. The funds raised and donated for the work of the Albany Trust allowed it to finance office space and staff. These same facilities were then available for the campaigning work of the Homosexual Law Reform Society (HLRS). Following the Sexual Offences Act of 1967, which decriminalised adult homosexual relationships, the Albany Trust became primarily an educational and counselling organisation. Due to an increasing volume of casework, a social caseworker was appointed in 1967, and the Trust was increasingly involved in the training of youth workers and the development of sex education. From 1976 to 1979 a full-time youth officer was employed. A field officer appointed from 1975 to 1980 investigated the Trust's links with social workers and counsellors throughout the country. The Albany Trust remains active today.
The Albany Society Ltd was founded in 1968 as a charitable limited company to deal with the commercial side of the Trust's operations. In 1988 it simplified its name to the Albany Society.
Body Positive is an organisation formed in 1985 to provide support and information for individuals diagnosed as HIV positive, and to represent their views. The activities of the group included running a telephone counselling service, a hospital visiting group and a drop in centre, as well as organising training sessions and workshops for members and volunteer counsellors. Body Positive ceased to exist in 2000.
The Conservative Group for Homosexual Equality was a voluntary organisation founded in 1976 to lobby Conservative Party opinion in favour of gay rights and to provide a political balance within the gay movement. The group was revived in 1980, and a constitution drawn up and adopted on 28 March 1981, establishing an elected Executive Committee to oversee the running of the Group. CGHE was succeeded by TORCHE (Tory Campaign for Homosexual Equality), which now has upwards of 400 members within the Conservative Party.
In 1957, the Wolfenden Report proposed that homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private no longer be considered a criminal offence. On 7 March 1958, a letter, drafted by Anthony Edward Dyson and signed by a number of eminent individuals, appeared in The Times supporting the Wolfenden recommendation.
Dyson was instrumental in the creation of the Homosexual Law Reform Society in 1958, and became one of the original Trustees of the Albany Trust, a counselling and research service for the gay community, in the same year.
Ephemeral material relating to gay, lesbian and bisexual issues, has been collected by the Hall-Carpenter Archive since its inception in 1982.
Robert (Bob) Mellors was born in 1950. He was a student at the London School of Economics, following which he travelled to New York, where he became involved with the Gay Liberation Front. On his return to London, Mellors became the co-founder of the British Gay Liberation Front in 1970. When the GLF foundered in 1974, Mellors helped in the formation of more specialised lesbian and gay community groups. He was killed in 1996. Publications: editor of An outline of human ethnology: extracts from an unpublished work by Charlotte Bach (London, 1981); We are all androgynous yellow (Another-Orbit Press, London, 1980); Clint Eastwood loves Jeff Bridges - true! 'homosexuality', androgyny & evolution : a simple introduction (Another Orbit Press, London, 1978). Charlotte/Carl Bach, a man who lived the second half of his life as a woman, developed a number of philosophical theories relating to gender and sexuality.
Hector Alastair Hetherington, 1919-1999, was educated at Gresham's School, Holt and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He spent the second world war in the Royal Armoured Corps and in 1946 joined the editorial staff of the Glasgow Herald. He left in 1950 to join the Manchester Guardian where he was assistant editor and foreign editor 1953-1956 and editor 1956-1975. After he left the Guardian, he went into television, becoming controller of BBC Scotland 1975-1978 and manager of BBC Highland 1979-1980.
The International Marxist Group is a British Trotskyite revolutionary group affiliated to the Fourth International. Its broad aims are the overthrow of imperialist capitalism followed be the setting up of a government based on direct democratic control by the people.
The Ionian Bank was founded in London in 1839 to finance trade between the Ionian Islands, (a British protectorate) and Great Britain. After the cession to Greece of the islands in 1864, the Bank extended its operations to the rest of Greece and during the twentieth century to Egypt, Cyprus and Turkey. The Greek assets were sold to the Commercial Bank of Greece in the 1950s and the Egyptian assets were sequestrated. The Ionian Bank ceased trading as such in 1978, though certain parts of its business were carried on by Ionian Securities Ltd, which was taken over by Alpha Credit Bank in 1999, forming the Alpha Bank.
Phyllis Mary Kaberry, 1910-1977, was educated at the University of Sydney. Her first fieldwork was conducted in the early 1930s in North West Australia on the social status of aboriginal women. In 1936 she moved to London to work in the Anthropology Department of the London School of Economics as a research assistant to Audrey Richards. After obtaining her doctorate in 1939 she received a fellowship from the Australian National Research Council to undertake fieldwork among the Abelam tribe in New Guinea. From 1941 to 1943, Kaberry lectured at Yale on Australia and New Guinea and edited Malinowski's unpublished material on culture change. In 1945 she made the first of five field trips to Cameroon, first under the auspices of the International African Institute and later with the support of the Wenner-Gren Foundation. In 1949, she joined the Department of Anthropology at University College London, where she remained a Reader in Social Anthropology for 26 years.
Born 1910; educated Hayes Court and Girton College, Cambridge University; Souschargé, Department of Pre-History, Musée de l'Homme, Paris, 1934-1939; Mixed Youth Club Leader, Young Women's Christian Association, 1939-1942; Welfare Officer, Admiralty, Bath, 1942-47; served in the prison service, 1947-1974; Governor, HM Prison, Holloway, 1959-1966; Assistant Director of Prisons (Women), 1967-1974; Member of Council, St George's House, Windsor, 1971-1977; OBE 1973; Member, Redundant Churches Committee, 1974-1979; Member, Scott Holland Trust, 1978-1986; Sponsor, YWCA of Great Britain, 1979-present. Publications: When the Gates Shut (Longmans, London, 1967; Who Casts the First Stone? (Epworth, London, 1978).
Imre Lakatos, 1922-1974, was born in Hungary with the family name of Lipsitz. He attended Debrecen University and graduated in mathematics, physics and philosophy in 1944. During the Nazi occupation of Hungary, he changed his name to Molnar and joined the underground resistance. During the second world war he became a committed communist and after the war changed his name again, this time to Lakatos. In 1947, he was made a secretary in the Ministry of Education and became involved in the reform of higher education in Hungary. In 1948, he wrote a doctoral thesis on concept formation in science, receiving his degree from Budapest University. However his political prominence and "revisionist" tendencies meant that he fell foul of the campaign against the "Hungarian Titoists". He was arrested in 1950 and spent the next three years in jail. He was released in 1953, and in 1954 Alfred Renyi obtained a post for him in the Mathematical Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Science. His job was to translate important mathematical works into Hungarian, including work by George Polya. It was here that he first came into contact with western books and journals, in particular the work of Karl Popper and Friedrich Hayek. After the Hungarian uprising in 1956, Lakatos was informed of the likelihood of his re-arrest and so fled to Vienna. Whilst there he was awarded a three year Rockefeller fellowship and went to Kings College, Cambridge, to study under Richard Braithwaite. In 1958 he met George Polya, who advised him to prepare a case study of the "Descartes-Euler conjecture" for his doctorate. This later grew into his book Proofs and Refutations. He joined Professor Popper's department at the LSE in 1960 and rose rapidly to become Professor of Logic in 1969. He became increasingly interested in methodology and in 1965 he organised the International Colloquium on the Philosophy of Science. He also edited the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
Rt Hon George Lansbury, 1859-1940, left school at the age of fourteen and worked as a clerk, a wholesale grocer and in a coffee bar before starting his own business as a contractor for the Great Eastern Railway. In 1884 he emigrated to Australia with his wife and children, but did not find the experience satisfactory, returning home in 1885 to enter his father-in-law's timber merchant business. Lansbury was involved in politics from an early age, first as an active Radical and then as a Socialist. He became a borough councillor in Poplar in 1903 and Labour MP of Bow and Bromley in 1910. In 1912, he resigned to fight the seat as an Independent and a supporter of suffrage for women. He was re-elected in 1922 and held the position of leader of the Labour Party from 1931 to 1935. Lansbury was greatly interested in the causes and prevention of poverty and unemployment. He was a member of the Central Unemployed Body for London and also a member of the Royal Commission on Poor Law, where he signed the minority report. In 1929 he became the first Commissioner of Works and also established the first Poor Law Labour Colony and the first Labour Colony for the Unemployed (apart from the Poor Law and under public control) at Hollesley Bay. He was also a founder of the Daily Herald and its editor from 1919 to 1923.
The Labour Campaign for Criminal Justice was founded in 1978 by Alex Lyon MP to promote more extended discussion of criminal justice issues within the Labour Party and elsewhere. The group met monthly at Westminster and at its height had 400 members. It published quarterly newsletters along with reports and pamphlets on key issues in crime and criminal justice. The group publishes policy papers and organises seminars. In 1997 the LCCJ changed its name to the Labour Criminal Justice Forum to mark a move from a campaigning to a discussion group.
The Liberal Party, the successor to the Whig Party, was formed on 6 June 1859, when Whigs, Peelites and Radicals met at Willis's Rooms in St. James Street, London, to unite in opposition to the Conservatives. It became a major political force, holding power for a large proportion of the next sixty years. Following World War One, however, it was supplanted by the Labour Party and remained on the sidelines until the leadership of Jo Grimond (1956-1967), when the party generated a revived reputation as an intellectually credible left-of-centre group. From the early 1960s on, the party enjoyed spectacular by-election successes; fuelled by these performances, an increasing number of Liberal candidates was fielded. Under Jeremy Thorpe the party made substantial progress in the 1974 general election, returning almost 20 percent of the popular vote, and under Thorpe's successor as party leader, David Steel (1976-88), the Liberals retained their position as a significant national force in British politics. In return for supporting the minority Labour government of James Callaghan, Steel was able to extract a number of concessions, including an agreement to consult the Liberals on legislation prior to its presentation in Parliament. This "Lib-Lab" pact foundered in 1978, and the Liberals fared poorly in the general election of 1979, but their strategic importance was enhanced by the emergence of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1981. An Alliance (as their cooperation became known) was forged between the two parties in time for the 1983 general election, in which they won 25 percent of the popular vote. Following a disappointing result in the 1987 general election, a majority in both parties voted for a formal merger, and the Social and Liberal Democratic Party, known from 1989 as the Liberal Democratic Party, was formed. Those Liberals who opposed the merger re-launched the Liberal Party in 1989. The structure of the Liberal Party was decentralised; the local parties controlled the process of candidate selection, and also afforded their members a direct vote in the election of the party leader. The day-to-day business of the party was directed by the National Executive Committee.
The Liberal Party was re-launched in 1989 by those Liberals who opposed the merger of the Liberal and Social Democrat Parties in 1988. The party is run by a National Executive Committee (NEC), elected in a postal ballot of all members. It holds an Annual Assembly where motions are debated and, if passed, become party policy. The party publishes a journal, Liberal News, which contains articles on policy matters as well as news of campaigns and other events. In 2005, the Liberal Party had around 1300 members, and in that year's general election it won 19,068 votes. In 2007, it had 30 local councillors.
Born 1889; educated Rugby School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford University; joined civil service and was employed at the Inland Revenue, 1913; Contracts Department, War Office, 1914-1917; Ministry of Food, 1917-1919; Economic and Financial Section, League of Nations Secretariat, 1919-1921; Assistant Secretary, Empire Marketing Board, 1926-1933; Secretary, Market Supply Committee, 1933-1936; Assistant Director, Food (Defence Plans) Department, 1936-1939; Principal Assistant Secretary, Ministry of Food, 1939-1942; Economic Adviser to Minister of State, Middle East, 1942-1944; United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, Economic and Financial Adviser for the Balkans, 1945; CB, 1945; Financial Aid Officer, United Nations, 1946-1947; Under Secretary, Ministry of Food, 1947-1953; CMG, 1952; President, Agricultural Economics Society, 1956; Consultant, Political and Economic Planning, 1958-1964; died 1968. Publications: Agriculture and Food in Poland (UNRRA European Regional Office, London, 1946); Experiments in State Control at the War Office and the Ministry of Food (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1924); Food and Inflation in the Middle East, 1940-45 (Stanford University Press, Stanford, [1956]); Fresh Eggs and Free Markets (Society of Objectors to Compulsory Egg Marketing, London, 1956); Stabilisation. An economic policy for producers & consumers (G. Allen & Unwin, London, 1923).
Dr Ian Loader is a Reader in Criminology at Keele University. He has published Youth, policing and democracy (Macmillan, London, 1996) and Crime and social change in middle England; questions of order in an English town (Routledge, London, 2000). Loader received a grant from the ESRC to undertake 'Policing, Cultural Change and Structures of Feeling in post-war England' in 1997. The research was to investigate public and professional understandings of policing in relation to English social history since 1945. It examined how policing has been officially represented in the post-war period; how different sections of the English populace now remember and reconstruct policing, and how policing is situated in relation to other aspects of English society and culture. The research drew on work in social theory, anthropology and social history to examine how policing is a vehicle for understanding society and people's interpretation of it.
The Hutchinson Trust (1894-1904) administered the funds bequeathed by Henry Hunt Hutchinson to advance the objectives of the Fabian Society, which were used to establish and maintain the London School of Economics.
The Constance Hutchinson Trust left money for similar purposes (1896-1922).
The Trustees of the School met during 1896 to oversee the running of the School.
The Administrative Committee was the ruling body of the School from 1896-1901. It then became the Governors (1901-present).
The Finance and General Purposes Committee (1904-1908) prepared proposals on general policy to present to the Governors. It became known as the Council of Management (1908-1921), and was replaced by the Emergency Committee (1921-1937) was largely responsible for deciding and implementing the general policy of the School. It was renamed the Standing Committee in 1937.
The Faculty of Economics of the University of London was created when the School was admitted to the University in 1901.
The Professorial Council (1903-1950) discussed matters concerning the curriculum and academic affairs. It changed its name to the Academic Board in 1950. The Office Committee (1919-1921) was set up to advise the Council on administrative matters with an academic bearing. The General Purposes Committee (founded 1928) was a sub-committee of the Council for facilitating the discussion of academic policy. The Appointments Committee (formed 1921) was a committee of the Council that advised the Director on academic appointments.
The Rockefeller Research Fund Committee (1924- [1938]) administered individual applications from staff for funds for research projects provided by the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fund.
The Ratan Tata Benefaction Committee (1917-1922) administered funds donated by Sir Ratan Tata for a Department of Social Science at LSE.
Further details of these and other LSE committees may be found in the printed handlist for the London School of Economics and Political Science Archives.
James Mill, 1773-1836, was educated in Edinburgh by Sir John Stuart of Fettercain, and was licensed to preach in 1798. He moved to London in 1802 and supported his family by writing. He became editor of the 'Literary Journal' in 1803 and the 'St James Chronicle' in 1805, and also wrote for the 'Edinburgh Review' from 1808 to 1813. In 1808, Mill met Jeremy Bentham, was converted to his utilitarian philosophy, and abandoned theology. Thereafter, Mill took an active part in the Bell and Lancaster educational controversy and formed an association to set up a Chrestomathic school in 1814, the outcome of this being the formation of the London University in 1825. He also contributed articles to the 'Westminster Review', which was established as the official Benthamite paper. He was also connected with David Ricardo and took part in meetings at Ricardo's house which resulted in the Political Economy Club being founded in 1820.
John Stuart Mill, 1806-1873, was educated by his father, James Mill, to a very high level at an early age. Like his father he was a staunch utilitarian and he was also active in radical causes. In 1823, he formed the Utilitarian Society, which met to read and discuss essays, in 1825, he edited Bentham's 'Rationale of Judicial Evidence' and in 1826, he assisted in the formation of the Speculative Society. By the 1830's, John Stuart Mill had become interested in the work of romantic writers such as Wordsworth and also in the French Revolution. The 1832 Reform Bill seemed to give an opportunity for the Radicals to gain influence in Parliament and much of his energy at this time was given over to this. In 1835 he founded the 'London Review' which merged with the 'Westminster Review' in 1836. As proprietor from 1837-1840 he tried to use the paper to promote the philosophical radicals and their cause in Parliament. However by 1840 he had been unable to achieve his end and so gave up proprietership of the paper. The 1840s were devoted to writing his great works on logic and economics. In 1851, he married Harriet Taylor, who died in 1858. He was elected MP for Westminster in 1865 and served as a radical. He was a supporter of the 1867 Reform Bill and was active in support of the Labour Movement, the extension of the franchise to women, cumulative voting, Irish land reforms, municipal government for London and became embroiled in the Eyre controversy. He also proposed the Hare plan as an amendment to the Representation of the People Bill but failed in an attempt to obtain the vote for women. After he lost his seat in 1868, he continued to write articles and books and completed a revision of his autobiography before his death.
Harriet Taylor (nee Hardy), 1807-1858, was the daughter of a London surgeon. At the age of eighteen, she married John Taylor, a wealthy businessman. She and her husband were both active in the Unitarian Church and held radical political views. Harriet Taylor first met John Stuart Mill in 1830. During their association she worked closely with him contributing suggestions and revisions to his work. She was particularly influential in forming his ideas on women's rights, making him aware of the hardship suffered by women. In 1833, Harriet Taylor separated from her husband. He died of cancer in 1849, and two years later, she married John Stuart Mill.
Helen Taylor, 1831-1907, the daughter of Harriet Taylor, became companion to John Stuart Mill on the death of her mother in 1858. She assisted him in his work and helped to keep alive his interest in women's rights. She also campaigned in her own right on women's suffrage, the social position and education of women. She was a member of the Moral Reform Union and a leading light in the fight to abolish school fees and provide school meals.
Born in Bucharest, Rumania, in 1888; educated at the London School of Economics and Political Science, 1912-1914; undertook war work at the Romanian Legation in London, the Foreign Office and the War Office, 1914-1918; Member, Labour Party Advisory Committee on International Affairs, 1918-1931; Editorial Staff, Manchester Guardian, 1919-1922, with special responsibility for foreign affairs; Assistant European Editor, Economic and Social History of the World War, sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1922-1929; Visiting Professor, Harvard University 1931-1933; Dodge Lecturer, Yale University, 1932; Nielsen Research Professor, Smith College, 1951; Member, British Co-ordinating Committee for International Studies, 1927-1930; Professor in School of Economics and Politics, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, 1933-1939 and 1946-1956; Member, Foreign Research and Press Service, Foreign Office, 1939-1942; Adviser on International Affairs to Board of Unilever & Lever Brothers Ltd, 1943-1962; Member, Executive Committee, Political and Economic Planning; died 1975. Publications: The functional theory of politics (Robertson, for the LSE, 1975); American interpretations; four political essays (Contact Publications, London, 1946); The effect of the War in south eastern Europe (Yale University press, 1936); Food and freedom (Batchworth Press, London, 1954); Greater Rumania: a study in national ideals (Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1917); The land and the peasant in Rumania: the War and agrarian reform, 1917-1921 (Oxford University press, London, 1930); Marx against the peasant: a study in social dogmatism (George Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1951); The problem of international sanctions (Humphrey Milford, London, 1925); The progress of international government (Allen and Unwin, London, 1933); The road to security (National Peace Council, London, 1944); Rumania, her history and politics (1915); A working peace system (Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, 1943); World unity and the nations (London, 1950).
National Family Mediation was founded in 1981. It co-ordinates the work of voluntary sector family mediation services in England and Wales to assist couples who are in the process of separation and divorce. NFM encourages the take-up of family mediation; promotes professional standards; carries out research, consultancy and training; organises conferences; liaises with government, the legal profession, advice agencies and other voluntary organisations; and provides information to the public.
The Overseas Student Trust was a pressure group formed in the 1960s to campaign for the interests of overseas students at British universities. It was dissolved in 1992 and its functions transferred to the Centre for Educational Research at LSE.
John Parker was born 15 July 1906 and educated at Marlborough and St John's College Oxford. He became General Secretary of the New Fabian Research Bureau in 1933 and by 1980 had been made President of the Fabian Society, emphasising his life long association with the Fabians.
He was elected as a Labour MP for Romford in 1935 and when that consituency was divided after the Second World War he held Dagenham until 1983. John Parker showed great interest in his constituency, being particularly involved with the Ford factory there and its relationship with the community. John Parker was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Dominions Office during the Government of Clement Attlee in 1945, his Parliamentary private secretary being James Callaghan. He was, however, dismissed from his position in 1946 over his views concerning South African Protectorates. This loss of office enabled John Parker to exert an influence from the back benches, serving on several Speaker's Conferences and also the Procedure Committee 1966-1973.
John Parker drew an early place in the ballot for Private Members' Bills on two occassions, being defeated in his attempt to bring in a Sunday observance measure, initiating an inquiry, and with his second bill producing the Legitimacy Act of 1959. This second bill legitimised the offspring of bigamous marriges, where one of the partners was ignorant of the situation, and also the children born while one of the partners was still married to someone else by subsequent marriage. A Bill was also introduced by John Parker, under the ten minute rule, which eventually became the Nationality (Number 2) Act of 1964, implementing the UN Convention on Statelessness. He was also a member of the Arts and Amenities Committee of the Labour Party, maintaining a particular interest in forestry and ancient buildings.
Parker frequently travelled overseas, being a member of the British-Yugoslav Parliamentary group, editing a series of Yugoslav novels in English and meeting Stalin in the Soviet Union. He also produced a selection of books which included 42 Days in the Soviet Union (1946), Labour Marches On (1947) and his memoirs entitled Father of the House, reflecting his postion as the House of Commons' longest serving, active member.
John Parker retired in 1983 and died 24 November 1987. He was married in 1943 to Zena Mimardiere, and had one son, Michael.
Born in 1938, Maureen Caine received her Bachelors degree in 1959 and her Doctorate in 1969. She was Professor of Sociology at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad. At present she is a Reader in the Sociology of Law and Crime at the School of Law, Birmingham University. Publications: With Kalaman Kulesar (ed) Disputes and the Law (Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest for the European Coordination Centre for Research and Documentation in Social Sciences, 1983); (ed) Mark and Engels on law (Academic Press, London, 1979); with Christine Harrington (ed) Lawyers in a postmodern world: translation and transgression (Open University Press, Buckingham, 1994); Growing up good: policing the behaviour of girls in Europe (Sage, London, 1989); Society and the policeman's role (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1973); Conflict and its solution: an examination of an urban and rural police division (1969).
Born in 1840; studied economics at the Universities of Prague and Vienna, 1859-1863; became a prominent economic journalist, as well as writing a number of novels and comedies; gained a doctorate in law, 1866, and worked as an apprentice lawyer until granted a law degree from the University of Krakow, 1867; returned to work as a journalist, and developed Mengarian economics, which reconstructed price theory; published The principles of economics, 1871; joined the civil service, in the Press Department of the Austrian Cabinet, 1870-1873; appointed Lecturer, 1872, and Associate Professor, 1873-1876, Faculty of Law and Political Science, University of Vienna; tutor of Crown Prince Rudolph von Hapsburg, 1876-1878; Professor of Political Economy, Faculty of Law, University of Vienna, 1879-1903; published Investigation into the method of social sciences with special reference to economics, 1883; publication of The errors of historicism in German economics, 1884, began a lengthy debate between the Austrian School and the German Historical School; Member of a Commission charged with the reformation of the Austrian monetary system, 1888-1892; died 1921.
Born in 1920; educated at Taunton School and Jesus College, Cambridge University; served World War Two, 1939-1945, in India and Burma with the Royal Signal Corps; research assistant to Charles Wilson during the writing of Wilson's history of Unilever, 1947-1954; worked for Unilever, 1950-1964, in advertising, market research and public relations; began career as a historical writer; left Unilever in 1964 to write a history of ICI, which was published in 1970 and 1795; wrote a series of business histories; Texaco Visiting Fellow, Business History Unit, London School of Economics and Political Science, 1979-1985; died 1990. Publications: Birds Eye: the early years (Walton on Thames, 1963); Imperial Chemical Industries: a history (Oxford University Press, London, 1970, 1975); Architect of air power: the life of the first Viscount Weir of Eastwood (Collins, London, 1968); Life in Victorian England (Batsford, London, 1964); Professional men: the rise of the professional classes in nineteenth-century Europe (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1966); Hard roads and highways: S.P.D. Ltd, 1918-1968 (Batsford, London, 1969); Unilever plantations (Unilever Ltd, London, 1961); The Weir Group: a centenary history (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1971).
William Rees Jeffreys was born in London in 1871. He worked for the Board of Trade until 1903, when he became Administrative Secretary to the Royal Automobile Club and Secretary to the Motor Union. In the same year, Rees-Jeffreys secured the appointment of a Departmental Committee to inquire into Highway Administration in England and Wales. From 1910, to its demise in 1918, he was Secretary of the Road Board. Rees Jeffreys also wrote and campaigned extensively on road transport and motoring in the United Kingdom, Europe and many other countries. He died in 1954.
John Kenyon Vaughan-Morgan was a member of Chelsea Borough Council, 1928 and of London County Council for Chelsea, 1946-1952. He was Chairman of East Fulham Conservative and Unionist Association, 1935-1938, and its President in 1945. He was Conservative MP for Reigate, Surrey, 1950-1970; Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Health, 1957; and, Minister of State at the Board of Trade, 1957-1959. He was created Baron Reigate of Outwood, Surrey in 1970 (life peer). He was also President of the Royal Philanthropic School, Redhill.
Lady Juliet Rhys Williams, 1898-1964, began her political career as private secretary to the Director of Training and Staff Duties at the Admiralty in 1918, becoming private secretary to the Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Transport, 1919-1920. As a member of the Liberal Party, she contested Pontypridd (1938) and Ilford North (1945), holding the post of Honorary Secretary of the Women's Liberal Federation in 1943. Her ideas on income tax reform were taken up by the Liberal Party and published as a Liberal Party Yellow Book. She left the Liberals in 1945 and joined the Conservative Party, becoming an influential member of the Monday Club. During this time she corresponded with many politicians including Harold MacMillan about political and economic issues.
Following World War Two, Lady Rhys Williams became Honorary Secretary of the Economic Section, Congress of Europe and the Hague in 1948, Honorary Secretary of the United Europe Movement, 1947-1958, and Chairman from 1958. She believed in uniting and strengthening Europe through trade and joined the European League for Economic Co-operation in 1948 . However she was against signing the Treaty of Rome and campaigned vigorously against joining the Common Market, which she thought would hand over British sovereignty to Europe and betray the Commonwealth. She also corresponded with a variety of people about the economic and political issues relating to Europe and European Union.
Lady Rhys Williams was a governor of the BBC, 1952-1956. During this time she joined discussions on the breaking of the BBC's monopoly and the setting up of a new commercial channel. She also experimented on systems for colour television and broadcast on Women's Hour. She was also interested in film. Together with her husband Sir Rhys Rhys Williams she formed a company that filmed her mother, Elinor Glyn's, books. She was also involved in the development of colour film. Lady Rhys Williams was also concerned with health issues. She was Honorary Treasurer of Queen Charlotte's Hospital Anaesthetic Fund, 1928-1939, Honorary Secretary of the Joint Council of Midwifery, 1934-1939, and a member of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Abortion, 1937-1938. She was also a member of the National Birthday Trust Fund. As her husband's estates were in Wales, Lady Rhys Williams spent much time there, and became involved with Welsh issues. She was a member of Bishop Llandaff's committee, which sought ways to alleviate poverty in the Rhondda valley in the 1930s, and she was also chairman of the Cwmbran Development Corporation 1955-1960. She also wrote articles and books on politics, economics, philosophy and religion and had novels and plays published.
Dr Audrey Richards, 1899-1984, was the daughter of Sir Henry Erle Richards, a legal member of the vice-regal council of India. She attended Downe House School near Newbury and read Natural Sciences at Cambridge. After graduating, she worked as an assistant to Gilbert Murray, and from 1924 to 1928 was Secretary of the Labour Department of the League of Nations Union. Richards registered as a PhD student at the London School of Economics in 1928 under C G Seligman. She carried out anthropological fieldwork among the Bemba of Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia, from 1930 to 1931, returning to the School to become lecturer in Social Anthropology, 1933-1934. The major subjects of her Bemba research were food production and nutrition and, because women were the principal farmers, women's work and women's lives. She also investigated Bemba politics and government. From 1937 to 1949 she was senior lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. During the Second World War, Richards worked for the Colonial Office and was closely connected with the Colonial Social Science Research Council. She returned to the LSE in 1946 as a Reader in Social Anthropology, going on to become director of the East African Institute of Social Research, Makerere University in 1950. Here she carried out extensive research, partly in co-operation with her colleagues, into Ugandan and particularly Bugandan affairs. This research concentrated on political and economic organisation. From 1956 to 1966, she was Fellow of Newnham College Cambridge, and from 1966 she held the Smuts Readership.
Cecil Rolph Hewitt, 1901-1994, had two careers. He was a member of the City of London Police Force from 1921 to 1946, rising to become Chief Inspector. After leaving the Police Force he became involved in journalism. He was a member of the editorial staff of The New Statesman, 1947-1970, and editor of The Author, 1956-1960. He was also involved in the publishing of many books and articles. Hewitt worked under the professional name of C H Rolph.