was also an opponent of the Vietnam War, and, closer to home, of Britain’s attempts to join what was then called the Common Market. But of even greater concern was, first, his longstanding dispute with the IEA over the role of the market in healthcare provision. This was extremely stressful, although it had a positive outcome in that it spurred Titmuss to produce what turned out to be his last major work, The Gift Relationship. Second, even closer to home Titmuss was a major participant in the so-called ‘Troubles’ which beset the LSE in the late 1960s. He resisted what he saw as bullying, and ill-informed, behaviour by staff and student protestors. Titmuss’s always fragile health took a turn for the worse in the early 1970s, and Part V concludes with his death, and its aftermath. Finally, in Part VI, an attempt is made to assess Titmuss’s life and work.
Notes
1R.M. Titmuss, ‘Social Administration in a Changing Society’, British Journal of Sociology, 2, 3, 1951, p 189. Reprinted in Essays on ‘The Welfare State’.
2R.M. Titmuss, Poverty and Population, London, Macmillan, 1938.
3R.M. Titmuss, ‘Role of the Family Doctor Today in the Context of Britain’s Social Services’, The Lancet, I, 1965, p 1.
4Most social policy academics see their subject as a ‘field’ rather than a ‘discipline’. I am grateful to, especially, the late Professor David Donnison (interviewed by the author 4 December 2015 and 11 February 2016), for clarifying this point.
5Oakley, Man and Wife, p 202.
6T.H. Marshall, Social Policy, London, Hutchinson, 1965, p 7.
7J.E. Meade, ‘Poverty in the Welfare State’, Oxford Economic Papers, 24, 1972, pp 289–326.
8G. Howe, ‘The Fabian Threat to Freedom’, The Daily Telegraph, 4 January 1967, p 14.
9R. Miliband, ‘The Sickness of Labourism’, New Left Review, 1, 1, Jan/Feb 1960, pp 5–9. I owe the point about Miliband’s attitude to Titmuss’s Department to Professor Jose Harris.
10A. Seldon, ‘Ideas Are Not Enough’, in D. Marquand and A. Seldon (eds), The Ideas That Shaped Post-War Britain, London, Fontana, 1996, p 268.
11D. Donnison, ‘The Academic Contribution to Social Reform’, Social Policy and Administration, 34, 1, 2000, pp 34, 37.
12S. Thornton, ‘Richard Crossman, the Civil Service, and the Case of the Disappearing Pension’, Public Policy and Administration, 20, 2, 2005, pp 67–80.
13D. Piachaud, ‘Titmuss – Teacher and Thinker’, New Statesman, 13 April 1973, p 521.
14TITMUSS/7/68, letter, 8 May 1960, Martin to RMT.
15D. Edgerton, Warfare State: Britain, 1920–1970, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006, p 216ff.
16R. Crossman, The Politics of Pensions: Eleanor Rathbone Memorial Lecture, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 1972, p 7.
17M. Hough, ‘Bibliography of Published Works by Richard Titmuss’, in R.M. Titmuss, Poverty and Population: Volume 1 of the Palgrave Macmillan Archive Edition of the Writings on Social Policy and Welfare of Richard M. Titmuss, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2002, pp xxi–xxxv.
18R. Titmuss, ‘The Limits of the Welfare State’, New Left Review, 1/27, Sept/Oct 1964, pp 28, 30, 31, 33, 35, 37.
19TITMUSS/7/65, letter, 17 July 1957, RMT to Merton, Columbia University, New York.
20R.K. Merton, ‘The Role of Applied Social Science in the Formation of Policy: A Research Memorandum’, Philosophy of Science, 16, 3, 1949, pp 161–81, p 164.
21T.H. Marshall, ‘Richard Titmuss: An Appreciation’, British Journal of Sociology, 24, 2, 1973, p 137.
22A.J. Isserlis, ‘Richard Titmuss: 1907–73’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2, 2, 1973, pp 185–6.
23A.L. Schorr, ‘Introduction’, in A.L. Schorr (ed), Children and Decent People, New York, Basic Books, 1974, p xvi.
24D. Reisman, Richard Titmuss: Welfare and Society, London, Heinemann, 1977, with Preface by R. Pinker. Oakley’s main works pertaining to her father’s life are Man and Wife, and Father and Daughter.
25D. Reisman, Richard Titmuss: Welfare and Society, Basingstoke, Palgrave, 2nd edn 2001, pp 4, 5, 64–5, 67, 4, 197, 269.
26S. Williams, Climbing the Bookshelves: The Autobiography, London, Virago, 2009, p 138.
27A.H. Halsey, No Discouragement: An Autobiography, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1996, pp 58, 216. Houghton Street is still one of the LSE’s main thoroughfares.
28D. MacRae, ‘Roundheads’, New Statesman, 1 July 1968, pp 175–6.
29Cited in Oakley, Father and Daughter, p 244.
30Ibid, pp 21–3, 92.
31See, for example, LSE/Staff Files/Titmuss, R.M. Titmuss, ‘London School of Economics and Political Science, Educational Allowance, Application for the year ended 31st July 1952’ ‘London School of Economics and Political Science, Educational Allowance, Application for the year ended 31st July 1965’; and, on occupational pensions, the correspondence between the School, the University of London, the Alliance Assurance Company, and the Inland Revenue, spring 1958.