Abstract
It is perhaps an irony of fame that those whose passage through an institution was of sufficient duration that their personality was able to impose some surviving stamp on it are remembered by posterity as much for their negative effects as for any positive contributions that they may have made; on the other hand, the oblivion of history erases memories of any negative effects of lesser mortals, even at the cost also of erasing those of any positive contributions that they may have had. Some may argue against this cynical view of institutional history but what is less disputable is that certain individuals do leave a longer-term legacy, albeit that sociologists have been suspicious of what, in the days before any gender sensitivity in the use of language, was labelled ‘the Great Man theory of history’. Their alternative view is that historical trajectories are determined by far more than the contributions of particular individuals; if that were not the case, a major raison d’être of their subject would evaporate. Even so, it is incontestable that individuals in strategic positions in an institution may have some determining effect upon its current ambience and its historical development and the three individuals to whom this chapter is devoted were hugely influential, probably more so than any others, in shaping LSE Sociology; that alone justifies the status afforded to them by the chapter’s specific focus on them.
‘The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interrèd with their bones.’
William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 2, lines 75–6.
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- 1.
MacRae claimed details in Caine’s account are incorrect, though did not supply any corrections; see Interview of Professor Donald MacRae by Professor David Martin, 2 January 1991 (LSE Archives, LSE/LSE Oral History/1/22, p. 2).
- 2.
Letter from former student Joy Nalpanis to the author, 16 January 2006.
- 3.
LSE Archives, ORAL HISTORY, Professor A. H. Halsey interviewed by Dr. Colin Crouch, 23 September 1988, 1/6.
- 4.
Minutes of the Research Committee, 18 May 1965, Agendum 2(e), LSE Archives, LSE/CENTRAL FILING REGISTRY/207/G [Box 0274].
- 5.
Julius Gould , ‘Sociology and liberal education’, 23 November 1959; a copy of this document found its way, slightly improbably, into Titmuss’s file on the establishment of a new degree of BSc (Honours), Social Administration; see LSE Archives, TITMUSS/3/329.
- 6.
Letter from MacRae to Titmuss, 28 February 1962 (LSE Archives, TITMUSS/3/329).
- 7.
Letter from Gellner to Titmuss, 4 March 1961 (LSE Archives, TITMUSS/3/329).
- 8.
Asher Tropp, ‘A critique of existing proposals for a BSc Honours degree in social administration’, 30 January 1961 (LSE Archives, TITMUSS/3/329).
- 9.
This account has been compiled from letters in LSE Archives, TITMUSS/3/466.
- 10.
By 1965 there were five Professors in Sociology.
- 11.
The Leicester chair was not apparently filled at the time; the Glasgow one was filled by the moral philosopher David Daiches Raphael (1916–2015), an internal candidate who had previously been Senior Lecturer in Moral Philosophy at Glasgow.
- 12.
These details are distilled from LSE Archives, LSE/CENTRAL FILING REGISTRY/453/2 (Box E116 Professor D. G. MacRae, 1977–1986).
- 13.
Michael Mann , for example, has made clear his own view of this aspect of MacRae’s character; see Hall (2010, p. 177, Note 24).
- 14.
David Martin (2013, p. 119) told a version of this story – in case it seems beyond credibility.
- 15.
Gould talked euphemistically of MacRae’s ‘illness’ in a eulogistic obituary whose bile about most recent developments in British sociology said as much about Gould himself as it did about MacRae. The Times (2 January 1998, p. 19) also published an obituary, which was anonymous and one, like those of Gould and Morris , that was full of ambiguous insinuations and innuendoes about MacRae’s character and personality. Peel (2004) gnomically mentioned ‘shadows over his personal life’.
- 16.
Letter from Glass to Bernard Berelson, 6 March 1952 (LSE Archives, TITMUSS/4/546).
- 17.
Letter from Carr-Saunders to Beveridge, 15 February 1940 (LSE Archives, BEVERIDGE/2B/39/3). The book was reissued in a second edition in 1967.
- 18.
Ruth Glass had come to the UK in 1934 as a refugee from Germany via Czechoslovakia, her family having been a victim of the Nazi boycott of Jewish enterprises. She was awarded a free place to enrol in the Social Science Certificate of the Department of Social Science, though illness meant that she did not formally complete the course.
- 19.
Letter from Glass to Walter Adams, 9 March 1970 (LSE Archives, ADAMS W/8/21).
- 20.
Grebenik had received a First in the BSc(Econ) in 1938 and then was given an Evening Research Studentship.
- 21.
Hajnal’s career interests moved from demography to statistics and from 1966 his formal post was in Statistics.
- 22.
LSE Archives, Minutes of the Standing Sub-Committee of the Appointments Committee, Agendum 5, Minute 15, December 1962.
- 23.
Letter from Glass to Lionel Robbins , 2 December 1970 (LSE Archives, ROBBINS/4/2/1).
- 24.
Letter from Glass to Adams, 2 December 1970 (LSE Archives, ADAMS W/8/21).
- 25.
Letter from Glass to Adams, 18 March 1969 (LSE Archives, ADAMS W/8/21).
- 26.
John Alcock, Memorandum entitled ‘Demography’, 29 October 1969 (LSE Archives, ADAMS W/8/21).
- 27.
Letter from Jean Floud to Michael Banton , 6 November 2007 (Copy kindly supplied by Michael Banton ).
- 28.
LSE Archives, ORAL HISTORY, Mrs. Betty R. Scharf interviewed by Dr. Eileen Barker , 15 March 1989, 1/1, 17. Scharf’s comments about the work of some of her LSE contemporaries were pungent and, as time has shown, rather accurate.
- 29.
- 30.
LSE Archives, ORAL HISTORY, Professor A. H. Halsey interviewed by Dr. Colin Crouch, 23 September 1988, 1/6.
- 31.
Circular from Glass to Members of the Court of Governors, 16 June 1969 (LSE Archives, ROBBINS/4/2/1).
- 32.
Copies of all the correspondence are contained in LSE Archives, ABEL-SMITH/7/19.
- 33.
See especially speeches by Dahrendorf and Grebenik (LSE Archives, COLL MISC 0731).
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Husbands, C.T. (2019). The Department’s Mid-Century Personalities and Their Role in Shaping LSE Sociology: Ginsberg, MacRae, and Glass. In: Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, 1904–2015. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89450-8_3
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