In response, Titmuss noted that Allen’s analysis would be incorporated into Problems of Social Policy. In a revealing comment about what he saw as the current shortcomings of officials in both voluntary and public welfare, he told her that ‘You know it is the same type of mind that dominates the governing bodies of the charitable homes and the Public Assistance Committees. But what minds and what a shocking indictment it is!’45 He was also critical of any welfare provision which smacked of ‘charity’, and the stigma it entailed. But it would be wrong to read Titmuss’s letter as an attack on voluntarism as such, for what he was suggesting was that the manner in which social services were delivered was just as important as who was doing the delivering. As far as the voluntary sector was concerned, a distinction could also be made between patronising ‘charity’, which might actually be heavily reliant on state support, and unselfish, altruistic voluntarism.
Partly because of Allen’s agitation, an official committee, chaired by Dame Myra Curtis, was set up to examine the situation of children ‘deprived of a normal home life’. Allen told Titmuss how pleased she was with how quickly the government had acted, and that the committee’s ‘terms of reference are excellent and very wide’.46 The Curtis Committee reported in 1946, with its major proposals being incorporated into the 1948 Children Act, an important, if sometimes neglected, component of the ‘welfare state’. Among the recommendations implemented were that local authority children’s departments should be established, and that there should be a move away from large-scale residential homes towards adoption, and boarding out. All this was very much in line with contemporary thought about children and the family in post-war society, including the desirability, whenever possible, of keeping children with their biological parents. Much to her annoyance, Allen was not invited to join the Curtis Committee, but she did devote her considerable energies to ensuring it proceeded in an acceptable direction. She set up an informal discussion group on the subject, which Titmuss joined.47 When called to appear before the committee, Allen again sought Titmuss’s assistance. She had drafted a memorandum, and would be ‘greatly fortified if you would read it through and tell me whether you think it has any value’. In a passage illustrating the regard in which Titmuss was now held, Allen claimed that she had had great difficulty in writing one particular section, and was worried about its accuracy, so ‘I can, of course, delete the section entirely if you feel that it is not adequate’.48 Titmuss’s response does not appear to have survived, but Allen did write again a few weeks later enclosing a copy of her submission. ‘You will see, with amusement I expect’, she wrote, ‘that I have used quite shamelessly many of the valuable points you raise in your letter.’49
A few years later, as the Children Bill made its way through Parliament, Allen once more sought Titmuss’s advice. She was preparing an article for The Times, and part of her criticism of the Bill was that it did not ‘abolish the idea of children on the proceeds of charity’, by which she meant that homeless children might still come under the supervision of a certain type of voluntary body. She also criticised the major children’s charities as being ‘so vast they are almost like a chain-store and the child as an individual is lost’. At the other end of the spectrum, some children’s homes were small and poor, both financially and in terms of ideas. She especially wanted Titmuss to comment on her ‘paragraph about the voluntary organisations not in fact being voluntary’.50 Titmuss presumably did so, and Allen’s article was duly published. This generally welcomed the Bill but was critical, as Allen’s correspondence with Titmuss would suggest, about the potential role of voluntary organisations (although she was careful, like Titmuss, to defend the voluntary principle). Returning to a common theme in her (and Titmuss’s) approach, Allen argued that it would be a ‘fine thing to abolish altogether the necessity for any child to be dependent on charity’.51
Titmuss’s engagement with Allen is revealing. She was a seasoned campaigner, ten years his senior, whom he had initially contacted because he wanted material for Problems of Social Policy. This he duly received and incorporated, along with the findings of the Curtis Committee, in a passage on evacuation which noted that ‘some local authorities did not take all their normal welfare responsibilities seriously’, and that the use of voluntary visitors to be responsible for the care of evacuated children was ‘sometimes little more than a way of enabling visitors and their friends to obtain a supply of domestic servants and labourers’. More positively, though, Titmuss acknowledged the role of bodies such as the Nursery School Association in pressing local authorities to provide nursery accommodation for evacuees.52 It was Allen who then turned to Titmuss for advice and information. They had a number of ideas in common about social service provision, and shared a degree of scepticism about certain types of voluntary organisation. Both, too, were concerned with the quality of staff carrying out welfare functions, and determined to remove any stigma attached to services provided on a charitable basis, in particular. Of course, this should not be overstated. No doubt Titmuss and Allen disagreed about certain policy issues, but their mutual respect is striking.
This is further reflected in an approach to Titmuss by another titled lady involved in social welfare, Lady Reading, Chair of the Women’s Voluntary Services (WVS). This organisation, which Reading had founded, and in which she remained the dominant figure, had been heavily involved in wartime social service. It was essentially a hierarchical, middle class body, although during the war it successfully recruited significant numbers of working class women. It continued, post-war, to play an important part in the voluntary social services. In Problems of Social Policy it was the voluntary organisation most frequently referred to. While commentary was mostly factual, Titmuss acknowledged, for example, that in dealing with London’s homeless the ‘contribution made by voluntary workers, and notably by the Women’s Voluntary Services, was, perhaps, greater in this field of war-time service than any other’. He suggested, though, that, as in the public sector, there were different levels of efficiency and organisation so that the ‘quality of work … of the local centres of the Women’s Voluntary Services varied enormously’. Nonetheless, organisations such as the WVS could react quickly to events – at best they were ‘flexible’ – and on occasion had been instrumental in forcing the state, local and national, into action, and in promoting liaison between service providers. Voluntary bodies might also act as the voice of evacuees, as the WVS had notably done in autumn 1941. The organisation had initially met, and ‘to some degree engendered, a great deal of opposition from old established voluntary societies