In her letter, Lady Reading apologised for writing to Titmuss ‘out of the blue’, but she believed that ‘Solly Zuckerman may already have told you how much I would like to have an opportunity of talking with you’. Zuckerman, indirectly related to Lady Reading by marriage, was a prominent zoologist and government advisor. It seems likely that he knew Titmuss through the latter route, although he had also had contact with the Eugenics Society in the 1930s. Lady Reading informed Titmuss that she had ‘read with so much interest “Problems of Social Policy” and there are obviously implications here which are tremendously important from the WVS point of view’. In reply, Titmuss told her that he had already informed Zuckerman that he was happy to meet her, and was ‘naturally anxious to know what you think of my “Problems of Social Policy”’.55 This exchange again reveals how well regarded Titmuss now was, and the circles in which he moved. While no record of the actual meeting appears to exist, judging by the tone of the correspondence there is no reason to think that it would have been anything other than amicable and constructive.
For the most part, Problems of Social Policy was favourably received, and not only by Lady Reading. The anonymous review in The Manchester Guardian, to which Titmuss alluded, was entitled ‘The War and the Civilian: Creation of the Welfare State’, a conjunction which neatly sums up the volume’s argument. Titmuss had produced a ‘fascinating book which deserves wide attention’, and was far more than simply an account of official policy. It was also ‘a study of the background of present-day politics’. How many in America, or Britain for that matter, realised that the ‘present “Welfare State”’ was ‘the outcome of the years of stress. It was in a real sense the creation of the German bombers and not of theoretical planners’. Summing up, the piece noted, again acutely, ‘Mr Titmuss’s judicious appraisal of the two sides of the national balance sheet’. On the one hand there was, for instance, ‘the maintenance of a fair degree of health … and the community spirit’. On the other, though, problems included ‘the temporary weakening of the family … and the slow recovery of the social services’.56
T.H. Marshall, by the time his review appeared an LSE colleague of Titmuss’s and among those who had supported his appointment, acknowledged the book’s ‘exceptional merits’. He also defended the writing of history while it was actually happening because the volume was full of ‘enlightening comments which could only be made by someone with direct personal knowledge of the situation’, assisted by ‘others whose experiences will never be recorded’. There were shortcomings. The title was misleading, as the text dealt only with ‘social problems directly created by enemy action – or in fact one can be more precise and say by air raids’. Evacuation, and the medical treatment of air raid casualties, were the main areas covered. It was, moreover, ‘easier to see what the machine did than what it was’, by which Marshall presumably meant the actual workings of the administrative process. Nonetheless, the ‘historical problem most clearly in Prof Titmuss’s mind’ was the impact of the ‘war experience on the development of the social services and the evolution of the Welfare State’. Here Marshall found Titmuss both ‘subtle and profound’, especially in his analysis of the ‘spur given to the planning of a National Health Service’ by the clash between public sector and voluntary hospitals. The latter were institutions dependent on fees, charitable donations, or subscriptions, and were abolished by the NHS. Titmuss had, Marshall remarked, ‘some bitter things to say’ about them. More generally, the attitude of social service providers had changed, not least because war ‘largely eliminates the class element from social service’.57
The book was also noticed in the US. George Rosen, a leading figure in American public health, and effectively founder of the social history of medicine, described Titmuss as a ‘well known British social scientist’ who had done an ‘exceedingly competent job’ in producing a work ‘also full of human interest’. It was ‘must reading for all public health workers, both as professional persons and as citizens’.58 Without over-reading these comments, it is revealing that Titmuss’s work should be deemed interesting to American readers. Back in Britain, the publisher, Freddy Warburg, congratulated Titmuss on the book’s ‘magnificent press’. Titmuss should feel ‘pretty proud of the work you have done, which must have been long and intensive’. Warburg wanted to know Titmuss’s plans – this was a few months before his LSE appointment – and suggested meeting to discuss whatever he might next want to write about.59 While nothing seems to have come of this, it does further indicate the interest stimulated by Problems of Social Policy.
Less positively, at least for Titmuss, his book also prompted a letter from G.E. Haynes, General Secretary of the National Council of Social Service. The two had lunch scheduled at the Athenaeum, and Haynes wanted to alert Titmuss to an issue he especially wanted to discuss. The Council was ‘beginning, alas!, to prepare our part in the Civil Defence programme. I would like your reactions very much in view of your most admirable study of the position during the last war’.60 The 1948 Civil Defence Act had established the Civil Defence Corps, a voluntary body whose duty would be to support rescue services during a national emergency. Given that by the early 1950s the Cold War was under way, essentially this meant an attack by the Soviet Union. Britain was not the only country making such plans. The day after Haynes’s letter, Titmuss received another, this time from someone who was to be a long-term correspondent, John Morgan at the University of Toronto. Morgan enclosed copies of an article he had written for the Canadian Welfare Council’s journal, subsequently more widely circulated in print and through talks by Morgan, which had been based on Problems of Social Policy. Canadian Civil Defence Planning, he told Titmuss, had until now been almost entirely in the hands of the military, with little account being taken of welfare issues. Morgan concluded with the more welcome news that ‘I believe a substantial number of copies of your book will now have been ordered by Public authorities in order that they may study the problem. I hope this may make some contribution to the dollar problem’.61 In response, Titmuss, entering into the spirit of Morgan’s joke about Britain’s challenging financial position, suggested that ‘HM Government will, I am sure, be glad to know that a few more dollars are coming in!’ It was, though, shocking to think that the machinery of civil defence was being re-established. He had recently met with Haynes, who had sought advice about ‘possible civil defence functions for the Council and about what steps they might usefully take in advance of an “emergency” (that awful word again!). I found it hard to give him helpful advice’.62 It is ironic that Titmuss’s volume, which drew positive messages from the Second World War experience, was seen as offering guidance on how to prepare for another conflict.
Rethinking Problems of Social Policy
Titmuss’s book had a huge impact on academic interpretations of Britain on the Home Front, as well as on popular perceptions (many of which persist into the twenty-first