These selected extracts scarcely do justice to Reisman’s text. But they do raise analytical points, some with which the present author would agree, others not. That about war and welfare, for example, is well made, and contains significant elements of truth, while being more complex than Reisman allows. And it is certainly true that Titmuss was a ‘committed communitarian’. However, he was also committed to defending individual rights, and individual choice. Similarly, that Titmuss was an ‘English author’ is unarguable, although again something which can be further developed. As we shall see, Titmuss can be seen as belonging to a very English, radical, tradition. This is not to say, though, that he did not engage with welfare policies in other countries. Equally, a case can be made that Titmuss’s work has not always been fully understood, and he was certainly an unusual figure in post-war British academic life. But was he really an ‘outsider’? It can be argued that he was, by his death, an ‘Establishment’ figure, although again this is not straightforward. Titmuss’s attitude to universalism, and discretion, meanwhile, was rather more complicated than is conventionally claimed, as was his attitude to voluntarism. And while it is true that Titmuss did not produce a work synthesising his approach to welfare, it is debatable whether he nonetheless produced an ‘intellectual map’, or at least one capable of rebuffing the increasingly demanding claims of neo-liberalism. However, and as Reisman implies, Titmuss’s angular, and holistic, approach did provide him with original insights. So Reisman offers an important platform for our understanding of Titmuss; but more can be said.
Many of those interviewed for this volume remembered Titmuss as supportive, personally and professionally, and as a compelling individual. It is clear, too, that younger colleagues such as Tony Lynes and Mike Reddin benefitted, at least in the first instance, from Titmuss’s encouragement. Similarly, while critical of the overwhelmingly middle class composition of the student population of his day, he was caring and thoughtful with individual students. In one of the most striking (and much quoted) depictions of him, the Labour politician Shirley Williams recalled ‘Richard Titmuss, the London School of Economics professor with the gaunt face and the burning eyes of an El Greco saint’.26 Williams was not unique in her reference to Titmuss’s looks in these terms, which, in fact, pre-date her. But her portrayal of Titmuss is both powerful and has had a long shelf life. A.H. Halsey, sociologist and friend of Titmuss’s, likewise suggested the El Greco comparison, with Titmuss as an ‘ascetic divine’. But Halsey made the important qualification that Titmuss was no ‘saint, but a secular agnostic’. He was, though, a ‘remarkable figure’ who was ‘unsparing in his loyalty to his College and his country, a mark of integrity for the vast majority of those who knew him, whether at work in Houghton Street or at his modest home in Acton with his wife and daughter’. Reflecting on Titmuss’s time at the LSE, Halsey recalled that going to see him in his office would ‘always remain among my most vivid memories’. An ‘indefatigable and imaginative autodidact’, he continued to be, even after his 1972 election as a Fellow of the British Academy and numerous honorary degrees, a ‘devotee of the spirit rather than the conventions of academic institutions’.27 As Halsey suggests, Titmuss often went out of his way to welcome visitors to both the LSE and his home. He also provided advice and support where it was not strictly required. Given the unremitting pace of his own work schedule this was, to use one of his own key words, altruistic.
A further, insightful, aspect of Titmuss’s character comes in a review of his second collection of essays, Commitment to Welfare, published in 1968. The reviewer was Donald MacRae, Professor of Sociology at the LSE. This was a sharp, although not unfriendly, critique, returned to in Chapter 20. But for present purposes what is important is that MacRae distinguished between what he called the ‘Roundheads’ of Social Administration and the ‘Cavaliers’ of Sociology.28 This notion of Titmuss as an ascetic, serious-minded individual devoted to his work has much to commend it, and was one which he himself promoted. And although on one level an apparently flippant comment, MacRae’s distinction between the two fields hints at the tensions between their respective departments. Such tensions notwithstanding, Titmuss came to be highly regarded at the School, both as an academic and as someone called upon to play a part in its governance. The latter suggests a political player, not an El-Greco saint. Famously, another LSE colleague, the conservative political philosopher Michael Oakeshott, described him as a ‘snake in saint’s clothing’.29
Titmuss also had his own, very human, foibles. His daughter, Ann, attended Haberdashers’ Aske’s school, which she disliked.30 As Titmuss’s personnel files show, this was supported by an educational grant from the LSE which continued when Ann went to Somerville College, Oxford. In the first instance, the award was of £50 per annum, the present-day equivalent of more than £1500. The same files reveal, too, that however hostile Titmuss was to private insurance companies, he always made sure his own occupational pension was up to the mark.31 These were exactly the sort of occupational ‘extras’ available to middle class professionals which Titmuss would critique in works like The Social Division of Welfare, although it might be argued that he would have been foolish to turn them down. Titmuss was not above meals in West End clubs, nor in helping aristocratic ladies with their charitable activities. And, on the domestic front, Oakley records that it was Kay who did all the work, including child care.32 Titmuss was hardly the only man to play a limited domestic role in mid-twentieth century Britain, but again this sits uneasily with his progressive, egalitarian, pronouncements.
In his working life Titmuss, although supportive, as noted, nonetheless had an inner circle of male colleagues – notably Abel-Smith and, initially at least, Townsend. And what started off as a joke on Abel-Smith’s part, that Titmuss was ‘God’, appears to have been taken more seriously by other department members. He had his acolytes. In the context of the LSE more broadly, two events were especially distressing to him, and further illustrate aspects of his personality. The first was his dispute with some female social work tutors in the mid-1950s. Titmuss undoubtedly had strong working relationships, and relationships of mutual respect, with certain female academics and public figures. Notable among these were the social scientists Barbara Wootton and Dorothy Wedderburn, both of whom had made their way in academic life in difficult circumstances, given that it was then an overwhelmingly male-dominated preserve. The hierarchical and gender-biased nature of British academic life forms an important backdrop to Titmuss’s LSE career, and it is revealing that some have reported that he was supportive of female colleagues.33 Nonetheless, Titmuss undeniably had serious issues with certain social work staff. Was the underlying issue here his attitude to women, his own insecurities, or was it just another example of the departmental politicking common in academic life?
The second series of events which particularly upset Titmuss at the LSE were ‘The Troubles’ of the late 1960s. Initially, these concerned the controversial choice of a new director, chosen by a selection committee which included Titmuss. The disruption spread, amid accusations of left-wing troublemaking, leading at one point to the LSE’s closure. The broader context was student activism over issues such as the Vietnam War, and apartheid South Africa. Titmuss was a vigorous opponent of racial discrimination, and critical of American intervention in Vietnam. Indeed, in certain respects he was a typical member of the post-war liberal-left intellectual elite. The point, though, was that he stayed loyal to the School and its leadership, and continued to hold classes throughout the disruption and shutdown. Such loyalty did not necessarily, as some have suggested, represent a move to the political right. Rather, it might