8 - Titmuss and the Media in the 1940s: a Growing Reputation

Summary

Introduction

We saw in Chapter 3 that, in the 1930s, Titmuss had employed a literary agent. This relationship does not appear to have survived the outbreak of war, with Titmuss now often contacting editors and journals directly. And such was Titmuss's growing reputation, at least in the first half of the 1940s primarily regarding population, that he began to be approached by publishers themselves, as well as by various organisations. He was also politically active down to the early 1940s, and although his employment as a civil servant curtailed his public activities, he continued to be in demand, especially as plans for post-war social reconstruction gathered momentum. This reinforces the previously noted idea of Titmuss seeking to spread his ideas to as wide and diverse an audience as possible, so promoting his ‘progressive’ views. The 1940s were important, too, in providing the further platform of radio broadcasts. As always, it is difficult not to be impressed by Titmuss's work-rate. Such outputs, and again this was to feature throughout his career, often provided a handsome financial supplement to his salary. It would be impossible, and not especially enlightening, to list all of Titmuss's contributions to various media during the period under consideration. So here we look at some of his more significant, or interesting, interventions. The aim is less to discuss their content in detail. Rather, it is to give a sense of the range of Titmuss's engagement.

Writing and lecturing

Illustrating a number of these points, in November 1943 the publisher Victor Gollancz, founder of the Left Book Club which operated as a ‘sort of reading “Popular Front” ‘, asked Titmuss for a contribution on population and poverty to the journal Left News. Titmuss agreed, on condition that the piece be unsigned, given that he was now a civil servant. He was paid two guineas per 1,000 words for ‘The Casualties of Inequality’, in which he referred to himself in the third person, and cited Birth, Poverty and Wealth. A guinea was, in pre-decimalisation currency, one pound and one shilling, while the average wage at this time was between six and seven pounds per week. Titmuss's fee was, therefore, not insubstantial. As this episode also illustrates, it is clear that Titmuss's ideas were valued by those on the political left, perhaps reinforcing the idea of a shift away from the Liberal Party, although not necessarily liberalism.