Completing the Circle of the Social Sciences? William Beveridge and Social Biology at London School of Economics during the 1930s

Abstract

Much has been written about the relationship between biology and social science during the early twentieth century. However, discussion is often drawn toward a particular conception of eugenics, which tends to obscure our understanding of not only the wide range of intersections between biology and social science during the period but also their impact on subsequent developments. This paper draws attention to one of those intersections: the British economist and social reformer William Beveridge’s controversial efforts to establish a Department of Social Biology at London School of Economics during the 1920s and 1930s. Featuring a fully equipped laboratory headed by a leading geneticist, the Department of Social Biology was Beveridge’s attempt to “cross-fertilise” biology and social science and, in so doing, take the ideological heat out of social scientific, in particular economic, methods of investigation. Exploring why Beveridge’s project failed and throwing light on its long-term legacies, this paper considers what we can learn from the short-lived Department of Social Biology.

Sociology and Statistics in Britain, 1833–1979

“…This conservatism is also evident in the way in which universities were being financed -the University Grants Committee (UGC) was established in 1919 but it funded only about a third of the expenditure of the universities; the other two-thirds had to be funded privately, and research and teaching in the social sciences, in particular, was funded largely by American philanthropic foundations -Rockefeller, Carnegie, Harkness -with the Rockefeller funds playing a key role in expanding the LSE's premises and library as well as funding a great deal of the research done there. This includes Beveridge's social biology project and the New Survey of London Life and Labour in the 1930s (for a full account of the role of American philanthropies in social science funding in Britain in the interwar period, see Fisher (1980Fisher ( , 1983, Bulmer (1982Bulmer ( , 1984 and Renwick (2014)). And although the UGC did not interfere with the way the universities spent the money they received, it exercised control on a different level by deciding which universities deserved to receive grants, with existing 'elite' universities like London, Oxford and Cambridge benefiting the most.…”

Movement, Space and Social Mobility in early and mid-Twentieth-Century Britain

“…The brainchild of William Beveridge, the LSE's director for most of the interwar period, the department of social biology integrated a number of strands from early twentieth-century biosocial research, including the belief that intelligence could be measured, social structure described accurately, and social science used for progressive political purposes rooted in a professional view of society. 39 Indeed, Beveridge had signalled his ambitions for the department by appointing Lancelot Hogben, a leading geneticist and socialist critic of 'mainline' eugenics, the idea that hard heredity determined social outcomes, as chair of social biology and allowing him to recruit both biologists-primarily graduate students who assisted with his laboratory based research-and statisticians, including Enid Charles, the radical feminist demographer. 40 Unsurprisingly, education was a major focus for the department of social biology's work, with researchers such as Pearl Gray and J. L. Moshinsky using intelligence tests to acquire data on more than 10,000 school children in London.…”

R. A. Fisher, Lancelot Hogben, and the ‘Competition’ for the Chair of Social Biology at the London School of Economics in 1930: Correcting the Legend

“…He saw a clear ordering of the sciences, from the physical, through the life, to the social, based in large part on how rigorously they employed what he took to be the scientific method, and so Beveridge believed that the social sciences practised at the LSE would benefit from exposure to the detached observation of facts and unbiased experimentation found in a field such as biology. 6 Beveridge saw an opportunity to make his vision a reality when, in 1925, personnel from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial expressed interest in funding novel approaches to scientific investigation. In reply, Beveridge proposed a programme in 'the natural bases of the social sciences', which consisted in 'the study of the borderland between various natural sciences .…”