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 and some local councils’.53 It had, in other words, shown up the passiveness, and unwillingness to adapt, in parts of both the public and the voluntary sectors. A recent historian of the WVS, James Hinton, suggests that finding homes for evacuees ‘brought out the best and the worst’ of its leaders in rural areas, and Titmuss certainly provided evidence for such arguments.54 But he accorded organisations like the WVS considerable, if qualified, respect in his wartime history. This is both because they deserved it, and because the middle class WVS volunteers contributed to wartime social solidarity.
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’.
