Titmuss: The Man and His Mission

Mauritius Times – 60 Years

By Dookhee Rai

The word “Titmuss” has become very common among Mauritians. It is being heard everywhere, especially in public meetings over the past twelve months. On some occasions, it has been the topic of debate in the Legislative Council. It is currently occupying a large space in the press.

Professor Richard Morris Titmuss, who directs the mission bearing his name, is already among us in our cyclone-stricken country. His expert advice is sought throughout the Commonwealth and even in America. He is considered one of the highest authorities on pensions. Several times he has advised the British Government on its allocation. The Titmuss Mission will advise the Government of Mauritius on establishing a social security scheme.

Endowed with charming manners, the fifty-two-year-old R.M. Titmuss is lean and has a lined face with large, brown eyes. Usually shy, he looks people directly in the face and ponders deeply before answering questions. He gives the impression of being worried.

Titmuss’s parents were farming people living in Bedfordshire. When Richard was fifteen, his father suddenly died, and the poor lad had to leave school to help his mother and younger siblings. He later confessed that at school, he learned little except how to play cricket and football.

With great difficulty, he managed to get a temporary job as a clerk at one of the big insurance companies, where he spent his twenties and early thirties. He was initially a supporter of the Liberal Party. Often, he attended meetings discussing the wars in Abyssinia and Spain, where he met his future wife at a youth hostel. After his marriage, he began writing books and critically reflecting on a social system where many died needlessly due to poverty, and where people had to choose between limiting their families and sinking into, or avoiding, lower class status.

Proved unfit for active service in World War II, in 1942, he transitioned from the insurance world to the Civil Service. Sir Keith Hencock, who was in charge of the Civil History of the war, was greatly impressed by Titmuss’s writings. As a result, he was asked to join the team. This led to the book Problems of Social Policy, which established his reputation and brought him worldwide fame. In it, he argued that social services are an organic part, a mirror, of the society that provides them.

Professor Titmuss aims to bring about changes that would limit inequalities in society, especially those arising from sickness, parenthood, and old age. Although not an extreme egalitarian, he is deeply afraid of what might happen if the mass-market consumption economy, copied from the U.S., is superimposed on a profoundly class-conscious society such as the British one.

Titmuss is particularly concerned about the organization of men and the growing power of large insurance companies. He sees in Britain a tendency towards “private opulence and public squalor.”

Undoubtedly, he has been worrying about these issues for many years. He is never unconcerned about people and their problems. Perhaps the core of his political creed is that when human unhappiness is avoidable, it is one’s duty to find out why.

To him, politics is not a fascinating game but a necessary means by which well-considered ideas can be put into action. He has always sought remedies. It was an experience that transformed him from a Liberal into a Socialist — a Socialist convinced by the social problems he observed in Britain in the 1940s. Titmuss had the most direct and significant influence on the electoral programme of the Labour Party in the last campaign.

The Tories, too, have followed Labour’s lead in stating that half pay upon retirement is desirable. The first proponent in this field was Professor Titmuss. In fact, he and his team set out to prove that it might not only be desirable but also possible. Titmuss is, above all, a researcher with a deep respect for established facts and a deep mistrust of theories that are not yet proven. He starts with the misfortunes of people and works out a remedy. He pays equal attention to both the cure and the patient.

Titmuss drafted plans to save the nation from the miseries it had known before the war. He was convinced that the Welfare State was merely a means to an end. It is a set of rules and arrangements designed to banish want and make people happy. Nevertheless, if people are still unhappy, it is the rules, not the people, that are wrong and must be changed. He also maintains that there is no point in making plans until you know the facts.

In 1950, Richard Morris Titmuss was appointed Professor of Social Administration at the London School of Economics (LSE). This was a remarkable achievement, particularly because he had never before taught at a university nor even attended one as a student.

Such is the calibre of the man at the head of a mission striving to solve some of our most intricate problems, and we have every hope that he will be crowned with success, for he is obviously the right man in the right place.

7th Year – No 290 — Friday 18th March, 1960

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 13 December 2024