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Abstract: In modern Britain, pressure on parliament for social reform has been transmitted not only by mass movements of the people, but by well‐organised pressure groups and small coteries of experts. Driven by intellectual imperatives and by differing ideas of ‘progress’, these experts and activists have directed the impetus for measures to tackle poverty, working conditions, or inequality, mediating a broader sense of pressure from without. In contrast to political histories of social reform, this essay offers a history of ideas for social reform and the methods by which reformers shaped parliament's agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘This paper provides an overview of aspects of the history of British sociology. In particular, it tries to answer critical historical work by among others, Perry Anderson and Philip Abrams, which sought to explain the supposed indigenous ‘failure’ to develop academic sociology in Britain before the 1960s. It is argued that a narrowly academic reading of the history of sociology cannot do justice to its role in the service of social administration and public enlightenment and may exaggerate the degree to which sociology from its foundations was conceived as a purely intellectual discipline. The paper points to a thriving sociological culture in Britain in the generation before the First World War, though it was one in which many contributions came from philosophers, natural scientists and political economists rather then self-proclaimed ‘sociologists’. It ends with a brief review of Patrick Geddes and Victor Branford, a founder of the Sociological Society and editor of the Sociological Review, whose biographies and eclectic social and international interests tell us something about the personalities and political interests of early British sociological pioneers.’ [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the political effects on the English working classes of the collaboration of the Workers' Educational Association with the English universities and the British state. Implications of the collaboration; Definitions of intellectuals; Relationship between intellectuals and the working class.