Patrick Geddes and the History of Environmental Sociology in Britain: A Cautionary Tale

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Journal of Classical Sociology

DOI: 10.1177/1468795X08092384 2008; 8; 367 Journal of Classical Sociology

Maggie Studholme Cautionary Tale

Patrick Geddes and the History of Environmental Sociology in Britain: A

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Patrick Geddes and the History ofEnvironmental Sociology in BritainA Cautionary Tale

MAGGIE STUDHOLME University of Bristol

ABSTRACT After the appointment of its first full-time professor in L.T. Hobhousein 1907, British sociology lost an environmental approach that might have sub-stantially altered the shape of the discipline. The environmental approach was thatof Patrick Geddes, who made the relationship between people and their environ-ments central for individual and social well-being. In spite of the fact that urbanBritain was undergoing environmental crisis due to the negative effects of unre-strained industrialization, a range of other circumstances, personal as well as polit-ical and both inside and outside the academy, conspired to coalesce in the moreor less deliberate exclusion of Geddes’ ideas. The paper suggests that sociologistsneed to take a radically reflexive approach to the history of their own disciplinethat recognizes its embeddedness in the wider social world, since both individualand social action, as well as structural forces, may be as influential as quality orcoherence in determining the fate of the ideas and theories that they create. InGeddes’ case, this leads to a re-examination of both the historical context and thedebate surrounding the establishment of sociology at the London School ofEconomics.

KEYWORDS Branford, civics, Durkheim, environment, eugenics, Galton,Geddes, Hobhouse, nationalism, New Liberalism

The year 1907 was a significant one for sociology in Britain. In that year, not onlydid it gain its first full-time professor, in doing so it lost an environmental approachthat, had it been retained and developed, might have altered substantially the shapeof the discipline, not just nationally, but also possibly internationally.

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The environmental approach was that of Patrick Geddes, long recognizedfor his contribution by both geographers and town planners, but much neglectedin accounts of the history of sociology. Geddes’ approach to social life put thedialectical relationship between people and their natural, built, social and culturalenvironments at its core, mediated by the creative human activity of work(Geddes, 1881, 1884, 1915). Although he was a central figure in the establish-ment of sociology both as a learned society open to all comers and as an academicinstitution, Geddes is little remembered among sociologists today. His approachdied a slow death in a newly established academic institutionalized sociologybetween 1907, when L.T. Hobhouse became Martin White Professor ofSociology at the London School of Economics (LSE), and his own death in 1932.For a variety of reasons, which this paper explores, Hobhouse was not inclined toaccommodate Geddes’ approach, or to acknowledge his contribution to the newsubject, with the result that sociology in Britain developed as a discipline in which‘nature did not matter’ (Murphy, 1995), and in which the conservation of the nat-ural resources on which our survival ultimately depends appeared irrelevant.

However, since Catton and Dunlap provided the catalyst for the resur-gence of an environmental sociology by calling, in the late 1970s, for a NewEnvironmentalist Paradigm (NEP), not only is it important to re-investigate thediscipline’s history for ‘neglected’ environmental sociologies and perspectives,there may also be something of value to be learned for sociology in the presentand future from asking ourselves how and why our discipline shaped up, histor-ically, in the particular way it did. Existing answers to this question include Cattonand Dunlap’s own suggestion: that neglect of environmental issues derives fromthe fact that sociology was born and developed between the mid-nineteenth cen-tury and the early twentieth century, a historical period in which resource short-ages had not yet become apparent – an age of ‘exuberance’ (Catton, 1976: 29–30;Catton and Dunlap, 1978, 1980; Dunlap and Catton, 1979). Yet the story is notso simple. Catton and Dunlap themselves have found evidence of several neg-lected works of environmental sociology produced during this so-called ‘exuber-ant’ moment (Dunlap and Catton, 1979: 245), a time when we would not expectto find instances of early sociologists (famous founders or not) drawing their read-ers’ attention to the sociological significance of environmental issues and resourceshortages. Moreover, aspects of the work of each of the three great ‘foundingfathers’ – Marx, Durkheim and Weber – have been reinterpreted and reclaimed asbases from which to re-theorize an environmental sociology (Benton, 1988,1989; Buttel, 1986; Catton, 1976; Dickens, 1992; Martell, 1994). In short, thestory most often still recounted to undergraduates as one in which Durkheim andWeber (sometimes with Simmel, or Freud) cut their sociological teeth in debatewith the ghost of Marx (for example, in Giddens, 1971; Morrison, 1995; Craib,1997) is a partial one, and lends a great deal more intellectual coherence to thedevelopment of sociology than is really the case. Any scrutiny of sociology’s his-tory deeper than a cursory glance reveals a past much more complex. Simply by

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finding evidence of so-called ‘neglected’ examples of environmental sociology,Catton and Dunlap raise a number of questions about how sociological workcomes to be categorized as sociology, and about the sorts of processes that lead tosome ideas becoming institutionalized while others fade into obscurity. Thus, if weare at all interested in how and why sociology in Britain took on the shape it didafter 1907, a shape that excluded an environmental approach, we need to lookbeyond its intellectual institutionalization and development to its societal context.A key question here is to ask how it happened that Geddes, who took an approachto sociology in which environmental issues were central, and whose influenceextended to both Europe and America in his own time (Fowle and Thomson,2004; Law, 2005; Mumford, 1948; Welter, 2002; Zueblin 1899), vanished sothoroughly from sociology in Britain.

An Academic Dispute?Sociology’s historians have sketched an answer to this question more than once:a dispute during sociology’s early years, which caused a devastating split amongstthose with an interest in founding sociology, is thought to have been at the heartof the matter.

During the first decade of the twentieth century, sociology was establish-ing itself in London on two fronts. The Sociological Society of London wasfounded in 1903, at the instigation of Victor Branford, and ostensibly for the pur-pose of providing a platform in the capital for the dissemination of Geddes’ ideas.Meanwhile, in June 1903, Martin White had written to Sir Arthur Rücker, thePrincipal of the University of London, with a formal offer of £1,000 to be spentover several years for the provision of ‘a preliminary course or courses of lecturesin sociology’ (J.M. White, cited in Fincham, 1975: 32). Although technicallythese two strands of development were independent of one another, several keyindividuals were involved in both, in particular Geddes’ friends and supportersVictor Branford and Martin White, as well as Hobhouse and Geddes himself. TheSociological Society’s proceedings were published annually as Sociological Papers,of which only three volumes, for the years 1904 to 1906, ever appeared. These aredominated by a debate between one group, led by Francis Galton, that wanted tofound sociology as eugenics, the science of good breeding, and another, of whichGeddes was a central figure, arguing for ‘sociology as civics’, and by the questionof the definition, role and purpose of sociology and its relationship with other dis-ciplines. On the basis of the textual evidence offered in the Sociological Papers,Hobhouse’s role is less clear. Dahrendorf (1995: 101) has claimed that Hobhousechaired many meetings of the society and contributed to most of them. Accordingto this conventional view, Hobhouse was the leader of an ‘ethical’ school of soci-ology. Yet Hobhouse’s contribution to the active proceedings of the society, asreproduced in the pages of the Sociological Papers, appears to be significantly lessthan that of Geddes, who presented several papers to Hobhouse’s none. And by

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1906, it seems that Hobhouse had given up attending the meetings at all, forthere is not even a comment of his on any of the presentations. He was, however,on the editorial committee of the Papers, contributed to some of the discussions,and chaired a number of the Society’s meetings.

In 1907, the Sociological Papers were abruptly abandoned, the eugenistsand the civics sociologists each formed separate committees within theSociological Society, and Hobhouse, at the end of the year, was offered andaccepted the Martin White Chair at LSE. By 1908 there was a new journal – thequarterly Sociological Review – edited by Hobhouse and with a fundamentally dif-ferent character and editorial policy. In 1910, Hobhouse resigned as editor, andin 1911, Branford resigned from his role as Honorary Secretary to theSociological Society. Hobhouse, though he continued to be a member, increas-ingly distanced himself, and consequently academic sociology (of which he was bynow the primary, if not the sole, representative), from both the SociologicalSociety and its Review.

On this evidence, a dispute does seem to be the likely cause of bothBranford’s and Hobhouse’s resignations and the sudden changes at theSociological Society. Yet this is not the whole story. In spite of their general agree-ment, historians have fought shy of examining the matter in too much detail. Thiscoyness may be rooted partly in the subject around which the dispute ostensiblyrevolved: eugenics. A general reluctance to admit that extra-academic factors (per-sonal as well as political) may have decisively influenced the shape of twentieth-century sociology in Britain could also account for their reticence.

Of course, it might be suggested, against a background in which the ex-istence or lack of an environmental (awareness in) sociology remains historicallyunimportant, that unpacking the matter in detail a hundred years later offersnothing more than an exercise in academic navel gazing. But herein lies a cau-tionary tale. The history of sociology is often presented as though its directionwere intellectually self-evident, when in fact it has been anything but.1 This is notto claim that the theories that have become part of the canon are in any sense lessthan intellectually adequate. It is merely to suggest that they are bounded by thevalues and beliefs of their creators. A different perspective – in this case a concernwith environmental issues – highlights other, equally useful, ideas. While it may becontroversial to re-claim Geddes (and perhaps by extension his friend and collab-orator Victor Branford) as the founder of an environmental sociology, in whichthe conservation of resources was as important as the amelioration of the humancondition (see Fuller, 2007; Studholme, 2007; Studholme et al., 2007), it is surelylegitimate to investigate the circumstances under which this central figure in theestablishment of sociology vanished from its history.

According to some, the dispute at the Sociological Society had at its centrethe issue of eugenics, although John Owen, in his 1974 study of Hobhouse, didnot suggest this. Neither did Stefan Collini, who in his later work on Hobhousenoted the ‘conflict’ at the Society without connecting it with eugenics (Collini,



1979: 219–20). However, R.J. Halliday’s (1968) account noted Branford’s com-plaint, which was that ethics was being advanced at the expense of civics and eugen-ics, and suggested that this was probably an over-simplified description of thenature of the dispute, which became more serious when Hobhouse became MartinWhite Professor. Halliday’s argument continued with the assertion that Hobhousewas obliged to reject civics because of its geographical determinism (1968: 386–9).G. Duncan Mitchell (1986: 221) believed that a dispute over the Chair betweenHobhouse and Geddes set in motion bad feeling which then spilled over into theSociety. He also noted that the personalities of the two major protagonists,Hobhouse and Geddes, were incompatible. Geoffrey Hawthorn (1976: 167)argued that Hobhouse, once enthroned in the Chair, was embarrassed by the‘romantic effusions’ of Branford and Geddes, and consequently ignored them.Martin Bulmer (1985: 10) believed that ‘coolness’ between Hobhouse and Geddeson intellectual matters, as well as competition for the Chair, led to Hobhouse’swithdrawal from the Society. Philip Abrams, in one account (Abrams, 1985:195–6), represented the dispute somewhat obliquely, as one between Geddes’ con-viction that social science is ‘lived not written’ and Hobhouse as an ‘idol’ of aca-demic ‘purity’ untainted by empirical studies; in another, Abrams characterizedGeddes as an incomprehensible amateur by way of explaining his disappearance –but still suggested that his work deserved closer study (Abrams, 1968: 114–20,152). More recently, Helen Meller (1990: 142) has suggested that a presentationmade by Geddes before the Sociological Society, in which (in order to gain muchneeded financial support for his own approach) he appeared to support Galton’snew science of eugenics, may have been at the root of the rejection of civics by the‘ethical’ school. These accounts are both interesting and enlightening. Takentogether, they offer a strong hint that the dispute at the Sociological Society andGeddes’ subsequent disappearance may have been at least partly driven by extra-academic forces – personal, financial, political.

The remainder of this paper re-examines the complex ideological contoursof the dispute, set against the wider intellectual, political, economic and environ-mental backdrop of the turn of the twentieth century, in London. I hope to show,first of all, that in contrast to Catton and Dunlap’s (Catton, 1976; Catton andDunlap, 1980) suggestion, sociology in Britain was not established at a time ofenvironmental ‘exuberance’, but amidst widespread environmental degradationand the beginnings of an environmentalist movement. Second, for reasons thatwere as much extra- as intra-academic, Hobhouse was almost inevitably bound towin in any contest against Geddes for leadership of a newly established academicsociology. Thirdly, although Geddes did, for the reasons that Meller suggests,attempt initially to align his school with the eugenists, neither this, nor Halliday’ssuggestion that Hobhouse believed Geddes to be geographically determinist reallystands up, in the final analysis, as a reason either for the dispute, or for Hobhouse’ssubsequent exclusion of Geddes’ work from the pages of the Sociological Review.Rather, it is likely that Hobhouse understood Geddes’ position only too well, and



that it was this, in combination with extra-academic factors, including the social,political and intellectual atmosphere of the time, as well as a clash of incompatiblepersonalities, that led to a decline in Geddes’ reputation, and to his ultimate dis-appearance from sociology in Britain.

Environmental Crisis, ‘Degeneration’ and PoliticsBritain’s population grew exponentially in the nineteenth century, as did its meansof industrial production, leading to rural depopulation and massive urbanization.In contrast with more recently industrializing countries, such as Germany (whereindustrialization was state-directed), Britain’s development was pioneering,unplanned, haphazard and depended on the private initiative of individuals(Kemp, 1985 [1969]; Peel, 1971). By the 1890s, environmental ‘side-effects’(Beck, 1992) or impacts of industrialization and its accompanying urbanizationwere, in many cities, but particularly in London, highly visible. According toClapp (1994), atmospheric pollution in urban Britain was at its height in the lasttwo decades of the nineteenth century, most of which was caused by industry,steam engines and domestic fires. Other causes of atmospheric pollution camefrom alkali manufacture, which produced as ‘by-products’ hydrochloric acid and,less dangerously, calcium sulphide. A means of reducing the production ofhydrochloric acid had been patented as early as 1836, but very few manufacturerstook up the system, and those that did often allowed the weakly acidic solutionproduced to drain away into the nearest river, thus transferring the pollutionfrom air to water (Clapp, 1994: 14–24). And if, by the late nineteenth century,urban areas took safe drinking water from the upper reaches of the Thames, fromcentral Wales and the Peak and Lake Districts as well as from wells, dams andreservoirs, further downstream the pollution of watercourses was increasinglysevere, as both industrial and sanitary waste drained directly into them (Clapp,1994: 74). Organic pollutants, including especially human waste, had been per-ceived as problematic in urban areas since as early as the 1830s. The stinking ash-pits, which took ‘night-soil’ as well as rotting vegetables, bones and fat, were onlygradually replaced by water closets connected to mains sewerage after 1864, andsome remained in use up to the First World War and beyond. They were not for-bidden in new buildings until the 1930s (Clapp, 1994: 27–9).

In short, late nineteenth-century urban Britain was experiencing whatwould now be described as an environmental crisis. Moreover, this was highlylikely to have been a causal factor in destabilizing ‘old’ or classical liberalism in thedecades around the turn of the century, in a climate of industrial insecurity andnationalistic jealousy, the rise of ideologies of nationalism and national efficiency,and an overwhelming concern with the issue of the ‘degeneration’ of the condi-tion of the masses. Although it was not universally recognized that environmen-tal conditions were among the causes of this social and political crisis, the crisisitself was a key factor in the rise of the both the social sciences and the public



health movement. Chadwick’s Report on the Sanitary Conditions of the LabouringPopulation had been published as early as 1842 (Best, 1964); Mayhew’s LondonLabour and the London Poor in 1851 (Quennell, n.d.); and Booth’s survey ofpoverty in London appeared in 1902–3. The public health movement, bringingtogether a number of organizations that acknowledged the link between socialconditions and the urban environment, gathered paced between 1890 and 1910.The causes of poverty were numerous (for example, low pay, old age, ill health,widowhood, unemployment or underemployment) and the Boer War (1900–2)both highlighted the poor condition of many potential recruits and drew atten-tion to political ineptitude. The rumour that many were rejected due to their mal-nourished condition became officially ‘fact’ when the figures were published in1904 (Searle, 1971; Thane, 1982). In addition, administrative errors and ineffi-ciencies in the conduct of the war caused widespread public despondency aboutBritain’s national supremacy, and raised more general doubts about the state’sabilities to administer effectively. As George Bernard Shaw said: ‘Whatever else thewar may do or undo, it at least turns its fierce searchlights on official, administra-tive and military perfunctoriness’ (cited in Searle, 1971: 39).

The Boer War, Britain’s declining world position, jealousy of Germany’srising industrial and social efficiency and the ‘degenerate’ condition of the masseswere in turn all contributory factors in the rise of the ideologies of both national-ism and national efficiency, which covered a broad spectrum of political ideas andhad a wide cross-party appeal (Searle, 1971: 54). National efficiency might meanadministrative, industrial, military or social efficiency, a concern with the improve-ment of the ‘national physique’, or with ensuring that those in positions of powerwere appropriately educated (the ‘cult of the expert’) (Freeden, 1978: 177–85;Searle, 1971: 60–80). For some, it meant that scientific knowledge should be usedto inform government. For others commerce was the model (Searle, 1971:83–92). At its most extreme, national efficiency came to mean ‘racial progress’(Searle, 1971: 96), which translated without too much difficulty into a belief inGalton’s new ‘science’ of eugenics, attracting people from a variety of politicalbackgrounds who took an interest in social amelioration. These people sometimesdeliberately posed as eugenists in order to draw attention to their cause (Searle,1976: 14) According to Porter, even ‘environmentalist ideologies’ (includingGeddes’ own), ‘co-opted the language of degenerationism into arguments forcomprehensive, holistic social planning’ (1991: 169). So all-pervasive was thisconcern with issues of administrative efficiency and social amelioration that it evenplayed a part in the establishment of Sidney Webb’s brainchild, the LSE(Dahrendorf, 1995: 4–9).

Overall, the years around the turn of the century were the culmination ofa rising tide of political concern about the problem of ‘degeneration’, whereappalling environmental conditions were a casual factor, against an intellectualbackground in which Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection had cometo exemplify the highest achievement of scientific excellence. Not only did his



observational skill and attention to detail become the model for science in gen-eral, but Darwin himself was seen as the leader of a new science: biology. Biologynot only brought together under one great theoretical umbrella a large numberof specialisms, from botany to zoology, that had previously been separate fields,but it was assumed by educated Victorians to be easy to understand and wasassociated with the clearing away of ‘doubt, perplexity and mystery’ (Halliday,1979: 122–3).

Environmentalism and SociologyAs Lowe and Goyder (1983: 16) have pointed out, several recognizably environ-mentalist movements began in the decades around the turn of the century, amongwhich were the Coal Smoke Abatement Society, the Garden Cities Association,the Selbourne Society, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the NationalTrust, the Metropolitan and Garden Cities Association, the Camping Club andthe Society for the Preservation of the Wild Fauna of the Empire. Dunlap andCatton’s thesis that an ‘exuberant’ era led to an exuberant sociology, then, mayhold true for American sociology, but does not quite match the picture in Britain.In a later paper, they suggest that both visible environmental problems and theemergence of environmentalist movements are causal factors in the developmentof environmental sociology (Dunlap and Catton, 1994: 7). If they are correct inthis, the existence of an environmental sociology in the work of Patrick Geddes,in Britain, during the early years of the twentieth century is not too surprising.That it has remained hidden has been due to the fact that sociology did not at first‘officially’ exist in Britain during these years, but was itself no more than a ‘socialmovement’ (Halliday, 1968). There were many social thinkers who either calledtheir own work sociology, or who quickly adopted the title following institution-alization.2 The final power to arbitrate on which of them would count as sociologywould eventually be delegated to the first full-time Professor of Sociology in anacademic institution, L.T. Hobhouse. His endorsement, which carried the author-ity of LSE, would have given Geddes’ ideas and theories a weight and an aura oflegitimacy that they could not achieve outside the academy. That Hobhouse wasawarded the Chair, when it was an open secret that Martin White had endowed itwith the intention that it should go to Geddes (Boardman, 1978: 231;Dahrendorf, 1995: 95–6), is one question that requires explanation. His refusalto acknowledge Geddes’ contribution is another.

The Issue of the Martin White ChairWhy was Geddes not given the Chair? Branford (1929: 275) recorded that a totalof four applicants (including Edward Westermarck?) had tried out for the Chairby presenting a formal lecture at the LSE. Surely if Martin White had really meantGeddes to have it he might have strongly recommended, as Galton would later do



at the University of London for Pearson, that he was to be its first occupant? YetGeddes failed to be appointed.

Two of Geddes’ biographers have suggested that he neither wanted theChair, nor tried hard to get it (Boardman, 1978: 231; Meller, 1990). However,Geddes’ later bitterness towards those at the LSE, recorded by Boardman, beliesthis explanation (Boardman, 1978: 422).

One explanation may be that those in control at the LSE would simply notallow it. Sidney Webb, who was chairman of governors there between 1901 and1911, took a personal and controlling interest in every appointment (Dahrendorf,1995). There is little evidence that the Webbs knew Geddes at all well (but seeWebb, 1982). Unlike Hobhouse, he was not among the chosen circle of closefriends and colleagues whom they cultivated at their home in Grosvenor Road. Asa Scot, in fact, he was almost as much a foreigner to those for whom Londonwas the world in microcosm as was the Finn, Edward Westermarck. Moreover,Geddes had at least once tactlessly insulted the Webbs’ close friend H.G. Wells(Boardman, 1978: 209; Webb, 1983). George Bernard Shaw, also very close tothe Webbs, loathed him (Boardman, 1978: 210). Hobhouse, on the contrary, goton well with Sidney Webb, and although he only almost became a memberhimself, at one time recruited for the Fabian Society (Collini, 1979; Hobson andGinsberg, 1931; Webb, 1983). Moreover, he remained, when all was said anddone, a relative of Sidney’s wife Beatrice, even if only by marriage (Webb, 1983,1984).

The geographer Halford Mackinder, principal of LSE between 1903 and1908, may also have had some say in the matter.3 He and Geddes had at one timebeen intellectual rivals, sharing similar ideas about the role of the ‘region’ in geog-raphy, although Geddes’ pacificist and internationalist stance were anathema toMackinder’s Liberal Imperialism. Perhaps Mackinder felt threatened by thisopposition (Meller, 1990: 129–38)? Hobhouse, of course, was similarly opposedto war and imperialism, but sociology, for Hobhouse, did not include geographyas it did for Geddes. Finally, Mackinder, like Hobhouse, was part of the samepolitical-social circle that clustered around the Webbs (Dahrendorf, 1995).

Politics, in fact, is likely to have been a major reason for Hobhouse’sappointment. As Dahrendorf (1995: 25–47) records in his history of the LSE, ina political climate in which old ideologies and parties were dissolving, new onesemerging, and in which all were competing for dominance, the LSE was the placeto be. It was an exciting time to be a ‘New’ Liberal, as Hobhouse was, andalthough there is no sense in which the LSE can be said to have been founded asa Liberal institution, the political climate and Hobhouse’s open espousal of NewLiberal theory lend credence to the suggestion that the appointment was stronglybound up with the rise of New Liberalism.

In addition, unlike Hobhouse, whose Oxford education was the very modelof high-status respectability, Geddes not only had no formal academic qualifications,but was critical of the university system with its over-formalized curriculum and



specialized departments. A more devious or career-oriented man might have dis-sembled a little, but Geddes was openly and sarcastically critical. It is thus likelythat the very different social and educational backgrounds of Hobhouse andGeddes, the different status of each in relation to powerful figures at the LSE, alongwith the rising tide of nationalism, which in combination with a jealous desire foradministrative efficiency (of governments) seeped into the LSE up to 1911 (Searle,1971: 54–63, 124–5), were as much factors in Geddes’ failure to be appointedas the ‘scrambled talk’ he presented at the LSE beforehand (Boardman, 1978: 231).Certainly, sociology, after its international beginnings, became increasingly nation-alistic in the period leading up to the Second World War (Maus, 1962 [1956]: vii).Neither Geddes, as a Scot, nor Westermarck, as a Finn, was ever able to play amajor role.

Hobhouse’s appointment, at the end of 1907, left him in a position ofpivotal importance for the development of sociology in Britain. As the sole full-time Professor at the LSE, he was perfectly placed to define and shape the scopeand direction of the new subject. He agreed to become editor of the SociologicalReview in 1908 only on the condition that he was given the same ‘unconditionaleditorial control’ that Branford had enjoyed over the Sociological Papers(Branford, 1929: 276). He was powerfully placed to shape, therefore, both aca-demic and extra-academic sociology.

Sociology DefinedNationalism, nationalistic jealously, national degeneration, national efficiency:these were the central political issues of the day. The intellectual atmosphere sur-rounding the birth of the Sociological Society centred on questions of science, sci-entific method and scientific leadership. But intellectual life was no more insulatedfrom the politics of the day a hundred years ago than it is now. If sociology wasto exist inside the academy, it would be scientific, or it would be nothing. If itwas to be of use, it would offer a solution to the crisis of national degeneration. Ifwas to be respectable, it would have a national leader of similar calibre to the greatCharles Darwin, who with Comte inspired the pioneers of British sociology tocreate it as a science like biology, capable of ‘synthesizing’ all social knowledge(Sociological Papers, 1905: 284).

Early debates at the Sociological Society offer a good indication of thecharged atmosphere surrounding the battle for the right to define the contours ofthe new discipline. The very first article was Branford’s own, on ‘The Origins andUse of the Word Sociology’ (Branford, 1905a), which had been sent out in 1903,along with a circular canvassing support for the proposed Society (Collini, 1979:198). Branford summarized the history of sociology from Comte to Spencer,noting its establishment in France, Italy, Belgium, America and Germany, and itsundeveloped condition in Britain. This reference to foreign sociology, in an appealfor support, illustrates a high degree of awareness of the international context.



It also amounts to an appeal to nationalist sentiment. Britain stood alone, claimedBranford, in its neglect of sociology. At the same time it is clear that the model forthe development of British sociology, for Branford, was the French Durkheimianschool, since in order to illustrate the scope and direction that sociology shouldtake in Britain, he reproduced an analysis of sociological literature, from theAnnée Sociologique for 1902.4

Although this attempt by Branford to align his friend Geddes’ approachwith that of the Durkheimian school was astute, since Durkheim was an alreadyrecognized national leader of the field in France, it was less so to leave the first for-mal presentation at the inaugural meeting of the new Society to Galton. In hispaper, read to the assembled members on 16 May 1904, Galton defined eugenicsas ‘the science that deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of arace’ (1905: 45), and went on to propose that natural selection could be replacedby human selection via a programme of (supposedly ameliorative) breeding:‘What Nature does blindly, slowly and ruthlessly, man may do providently quicklyand kindly’ (1905: 50). When, at the end of the paper, Galton’s friend and sup-porter Karl Pearson, who was chairing the meeting, rose to open the discussion,it became clear that he wished to promote his own champion of sociology. Hedeclared scathingly that he did not believe that the Sociological Society – whichseemed to him to be a ‘herd without its leader’ – of which he was not a member,and where he would not ordinarily wish to be seen, could found a new branch ofscience. This must be achieved by one ‘great thinker, a Descartes, a Newton … aDarwin or a Pasteur’, said Pearson, who went on to make it perfectly plain that hehad only come to the meeting to support Galton’s application for that post(Sociological Papers, 1905: 52–3). This amounted to no less than an outright callto battle for the leadership of sociology in Britain and clearly angered Branford,who responded in a strongly worded paper appended to his article on the originand use of sociology (Branford, 1905b). Here, after noting that Darwin’s greatachievement in biology had depended on the research of many people before him,he averred that ‘[t]o sit down and await the avatar of such an impossibilist hero isno ideal either of religion or science, but a reversion to fetishistic obsession’(Branford, 1905b: 41–2).

Meanwhile, in the debate that followed Galton’s presentation, Hobhousehad spoken last, and in measured tones. People (like himself) who were ‘only stu-dents of sociology’, he said, and who could not ‘lay any claim whatever to be biol-ogists, ought to keep silent’. Nevertheless, he went on to express his opinionthat although both ‘stock and environment’ were likely to be important factors inevolution, and it was easy to see how environment might usefully be modified, anyregulation of breeding, which involved ‘one of the most powerful of humanpassions’, would require ‘highly perfected knowledge’. Consequently it oughtnot yet to be attempted (Sociological Papers, 1905: 63). This speech amounted toan outright rejection of Galton’s paper. What is notable, however, is thatHobhouse advocated modification of the ‘environment of mankind’ – a solution



to the problem of the ‘degenerate’ condition of the people entirely in keepingwith Geddes’ approach.

At this early moment in the Society’s history, then, an alignment betweenthe ethical school and the civics sociology promoted by Geddes and Branfordseemed as likely as an alliance between eugenics and civics. When, on 20 June1904, abstracts of papers by Branford and Durkheim were read together anddiscussed by the Society’s members (Branford, 1905c; Durkheim, 1905),Hobhouse’s response was again positive, indicating his general agreement withthe proffered outlines of sociology’s current state as well as propositions for itsfuture development (Sociological Papers, 1905: 215–16).

It was at the third meeting that Geddes made what Meller has suggestedwas his fatal mistake in respect of any putative collaboration with Hobhouse. Heread his paper, with several lengthy digressions from the printed text submitted,5

on 18 July 1904. Introducing civics as a branch of applied social science, he wenton to illustrate the integration of science with (civic or social) art by referring tothe ‘connection between a scientific demography and a practical eugenics’. Usingseveral neologisms of his own design, Geddes here referred to ‘politography’,‘politogenics’ and ‘Eu-politogenics’ in an attempt to persuade his audience thatpolitical intervention would be as useful as ‘eugenic’ breeding programmes inimproving the condition of the people (Geddes, 1905: 104). As Meller suggests(1990: 140–2), Geddes was already in a difficult position. He may have beenBranford’s ‘great man of science’, but not only was the eugenists’ position moreeasily stated and understood (and, in the current political climate, very popular),it was offered by no less than Darwin’s own cousin, Galton. Many of Galton’s fol-lowers were well-off and might offer the Sociological Society (and even Geddespersonally) much-needed financial support.

Geddes’ alignment of civics with eugenics for sociology is entirely consis-tent with Branford’s earlier call for a synthetic or unified subject, bringingtogether different specialisms in Darwinian as much as in Comtean fashion. Thepapers by Branford and Durkheim at the previous meeting had both insisted onthe importance of synthesis, or unity, for the new subject. Even in his attack uponPearson, Branford had felt compelled to draw attention once more to the ‘com-petence and sufficiency of the synthetic leaders’ and to plead again for unity andcooperation in sociology (Branford, 1905b: 40–41).

In claiming the inseparability of civics from eugenics, therefore, Geddeswas, albeit naïvely, attempting to ‘synthesize’ eugenics and civics in the interests ofthe ‘scientific’ or theoretical unity that sociology supposedly needed, as well as per-haps trying to garner some financial support. That this was the only reference toeugenics that Geddes made in the whole of his presentation at this meeting addsforce to this argument. Having claimed some shared ground, he then continued topresent his own theory as if Galton’s did not exist.

However, if the relationship between civics and eugenics was a vexed onefrom the very beginning, that between civics and the ethical school, which after



1907 would turn out to be equally, if not more, important, is much more difficultto fathom. ‘Ethical’ sociology is usually attributed, above all, to Hobhouse(Abrams, 1968; Collini, 1979; Halliday, 1968). Yet Hobhouse appears to havetaken a much quieter role in the early stages of the Society than either Geddes orGalton, and though sociology as ‘ethics’ does make an appearance, this by nomeans comes exclusively, or even mainly, from Hobhouse in the first instance. Hedid not present a paper at any of the Society’s meetings, in spite of the fact thateither Mind in Evolution (1901) or Democracy and Reaction (1904) would havefurnished him with at least one presentation with little preparation. And althoughhe was Chairman of the editorial committee of the Sociological Papers throughout,it appears to have been Branford who did much of the physical work associatedwith this function (Report of the Council for the Year 1910, 1911: 176). Moreover,there is little evidence in the early Sociological Papers (other than the rather obliquereferences to modifications of the environment referred to above) of Hobhouse’sopinion of civics. On the one hand, Hobhouse’s work indicated that he adhered toa fairly narrow definition of ‘environment’ as ‘social’ or ‘moral’ environment(Hobhouse, 1893: 91), where Geddes’ own definition was all-encompassing(Geddes, 1881, 1884). On the other, in the theory of ‘orthogenic’ evolution,Hobhouse (1901) makes moral criteria centrally important for social evolution,with which both Durkheim (1933 [1893]) and Geddes (1884) would have agreed.

Why, then, did Hobhouse not respond, either verbally or in writing, toGeddes’ two presentations on civics (Geddes 1905, 1906)? The first of thesewas generally well received by the Society’s members, though it was not withoutits critics. Hobhouse might easily have added his voice to those who called forsociology as social philosophy or as a more politically oriented subject. In the sec-ond paper, Geddes clarified his theoretical position, arguing that although hisapproach might look like geographical determinism, it was in fact much morethan this, and was entirely compatible with psychological or ethical theories of‘free will’ (Geddes, 1906: 65). This was a strong indication that Geddeswould be happy to collaborate with the ethical sociologists, and while there is noindication that Hobhouse was even present at this particular meeting, it wouldhave been especially easy – in view of his position on the editorial committee ofthe Sociological Papers – for him to submit a written response to Geddes. Yet hedid not.

When ethical sociology made its first major appearance during 1905, itwas via the Danish philosopher Harald Höffding (1906), who suggested that inthe future ethical life and social progress would be determined by a scientific ethicsbased on sociological knowledge. This was a position on which both Geddes(1881: 29) and Hobhouse, in the chair, were agreed, even if neither admittedas much to the other.

The two men also appeared to be in silent agreement on the subject ofGalton and eugenics, since neither seems to have been present at, or commentedon, Galton’s second presentation in 1905 (Galton, 1906).6 However, ignoring



the eugenists became more difficult by the end of 1905 and during 1906, whena disproportionate number of pages of the Sociological Papers (of which the pol-icy was to print every paper presented at the Society’s meetings) were taken up bypapers that advocated eugenics. In one, Archdall Reid, a supporter of Galton’s,argued that any appearance of eugenic improvement achieved by improving theenvironment would be merely superficial and transient, whereas a harsh environ-ment would weed out the unfit (Reid, 1907: 3–27). Another paper appeared tobe laying claim to an alliance with civics sociology by constantly alluding to theimportance of getting people of more than average ‘civic worth’ to produce a big-ger share of the nation’s children (McDougall, 1907). There was, however, onepaper that must have upset both Hobhouse and Geddes equally. Lionel Tayler’scontribution not only reduced environmental conditions to a minor and passivefactor in evolution, but also made it look as though there was little differencebetween ethical sociology and eugenics.

Tayler was a eugenist, and would go on to serve, between 1909 and 1911,on the Eugenic Society’s council. Like Geddes, he had a sophisticated under-standing of the concept of ‘environment’ – recognizing that this could be physical-natural, built, socio-cultural or biological. He argued that neither the natural northe built environment was a determining factor in human evolution – evidence ofwhich he adduced from the facts that both ‘savage’ and advanced civilizationscould be found all over the world, in a wide variety of climates and physical-geographical locations, and that buildings could be torn down and not affectdevelopment (Tayler, 1907). On the contrary, he said, people had evolved in spiteof their surroundings, and the key driving force in this was competition betweenindividuals (or social relations). The solution to the problem of degeneracy wastherefore not to improve the housing stock, or the physical environment moregenerally. The answer lay rather in the ‘persistent attempt to raise the whole socialcondition of the nation … to a more human level’. Tayler’s argument was thatequality of opportunity and social mobility would result in a struggle for physicalfitness giving way to a ‘keen competitive mental struggle’ in which those whowere mentally fittest from all social classes would triumph over the ‘lower types ofhuman being’, who would be eliminated by their own social failures (amongwhich Tayler detailed incarceration for crime or mental illness, a failure to marryor support a family, simply by means of ‘their own brute excesses’) (Tayler, 1907:119–20). The result of such social improvement would be ‘a natural unconsciousenvironmental eugenic selection’.

How could such a theory appeal to either Geddes or Hobhouse? FromGeddes’ point of view, Tayler’s argument was one guaranteed to negate his ownapproach. Natural and man-made environments were seen only as passive featuresof evolution, while ‘race and individual character differences are the more impor-tant elements’ (Tayler, 1907: 121). On the other hand, to argue that an increasein industrial, social and cultural opportunity would increase both mental andmoral fitness seemed close to Hobhouse’s view. Tayler suggested that such an



approach would lead to the development of sociology as a post-biological study(1907: 121), something equally close to Hobhouse’s heart. Yet, in his discussionof the causes of degeneracy and fitness, Tayler stressed the eugenic effects of socialpolicy. ‘Refined mental types’ could not thrive in the ‘barbaric anti-social condi-tions’ of ‘low wages, high rent, long working hours and bestial surroundings’,while the lower ‘paleogenic’ types would die out if only social restrictions were tobe placed on his ‘immoral, drunken, idle, and dirty habits’ (Tayler, 1907: 131–3).Moreover, once the appropriate social policies were in place, love marriages freelyentered into between morally refined individuals would increase the proportion ofmentally superior types in the national stock. This was positive eugenics cloakedin the language of New Liberalism and the politics of social reform. Hobhousewould have found such an argument as distasteful as he would have found itimpossible to refute. His own position was extremely similar, suggesting as he didthat social evolution involved a self-conscious attempt to use social institutions toensure that ‘the morally fittest should actually survive and prosper’ (Hobhouse,1893: 91). What is more, Tayler concluded his paper by arguing that sociologyshould involve the study of social organization ‘in relation to type evolution’, andhe laid out a tabular scheme which depicted various human ‘types’ correspondingto different types of social organization and stages of social evolution. Under thisscheme, sociology would involve the study of habits or customs, marriage, occu-pations and religion, as well as the level of artistic, scientific and ideological devel-opment. This is sufficiently close both to the scheme outlined in the OfficialLondon Syllabus for 1906 – in the construction of which Hobhouse had beenclosely involved – and to the shape of sociology broadly outlined in Morals inEvolution (Fincham, 1975; Hobhouse, 1951 [1906]: ix–x) to have causedHobhouse concern. He failed to comment, either verbally or in writing, onTayler’s paper.

It is, then, easy to see how any commitment to collaboration had falleninto disarray by 1906. In the interval since Branford’s hopeful appeal for a unifiedsynthesizing discipline in his circular of 1903, the debates at the Society hadexposed instead a more generalized disunity and disagreement among the mem-bers. The eugenists, between McDougall’s trumpeting about ‘civic worth’ as thebasis for a eugenic breeding programme and Tayler’s recommendation that nur-ture would ultimately improve ‘nature’, had successfully collapsed what amountedto a crucially important political distinction between social reform, social engi-neering and eugenics – and where both Geddes and Hobhouse were, in differentways, advocates of the first two, neither wished to be associated with the latter.

What should be stressed, however, is that while open disagreement was evi-dent between the ethical school and the eugenists, and between the eugenists andthe civics school, this was not so between the civics and ethical schools. On thecontrary, Hobhouse had avoided engaging in open debate with either Geddes orhis supporters. And although, on more than one occasion a supporter of Geddes’civics approach had held out a collaborative hand towards Hobhouse, this had not



been reciprocated. Hobhouse failed even to record his approval of a paper byGeddes’ supporter J. Arthur Thomson which echoed almost exactly his own senti-ments when it claimed that the idea of ‘struggle for existence’ need not be inter-preted to mean sheer naked competition, either within or between species (orbetween the sexes of a single species!), or against hostile physical conditions, butcould also be ‘a gentle endeavour after well-being’, prompted by ‘love’ and ‘otherregarding’ (Thomson, 1907: 174–5). Hobhouse, for whom ‘environment’ meant‘the society of other men’, agued that the ‘fittest’ were ‘merciful and generous[men] of justice, whose hardest fights are fought for others’ lives’ (1893: 91). Hehad even on one occasion likened sociology to botany – as a science whose remitwas to nurture humanity, just as the botanist nurtured plant life (1901: 351).

Thus, while it is easy to understand Hobhouse’s outright rejection ofeugenics, it is less easy to understand his refusal to collaborate with, or to endorse,the Geddesian approach without looking beyond the intellectual debate to thewider context. This context was one in which environmental degradation wasbarely understood as a cause of social problems, where jealousy of advancingindustrialism elsewhere provoked all manner of political ideologies aimed atimproving the ‘stock’ of the nation, and where Darwin’s reputation as the ‘greatman’ of science was the model on which a newly established sociology preferredto build, in spite of Branford’s call for synthesis. It was also a context in which,whatever Martin White’s intentions when he endowed a Chair in sociology, therewere several formidable opponents to be conquered if Geddes was to beappointed. These same individuals, by chance, were closer, socially as well as polit-ically, to Hobhouse, whose background and education were also so much moreconventional than Geddes’.

Once he had accepted the Martin White Chair in 1907, and the SociologicalPapers were abandoned in favour of the Sociological Review, Hobhouse begangradually to exercise his editorial prerogative in a more and more heavy-handedmanner, excluding papers that did not accord closely with his own view, and pub-lishing only short abstracts of the proceedings of the Sociological Society.

It was this policy that led directly to his resignation. Although two papersby Geddes were published during 1908 (Geddes, 1908a, 19808b), another, on‘City Surveys and City Reports’, failed to be published in the Sociological Reviewfor January 1910, while presentations by Sybella Guerney, Laurence Gomme andAlfred Caldecott were all published, and one by S.K. Ratcliffe gained a promisethat it would ‘probably be published in the April number’ (although, in the event,it never was). Geddes got no such promise (Proceedings of the SociologicalSociety, 1910). This was a direct snub, and for Geddes’ supporters in the Society,particularly Branford (who continued to take an active role), it must have beentoo much to ignore. We are left to imagine the unholy row that followed. In Julyof that year, Hobhouse resigned as editor of the Review (Sociological Review,3 July 1910: 226), although he continued to take an editorial role until the begin-ning of 1911, when S.K. Ratcliffe took over as acting editor.



Did Hobhouse, knowing he had gone too far, later attempt to heal the rifthe had caused by his heavy-handed exclusion of Geddes, in a paper delivered at the1911 Annual General Meeting (AGM): ‘Eugenics and Sociology’ (Proceedings ofthe Sociological Society, 1911: 180)? That paper was never published, though it ishighly likely that its text was close to that of one on ‘The Value and Limitations ofEugenics’ delivered in America in April the same year, which also appears both inthe Review (Hobhouse, 1911a: 281–302) and as a chapter in Hobhouse’s SocialEvolution and Political Theory (1911b). In this, he agrees with Thomson (and thus,by association, with Geddes) that environment could and did have an adverseeffect on the life of both the mother and her (unborn) child via poor nutrition, ortoxins which might enter the body (Hobhouse, 1911a: 295–6). If this was anattempt at rapprochement, it must have been too little, too late, for although theSociety’s Proceedings note only that ‘an animated discussion’ followedHobhouse’s lecture, shortly after the AGM at which this (or a similar) lecture wasgiven, Branford announced his own resignation (Report of the Council for the Year1910, 1911: 175).

Of course, against such a strong nationalistic, and increasingly an imperi-alist, background, and in an intellectual climate that demanded that academicsociology should have a single figure at its head, it was never in Hobhouse’s inter-ests to collaborate with Geddes. But even had this not been the case, there arestrong indications that the clash of their personalities was final. Not only weretheir social class backgrounds very different, but Geddes’ outspoken forthrightpersonality would have been at odds with Hobhouse’s more self-containeddemeanour. Some found collaboration with Geddes extremely difficult, and heliked nothing better than to demolish his opponents in debate (Meller, 1990: 2;Mumford, 1966), while Hobhouse was described by his contemporaries as self-centred and arrogant, aloof, irritable, paranoid and not easy to work with (Collini,1979; Hobson and Ginsberg, 1931: 94–5). Once they had fallen out, neitherwas likely to extend an olive branch. Yet in only one respect were Geddes andHobhouse truly opposed to one another intellectually. Geddes argued for adialectical relationship between human beings and their environment. If ‘nature’in the first place ‘determined’ what sort of economic activity, social life and ideaswould emerge in a region, people, through their (freely or creatively undertaken)economic activity, altered both nature and each other. Social evolution took placethrough this cycle of action, interaction and reaction, each new change in people,occupation or place generating new types of people, thought and relationships,new occupations and altered environments. Social, occupational and environmen-tal location determined the ‘consciousness’ of the people, their values, beliefs, out-look, desires and way of life, but people, within the constraints imposed by thisexternal ‘culture’, actively created the present and the future (Geddes, 1881,1884, 1915). Hobhouse, on the other hand, wanted to believe that consciousnesscould ‘determine’ being. Although biology played a part in evolution up until thepoint at which mind became self-conscious, such consciousness enabled humanity



to control and develop its social institutions, and thereby the further developmentof ‘mind’, leading to orthogenic or ‘true’ evolution, and ultimately to globalsocial harmony. He could not concede a position which appeared to insist thatconsciousness might be ‘determined’ (at any level) by something other than itself(Hobhouse, 1901, 1951 [1906], 1966 [1924]). Far from failing to understandGeddes’ sociology, or believing that it was straightforward geographical deter-minism, it is likely that Hobhouse understood this small but crucial differenceonly too well. Perhaps in Geddes, in spite of his manifest failures of exposition,Hobhouse found a greater threat to his theoretical ‘survival’ than in the heredi-tarian theories of the eugenists.

ConclusionThe history of sociology’s progress as an academic institution is not just the storyof its intellectual development via the adoption of a small number of key thinkersand ideas into a theoretical canon. It is also the history of its foundation as an aca-demic institution within an already established university system, embedded in thewider society. Importantly, the story of sociology is also the history of the personaland social lives of its practitioners, both inside and outside the academy’s walls.

For many reasons – political, intellectual, institutional, personal – Geddesthe outsider, the self-educated Scot, was never likely to have been appointed tothe Chair at the LSE. In an atmosphere that demanded that sociology should havea single leader figure at its head and that it should contribute to the resolution ofa national crisis that few people understood to have (at least some of its) causesin the industrial despoliation of the environment, it is understandable that, asProfessor, Hobhouse failed to refer to Geddes, in spite of the fact that in 1924, inhis last major work, we find him conceding, without acknowledging Geddes, that at

… every stage the physical environment whether by stimulating or inhibit-ing industrial effort, affects the economic structure and through it bearson the whole life of society. . . . The environment never makes arts or insti-tutions, these proceed from the energy of human thought and will, but theenvironment does go to determine the lines on which human energy cansucceed.

(1966 [1924]: 97)

Yet the natural environment was never more than marginal in Hobhouse’s workand the conservation of resources, which was a centrally important part of soc-iological thinking and action for Geddes, was entirely absent. Both omissions havebeen significant for the development of sociology. Hobhouse’s influence extendedbeyond his death (1929) in the leadership of his friend, and academic ally, MorrisGinsberg, who succeeded him in the Martin White Chair. Geddes’ work died withhis own death in 1932, and that of his friends and supporters Victor Branford



(1930) and J. Arthur Thomson (1933). Yet, although his sociology was often illexpressed and clumsy, its holistic approach to the study of social life in all its envir-onments (which we could now label an Old Environmental Paradigm [OEP] todistinguish it from what Catton and Dunlap have called the NEP) might havegone at least a little way towards saving contemporary sociology from what hasbeen, until very recently, its irrelevance for dealing with the humanly created cri-sis of the natural world, on which we depend for survival itself.

But it is not enough to find in Geddes’ work an example of ‘neglected’environmental sociology. Sociologists need now to begin to apply a radical reflex-ivity to both the history and the present of their own subject – one which recog-nizes its embeddedness inside a wider social world, and acknowledges thatimbalances of power emanating from both structural forces and social action maybe very influential in determining the fates of the ideas and theories they create.Though Hobhouse was almost certainly the more qualified candidate for theChair, his appointment resulted in the exclusion of an alternative approach to soci-ology, an approach that would not or could not re-emerge for many years, per-haps to the detriment of a more thorough-going societal understanding of thevital interrelationship between societies and the environments on which theydepend. Without mentioning Geddes, Fuller has recently implied that all suchearly environmentalist ideas would have led directly to a present in which a ‘polit-ically correct social Darwinism’ employed an updated ‘racial hygiene in aid of asustainable global environment’ (2006: 183–5, 192). However, while he may beright to insist that an environmentally sensitive sociology was a ‘path better not tohave been taken’ in 1907 (Fuller, 2007), this should not – for several reasons –prevent sociologists in the present from attempting to recover and reconsider suchforgotten sociologies from the past. First, as Fuller himself concedes, not all eco-logical thinkers are Nazis in waiting (Fuller, 2006: 190). A related point is that itis precisely in paying close attention to the debates that surrounded the establish-ment of sociology at the LSE that we can see just how complex a matter it is toconstruct an unassailable liberal-humanist politics, even without going so far as toconsider the centrality of physical environments to human flourishing. Inunscrupulous hands, even Hobhouse’s desire to ensure that the ‘morally fittestshould … survive and prosper’ could be re-worked into a eugenic ideal. Finally, itis perhaps only through the scrutiny of its history that the power of the academyto institutionalize and legitimate particular sociological ideas and interpretations,while excluding others, is brought into sharp relief. While there are probably fewserious readers of Geddes who would wholeheartedly concur with the view thathis environmentalist position pointed unerringly towards a racialist or eugenicworldview (see especially Boardman, 1978; Meller, 1990), this well-worn justifi-cation for his invisibility in the history of sociology has persisted powerfully downto the present time, at the expense of the re-examination of a debate that, giventhe urgency of our environmental crisis, remains as important today as it was ahundred years ago.



Notes1. Edward Shils (1971: 761) asks why the intellectual stock of sociology has come to be what it is

and why it takes particular forms in different places. Importantly, he asks how particular ideashave come to dominate the subject.

2. According to Abrams (1968: 3), there are no fewer than sixty-one different definitions of soci-ology in the three volumes of the Sociological Papers (1905–7), and the only agreement betweenthe sociological pioneers was that it should be a science.

3. Dahrendorf’s 1995 history of the LSE records that it was Mackinder who persuaded MartinWhite to fund a Chair in Sociology, and is therefore largely responsible, with Martin White, for theinstitutionalization of sociology (1995: 94). Fincham (1975: 27–8) suggests that Geddes, initially,put Martin White in touch with Dr Roberts, who was registrar of the Board for the extension ofUniversity Teaching at the University of London. Since Geddes was a fervent supporter of univer-sity extension, this seems likely. Overall, it is likely that Geddes, Branford and Martin White, whowas ‘disappointed’ that Geddes did not get the Chair (Dahrendorf, 1995), did more to get soci-ology into the university than Mackinder.

4. That an overtly environmental sociology should align itself with the Durkheimian study of morallife and ‘social facts’ seems odd, unless we note that Durkheim, as fiercely protective of his ownpre-eminent academic position as of his sociology, was at that point making a determinedattempt to absorb Vidalian human geography, with the consequence that ‘morphologie sociale’(social facts of a physical or geographical kind, consistent with an environmental approach) had,temporarily at least, acquired a higher status in the contents of the Année than Durkheim wouldfinally allow (Mucchielli and Robic, 1995; Rhein, 1982).

5. That they were digressions is indicated by the use of the same smaller typeface used for the verbaldiscussions at intervals throughout the paper.

6. This paper suggested that only individuals in possession of a ‘eugenic certificate’ testifying to thestoutness of their constitution ought to be allowed to marry. Among those present at the discus-sion, notable supporters of the idea included Edward Westermarck, Ferdinand Tönnies andBertrand Russell.

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Maggie Studholme has been teaching sociology at the University of Bristol since 1998. Special interestsinclude the history of sociology, sociological theory and environmental sociology.

Address: Department of Sociology, University of Bristol, 12 Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1UQ, UK.[email: [email protected]]



Documents

Patrick Geddes and the History of Environmental Sociology in Britain: A Cautionary Tale