‘You ought to be supported by the state!’

Richardson’s Pilgrimage uses illness to examine the operations of sympathy and the structures of care and responsibility. Pilgrimage is, in part, a realization of the aspiration to write a ‘dental novel’, where the surgery setting allows the depiction of a rich and distinctive social world. Consequently, the chapter shows the meaning of illness to be socially and politically determined. Analysis of the mechanisms of sympathy, empathy, and narrative method in the surgery leads to a discussion of public healthcare policy. Pilgrimage reflects the contemporary debate between sociological and moral models of healthcare, exemplified by the Fabian Society and the Charity Organisation Society. Pilgrimage balances, therefore, individual, sympathy-driven care against systematic, disinterested care.

The Fabianisation of the British Empire: Post-War Colonial Summer Conferences and Community Development in Kenya, 1948–1956

This article examines the influence of the Fabian Society on post-war colonial development from 1948 to 1956. This study demonstrates that a primary vehicle for the ‘Fabianisation’ of the British Empire was the Cambridge Summer Conference series, particularly the conference convened in 1948. Held on the encouragement of initiative in African society, the conference devised a policy framework of community development based on a model of mass education long favoured by Arthur Creech Jones, secretary of state for the colonies and former chair of the Fabian Colonial Bureau (FCB). This article also looks at the practical outcomes of that influence through a case study of community development in Kenya. It demonstrates that, despite Creech Jones' appointment as secretary of state for the colonies, severe challenges remained for the realisation of Fabian-favoured designs, including those posed by inertia and resistance in the territories, which emanated from both colonial officialdom and indigenous populations. Moreover, the findings indicate that the fulfilment of British development goals was critically dependent on the translation of those goals through the medium of indigenous cultural institutions. While the findings attest that ‘Fabianisation’ during this period produced tangible development projects that concretely impacted social welfare in the colonies, the results suggest an ambiguity surrounding the relative success of ‘Fabianised’ development. The findings indicate that ‘Fabianisation’, dependent upon the processes of negotiation that transpired between the African communities being ‘developed’ and the agents responsible for change, and the ability of those agents to inspire and motivate the indigenous populations, was at best partial.

Socialism and Civilized Society

Leonard’s autobiography reveals his apolitical upbringing, although exposure to East End poverty and the experience of the First World War turned him into a political animal. The Fabian Society and the Cooperative movement converted him to socialism, while he continued to cherish the conviction that there is no higher value than the individual. He always defined civilization by reference to fifth-century Athens, which embraced freedom, equality, and tolerance. It was this belief that led him to deplore Stalinism as a travesty of Marxist objectives. In his later political writings, imbued with anti-communist sentiments, he argued that it was never right to do a great evil so that a greater good might result, a view that prompted heated exchanges with Kingsley Martin. In addition to writing polemical books and articles, he devoted more than thirty years to his magnum opus, the two-volume After the Deluge and its successor Principia Politica, a resounding defense of liberal values in the face of human aggression and an exploration of communal psychology, whose prolixity received a cool reception from critics.