Introduction

Although he may have objected to the description, by the 1960s Titmuss was, undoubtedly, one of the ‘great and the good’, a public intellectual constantly called upon to sign petitions, join committees, and offer an opinion on a range of issues. In 1962, for instance, he was a signatory to a telegram to the chairman of the Council of Ministers in Budapest. British scholars and scientists, it stated, were ‘grieved by news of the failing health of eminent legal historian István Bibó’. Bibó, a prominent member of the Hungarian government which had briefly defied the Soviet Union, had been imprisoned in 1957. His early release, the cable continued, would contribute to the establishment of friendly links between Hungarian and Western intellectuals. Other signatories included A.J. Ayer, Julian Huxley, and Bertrand Russell. Sent at the height of the Cold War, this intervention was part of a broader campaign to secure the rights of ‘prisoners of conscience’. In spring 1964, meanwhile, Titmuss was approached by George Martin (a drama teacher, not the producer of the Beatles) to join the General Council of the proposed International Centre in Covent Garden. The aim was to use the site, soon to be vacated by the historic fruit and vegetable market, for conference, artistic, and scientific purposes. Titmuss agreed, and produced a paragraph for a proposed report which read: ‘London deserves an International Centre in the Covent Garden area on the lines proposed. London needs these facilities for education and relaxation in a planned environment of public gardens. It is the only civilized response if London is still to be London’. Titmuss's commitment to London, his home and place of employment since late childhood, is apparent here. As he told an official committee in 1963, he knew of no profession, including his own, which did not want to work in the capital. The presence of four television companies, moreover, further broadened opportunities for those such as himself.