National Association for the Promotion of Social Science

The National Association for the Promotion of Social Science (NAPSS), often known as the Social Science Association, was a British reformist group founded in 1857 by Lord Brougham. It pursued issues in public health, industrial relations, penal reform, and female education. It was dissolved in 1886.[1]

At the 1865 Social Science Congress in Sheffield, the Parsi reformer Manockjee Cursetjee speaks on female education in India

Background
The Social Science Congress 1879, illustration from The Graphic

The efforts of George Hastings brought together three groups of the 1850s to form the NAPSS: the Society for Promoting the Amendment of the Law, the National Reformatory Union, and the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women (the Langham Place Group).[1] It took as model the British Association for the Advancement of Science, holding an itinerant annual meeting, which provided a forum for social reformers.[2]

The objectives of the Association was defined as "to coordinate the efforts of the experts and the politicians".[3] One factor in the eventual decline of the NSPSS was that the objectives of medical reformers changed. Legislation and the efforts of central government to improve public health became less important to them.[4]

Its first secretary was Isa Knox.

Congresses

Twenty-eight Social Science Congresses took place:

Year Location President[5]
1857 Birmingham Lord Brougham
1858 Liverpool Lord John Russell
1859 Bradford Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
1860 Glasgow Lord Brougham
1861 Dublin Lord Brougham
1862 London Lord Brougham
1863 Edinburgh Lord Brougham[6]
1864 York Lord Brougham
1865 Sheffield Lord Brougham
1866 Manchester Earl of Shaftesbury
1867 Belfast Lord Dufferin and Clandeboye
1868 Birmingham Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon
1869 Bristol Sir Stafford Northcote
1870 Newcastle Algernon Percy, 6th Duke of Northumberland[7]
1871 Leeds Sir John Pakington
1872 Plymouth Francis Napier, 10th Lord Napier
1873 Norwich Lord Houghton[8]
1874 Glasgow Lord Rosebery[9]
1875 Brighton Henry Austin Bruce, 1st Baron Aberdare
1876 Liverpool Charles Gordon, 11th Marquess of Huntly
1877 Aberdeen Earl of Aberdeen
1878 Cheltenham Charles Bowyer Adderley, 1st Baron Norton
1879 Manchester James Fraser
1880 Edinburgh Lord Reay[10]
1881 Dublin Lord O'Hagan
1882 Nottingham George Hastings
1883 Huddersfield Sir Richard Temple
1884 Birmingham George Shaw-Lefevre[11]
1885 No meeting N/a

Committees

Trades Societies and Strikes

A committee of the Association produced Report on Trade Societies and Strikes (1860). This report was highly regarded: Sidney and Beatrice Webb later called it "the best collection of Trade Union material and the most impartial account of Trade Union action that has ever been issued".[12] There were contributions by three Christian Socialists (Thomas Hughes, John Malcolm Forbes Ludlow, and F. D. Maurice).[13] Hughes was one of two secretaries to the committee (with P. M. Rathbone).[14] The committee included the Liberal politicians William Edward Forster,[15] and Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth, 1st Baronet. There was one trade unionist as member, Thomas Joseph Dunning.[16]

Quarantine Committee

The Association's Quarantine Committee was set up in 1858. Its report was published officially by Parliament.[12]

Notes
  1. Goldman, Lawrence. "Hastings, George Woodyatt". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/39463. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. Harriet Martineau; Fanny Wedgewood (1 January 1983). Harriet Martineau's Letters to Fanny Wedgewood. Stanford University Press. p. 171 note 20. ISBN 978-0-8047-1146-3. Retrieved 22 June 2013.
  3. Ben Griffin (12 January 2012). The Politics of Gender in Victorian Britain: Masculinity, Political Culture and the Struggle for Women's Rights. Cambridge University Press. p. 80. ISBN 978-1-107-01507-4. Retrieved 23 June 2013.
  4. Lawrence Goldman (2002). Science, Reform, and Politics in Victorian Britain. Cambridge University Press. p. 200. ISBN 978-1-139-43301-3. Retrieved 23 June 2013.
  5. Lawrence Goldman (2002). Science, Reform, and Politics in Victorian Britain. Cambridge University Press. p. 383. ISBN 978-1-139-43301-3. Retrieved 22 June 2013.
  6. Social Science Association, The British Medical Journal Vol. 2, No. 143 (Sep. 26, 1863), pp. 350-351. Published by: BMJ Publishing Group. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25200173
  7. The Social Science Congress, The British Medical Journal Vol. 2, No. 508 (Sep. 24, 1870), p. 338. Published by: BMJ Publishing Group. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25219697
  8. The Social Science Association, The British Medical Journal Vol. 2, No. 660 (Aug. 23, 1873), p. 231. Published by: BMJ Publishing Group. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25235279
  9. George Washington Moon (1 January 2005). Men and Women of the Time Part Two. Kessinger Publishing. p. 776. ISBN 978-1-4179-7256-2. Retrieved 22 June 2013.
  10. National Association For The Promotion Of Social Science, The British Medical Journal Vol. 2, No. 1026 (Aug. 28, 1880), p. 352. Published by: BMJ Publishing Group. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25254669
  11. National Association For The Promotion Of Social Science, The British Medical Journal Vol. 2, No. 1238 (Sep. 20, 1884), pp. 582-583. Published by: BMJ Publishing Group. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25270158
  12. Michael J. Lacey; Mary O. Furner (25 June 1993). The State and Social Investigation in Britain and the United States. Cambridge University Press. p. 106. ISBN 978-0-521-41638-2. Retrieved 23 June 2013.
  13. Harold Perkin (4 October 2003). The Origins of Modern English Society. Taylor & Francis. pp. 326–7 note 3. ISBN 978-0-203-41270-1. Retrieved 23 June 2013.
  14. Edward R. Norman (3 October 2002). The Victorian Christian Socialists. Cambridge University Press. pp. 95–6. ISBN 978-0-521-53051-4. Retrieved 23 June 2013.
  15. Lawrence Goldman (4 December 2003). The Blind Victorian: Henry Fawcett and British Liberalism. Cambridge University Press. p. 150 note 20. ISBN 978-0-521-89274-2. Retrieved 23 June 2013.
  16. Prothero, Iorwerth. "Dunning, Thomas Joseph". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/47348. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
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