Graham Wallas

Graham Wallas

Graham Wallas portrait taken c.1920s.

Graham Wallas (31 May 1858 – 9 August 1932) was an English socialist, social psychologist, educationalist, a leader of the Fabian Society and a co-founder of the London School of Economics.

Biography

Born in Monkwearmouth, Sunderland, Wallas was educated at Shrewsbury School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. It was at Oxford that Wallas abandoned his religion. He taught at Highgate School until 1885, when he resigned rather than participate in communion, and was President of the Rationalist Press Association.

Wallas joined the Fabian Society in April 1886, following his acquaintances Sidney Webb and George Bernard Shaw. He was to resign in 1904 in protest at Fabian support for Joseph Chamberlain's tariff policy.

He lectured at the newly founded London School of Economics from 1895.

Ideas

Wallas argued in Great Society (1914) that a social-psychological analysis could explain the problems created by the impact of the industrial revolution on modern society. He contrasts the role of nature and nurture in modern society, concluding that humanity must depend largely on the improvements in nurture, and put his faith in the development of stronger international operation.

Works

• Property Under Socialism (1889)
• Human Nature in Politics Complete text of third edition (1920)
• The Great Society (1914)
• Our Social Heritage (1921)
• The Art of Thought (1926)

Further reading

• Martin Wiener, Between two worlds : The political thought of Graham Wallas, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.

External links

• Spartacus bio
• Works by Graham Wallas at Project Gutenberg
• Catalogue of the Wallas papers at the Archives Division of the London School of Economics.