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Alumni History
Alumni History Prominent FPs Our Rector, Dr. John Halliday, is a very avid historian and enjoys researching unique and fascinating stories about our Former Pupils, both from current day and historically. In this particular section of our magazine, he has shared with us two of his favourite stories. The first about a pioneering FP who helped secure the beginnings of the Welfare State and the second about the Co-Founder of SRU and Dundee’s very first rugby internationalist.
Jessy Philip, Class of 1893 The Mother of the Welfare State? How a pioneering FP helped secure the beginning of the Welfare State. In the dark days of WW2, the economist, Sir William Beveridge, was appointed by the coalition government “to undertake… a survey of the existing national schemes of social insurance and allied services, including workmenʼs compensation, and to make recommendations.” In his Report on Social Insurance and Allied Services, soon known as the Beveridge Report, published in 1942, he set out his vision of a post-war Welfare State whose aim was to banish from Britain the evils of the Five Giants – want, ignorance, squalor, idleness and disease. Beveridge went way beyond his remit, creating a blueprint for an entire welfare state, including a national health service. It immediately captured public imagination, selling 100,000 copies within a month. What made it a huge public best seller was its breathtaking vision and passionate language. And this persuasive rhetoric came not from Beveridge, but from one Jessy Mair, a Scotswoman from Dundee. It was she who inspired Beveridge to redraft his manuscript and who urged him to imbue his proposals with a ‘Cromwellian spirit’ and messianic tone. ‘How I hope you are going to preach against all gangsters,’ she wrote ‘who for their mutual gain support one another in upholding all the rest. For that is really what is happening still in England.’ The rest, as they say, is history. But we should tell the story of Jessy Philip, who was one of the most remarkable female FPs the High School has produced, and whose achievements fully deserve being celebrated here. Jessy Thomson Philip was born in 1876, daughter of Bailie William Philip. She was an outstanding pupil at the High School, winning the Harris Gold Medal in 1893, the year after Agnes Blackadder. She joined Blackadder at St Andrews University and became one of the very first female graduates in 1897. After graduating in Mathematics, she married David Beveridge Mair, a fellow Scot, prize-winning Cambridge Maths graduate and fellow of Christ’s College, who was to enjoy a prominent career in the Civil Service. They moved to London and Jessy spent the next decade bringing up their four children. She was a hugely capable and dynamic woman of intelligence and energy. Not content with sitting at home once hostilities broke out in 1914, she embraced the opportunity to contribute. She entered the Ministry of Munitions in July 1915, first as a voluntary worker then becoming a full member of staff. In 1916, she moved to the newly formed Ministry of Food, which was tasked with securing wartime food distribution. Jessy Mair’s outstanding administrative and leadership skills led to her promotion to Assistant Director for Bacon Distribution, where she devised and was responsible for the planned distribution of imported bacon, ham and lard for the whole country. Her outstanding achievements in this crucial but unsung area were recognised with the award of an OBE on New Year’s Day
1918. She was therefore one of the very first recipients of this brand new honour. She was truly a pioneer. In 1918, she became the first woman to sit in the official gallery of the House of Commons and in 1919 she attended the Peace Conference as a representative of the Ministry of Food. Whilst at the Ministry of Food she had worked closely with William Beveridge, a second cousin of her husband, and when Beveridge was appointed Director of the London School of Economics in 1919, she followed him and was appointed Secretary and the Dean, again the first woman to hold a position of such seniority in a British university. The energetic and visionary leadership of Beveridge and Mair was not without its critics, but it was absolutely crucial to the development of the LSE as a vibrant, modern institution of higher education and together they forged its growing reputation. Jessy Mair’s role in this cannot be underestimated. After 18 eventful years Beveridge finally left LSE in 1937 to become Master of Balliol College Oxford. Jessy Mair retired as Secretary and Dean in 1938 aged 62, after 19 years in post. The two maintained a close friendship, which intensified after the death of Jessy’s husband, David, in 1942. She assisted Beveridge with the production of his radical report and after 25 years of professional collaboration it was perhaps not surprising that she married Beveridge in Westminster in December 1942, thereby becoming Lady Beveridge. The service was conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury and was attended by many of the leading politicians and academics of the day. For the remainder of her life, Lady Jessy Beveridge remained very active and involved in public life, but always retained a close connection to her home. She was even appointed Hon. Vice President of the HSD Old Girls’ Club and attended meetings when she could! She died in Oxford in 1959 aged 83, and is buried alongside Sir William in Throcklington, Northumberland. A woman of fierce intelligence, prodigious energy and a proudly independent spirit Jessy Philip/Mair/Beveridge was a genuine pioneer of whom HSD can be very proud. And if Sir William Beveridge was the Father of the Welfare State, then surely she can justifiably be described as the Mother!
