Qualla: London School of Economics

London School of Economics: Introduction

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sdrawkcab, CC BY-SA 3.0. Four people sat down in the summer of 1895 to decide what to do with a bequest of £20,000. They were Sidney Webb, his wife Beatrice, the political scientist Graham Wallas, and the playwright George Bernard Shaw — all members of the Fabian Society, the gradualist socialist organisation that wanted to remake British society through expertise rather than revolution. The money had come from Henry Hunt Hutchinson, a lawyer who had left it in trust 'towards advancing its objects in any way they [the trustees] deem advisable.' They chose to found a school. Not a workers' college, not a propaganda outfit, but a serious institution for the academic study of the social sciences. They called it the London School of Economics and Political Science. It opened that October. They had no campus, no faculty, and no degree-awarding powers. They had an idea.

Image: Sdrawkcab | CC BY-SA 3.0

London School of Economics: Keynes Versus Hayek, on the Floor

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Umezo KAMATA, CC BY-SA 3.0. In the 1930s, the LSE was the academic home of the most famous economic argument of the twentieth century. On one side was John Maynard Keynes at Cambridge, who would soon publish The General Theory and argue that governments must actively manage demand to escape depressions. On ...

Image: Umezo KAMATA | CC BY-SA 3.0

London School of Economics: The Director Who Designed the NHS

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Mulloom2, Public domain. In 1942, the director of the London School of Economics produced a report. It was called Social Insurance and Allied Services. The author was William Beveridge, an Oxford-trained social reformer who had run the LSE from 1919 to 1937. The Beveridge Report identified five 'giant ev...

Image: User:Mulloom2 | Public domain

London School of Economics: Twenty-Five Days, Locked

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK, CC BY 2.0. In 1966 the school appointed Sir Walter Adams as its new director. Adams had previously been principal of the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. The student union objected, citing his failure to oppose Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence under Ian Smith's...

Image: Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK | CC BY 2.0

London School of Economics: The Hard Lessons

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit LSE SU China Developmet Society, CC BY-SA 4.0. Not all of the LSE's twenty-first century has gone smoothly. In February 2011, director Howard Davies resigned over the school's relationship with Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. The LSE had matriculated Saif and accepted a £1.5 million donation...

Image: LSE SU China Developmet Society | CC BY-SA 4.0

London School of Economics: What 'Clare Market' Holds

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit LSE SU China Developmet Society, CC BY-SA 4.0. The school occupies an almost continuous group of around 30 buildings between Kingsway and Aldwych, in the historic area of Clare Market. King George V laid the foundation stone of the Old Building in 1920. The campus now includes the Saw Swee Hock Student Centre (opened January ...

Image: LSE SU China Developmet Society | CC BY-SA 4.0