Thomas Humphrey Marshall (19 December 1893 – 29 November 1981) was an English sociologist who is best known for his essay "Citizenship and Social Class," a key work on citizenship that introduced the idea that full citizenship includes civil, political, and social citizenship.
Biography
T.H. Marshall was born in London on 19 December 1893 to a wealthy, artistically cultured family (a Bloomsbury family). He was the fourth of six children. His great-grandfather acquired an industrial fortune and his father was a successful architect, leaving Marshall with a privileged upbringing and inheritance. Because of his wealthy background, he obtained a formal education at Rugby School, a private boarding school. He continued his schooling at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied history.
Marshall was a civilian prisoner in Germany during the First World War. He then went on to pursue a fellowship program at Trinity College in October 1919, where he entered into academia as a professional historian. This was interrupted when he became the Labour candidate in Farnham in the 1922 election. Despite being unsuccessful in this political campaign, Marshall found his endeavors beneficial because they brought him into close contact with working-class people and exposed him to the injustices and prejudices within the British class system. In "A British Sociological Career," he recounts that he "knew nothing of working-class life" growing up, therefore marking this experience as a transformative awakening to what would guide his work.
Marshall later became a tutor in social work at the London School of Economics in 1925. He was promoted to reader and went on to become the head of the Social Science Department at LSE from 1944 to 1949 and Martin White Professorship of Sociology from 1954 to 1956.
Marshall worked for UNESCO as the head of the Social Science Department from 1956 to 1960, possibly contributing to the United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which was drafted in 1954, but not ratified until 1966.
He was the fourth president of the International Sociological Association (1959–1962).
Marshall died on 29 November 1981 in Cambridge.
Academic research
Citizenship and Social Class
T.H. Marshall wrote a seminal essay on citizenship– which became his most famous work– titled "Citizenship and Social Class." This was published in 1950 and was based on a lecture given the previous year. British citizenship was originally bestowed upon those of a higher status group with their own civil, political, and social privileges. Yet Marshall argued that, with the expansion of capitalism, a "new kind of citizenship slowly pulled apart the package of privileges hitherto enjoyed exclusively by the well-born." He analysed the development of citizenship as a development of civil, then political, then social rights.
Marshall defined the three aspects of citizenship as follows: Civil rights are "the rights necessary for individual freedom-liberty of the person, freedom of speech, thought and faith, the right to own property and to conclude valid contracts, and the right to justice." This concept of individual civil rights "also undid statutes and customs that constricted the 'right to work.'" Working people could now legally pursue employment, which corresponds with the need of capitalism for labor markets. Marshall also argued that "the principle of civil citizenship contains within itself...a 'drive' toward further equality - political equality." Political rights refer to "the right to participate in the exercise of political power." Universal Suffrage Electing representatives to Parliament Social rights include as "the right to a modicum of economic welfare and security to the right to share to the fuIl in the social heritage and to live the life of a civilised being." Social rights are usually understood as benefits associated with the modern welfare state and positive freedoms such as welfare rights.
Marshall also argued that these three aspects of citizenship developed in England in a certain order. Civil rights are broadly assigned with the eighteenth century, political to the nineteenth, and social to the twentieth century. There is a complex interplay between these conceptions of citizenship. According to Marshall, "once citizens are recognized as full members of society, they also receive undeniable social rights, such as protection against poverty."