Draft:Social Medicine Research Unit

The Social Medicine Research Unit was created by the Medical Research Council (MRC) on 1 January 1948. Jerry Morris was appointed as Director and Richard Titmuss as Deputy Director.[1] Its formation had been proposed by Richard Schilling in June 1946 and was intended to address three overlapping topics: "the medical study of life in groups and communities;  the  environmental  factors  affecting  health  and  the  incidence  of disease and the control of these factors; and the social relations of individual  health and  sickness." In October  1946, Sir Edward Mellanby the Secretary of the MRC, met with Jerry Morris to discuss setting up a unit. He subsequently commented that:

'He [Morris] seems a decent modest fellow, and certainly made no great claims.

In January  1947 Morris and Titmuss  submitted a proposal for a MRC Social Medicine Unit to the MRC. Morris wrote

'As to location  the Unit  will have to be in London,  should be in a working  class industrial  area and would  gain much  from  association  with a large  general hospital. The Central  Middlesex may well be the best  place.'.

On  18 April  1947, the MRC Council  met and agreed to fund a unit for five years initially,  at the  Central  Middlesex  Hospital. The MRC wrote to Middlesex County Council saying: 

'This  Unit  will  engage  in  investigations into such  questions  as  the  incidence  and  causation  of  various  diseases  in  relation  to social  conditions  including  occupations.'   

While funding for the unit began  on 1 January  1948,  accommodation  at  the  Central  Middlesex  Hospital  was  not available until later in the year when a new 'brick built hut' costing £3,345 was completed.