RARE "Political Theorist" G. D. H. Cole Hand Signed Album Page For Sale

Up for sale a RARE! "Political Theorist" G. D. H. Cole Hand Signed Album Page. 

September 1889 – 14 January 1959) was an English political theorist,

economist, and historian. As a libertarian socialist, he

theorised guild socialism. He

belonged to the Fabian Society and

was an advocate for the co-operative movement. Cole

was born in Cambridge to George Cole, a jeweller who later became a

surveyor; and his wife Jessie Knowles. Cole

was educated at St Paul's School and Balliol College, Oxford,

where he achieved a double first. As

a conscientious objector during

the First World War, Cole's

involvement in the campaign against conscription introduced him to a co-worker, Margaret Postgate, whom he married in 1918. The couple both

worked for the Fabian Society for the next six years before moving to Oxford, where Cole started writing for The Manchester Guardian.[

In 1915, Cole became an unpaid research officer at the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. He advised the union on how

to respond to wartime legislation including the Munitions Act. This role

enabled him to escape conscription on the grounds that he was conducting work

of national importance. Having secured exemption from military service, during

the war years Cole developed a political theory of guild socialism. Cole authored several economic and historical

works including biographies of William Cobbett and Robert Owen. In 1925, he became reader in economics at University College, Oxford. In 1929, he was appointed to

the National Economic Advisory

Council when it was set up by the second Labour government.

In 1944, Cole became the first Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at

Oxford. He was succeeded in the chair by Isaiah Berlin in 1957. Cole

was initially a pacifist, but he abandoned this position

around 1938, stating: "Hitler cured me of pacifism".[6] During the 1930s, Cole sought to construct a

British popular front against fascism. He identified the extent of the military threat

before many of his colleagues had abandoned their pacifism. Cole lent strong

support to the republican cause in

Spain. He was listed in the Black Book of

prominent subjects to be arrested in the case of a successful invasion of

Britain.

In 1941, Cole was appointed sub-warden of Nuffield College, Oxford.

He was central to the establishment of the Nuffield College Social

Reconstruction Survey which collected a large amount of demographic, economic

and social data. This information was used to advocate for an extensive

programme of social reform.