Biography of an Exceptional Sociologist: The life and times of W. H. J. (Sebastian) Sprott

Abstract

It is the purpose of this article to reclaim for contemporary commentary the now little mentioned but significant sociologist W. H. J. Sprott. Walter John Herbert Sprott was born in Crowborough, Sussex on 19^th April 1897 into a family of the professional middle-class. He attended Felsted School after which he served during the First World War. On being invalided out of the army he taught for a short time in preparatory schools and in 1919 went up to Clare College, Cambridge where he gained a double first in Moral Sciences. He was elected a member of the Apostles. ¹After his degree he became a demonstrator at Cambridge’s Psychological Laboratory. In 1925 he took up a post at University College, Nottingham. In due course he became professorial head of a department responsible for psychology, philosophy and sociology. At first known as a psychologist he later became better known as a sociologist. After a distinguished academic career, he retired to Blakeney, Norfolk where he died on 2^nd of September 1971.² Sprott was homosexual and his homosexuality played a significant part in his life. He had serious intimate relationships, with among others, Lytton Strachey, John Maynard Keynes, and E. M. Forster as well as largely promiscuous relationships with working-class men and “rough trade”. When he died he was mourned and eulogised by his friends and his associates. What follows is not a comprehensive discussion of Sprott’s academic works but a biographical account of an exceptional sociologist.