Dr Mark Abrams (1906 - 1994)
Dr Mark Abrams (pictured in 1957) was the youngest ever Director of the London Press Exchange. He headed a special BBC unit during WW2 and founded Research Services Ltd in 1946. When he retired in 1970, he became Director (part-time) of the (then) Social Science Research Council Survey Unit (newly established to offer advice and assistance in survey methods to academics and others doing surveys with public funds). When SSRC closed the unit in 1976 he became Research Director at Age Concern and External Examiner (BA Social Research and Planning) at the Polytechnic of North London, where in 1986 he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship (the only British academic institution to honour him in this way).
[Page last updated 7 Jan 2012]
Obituaries
The Guardian (27 Sep 1994)
Daily Telegraph (4 Oct 1994)
The Times (29 Sep 1994)
Mark Abrams Obituary (undated, by Dawn Mitchell for the Social Research Association)
There was also one in The Independent (yet to be tracked down)
Appreciations
The Guardian (5 Oct 1994)
Sunday Telegraph (2 Oct 1994)
Biographical/Historical
Abrams, Mark Alexander (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)
Mark Alexander Abrams (Wikipedia)
Mark Abrams and the Remaking of Modern Britain
(Dr Scott Anthony, Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship, History Faculty, Cambridge University)
The Papers of Mark Abrams
(donated to Churchill College Cambridge by his widow Jean and his daughter Evelyn)
Publications (from the SSRC Survey Unit years, 1970-76: links are to publications available on this site)
Mark Abrams & John Hall The Condition of the British People
(Joint UK/USA SSRC conference on Social Indicators, Ditchley Park, May 1971)
Mark Abrams Social Indicators and Social Equity
(New Society, 23 Nov 1972)
Mark Abrams & John Hall Life Satisfaction of the British People: October - November 1971
(OECD conference on Social Indicators, Paris, May 1972)
Mark Abrams Social Indicators and Social Equity
(New Society, 23 Nov 1972)
Mark Abrams & John Hall Attitudes and Opinions of Girls in Senior Forms
(SSRC Survey Unit, March 1973 (mimeo 20pp)
Mark Abrams Subjective Social Indicators
(in Nissel M [Ed] Social Trends No 4 HMSO, 1973)
Mark Abrams & John Hall Subjective Social Indicators
(OECD Working Party on Social Indicators, Paris, April 1973)
Mark Abrams This Britain 1: A Contented Nation?
(New Society, 21 Feb 1974 )
Mark Abrams Subjective Measures of Equity
(SSRC/OECD seminar, Social Inequality, Cambridge, 1974)
Mark Abrams Changing Values: a portrait of Britain
(Encounter, October, 1974)
Mark Abrams Middle Class Socialists
(Encounter, March, 1975)
Mark Abrams Note: Subjective Social Indicators
(Extract from Nissel,M [Ed] Social Trends 6, HMSO, 1975)
Mark Abrams Review of work on subjective social indicators, 1971 to 975 (Google books page)
(Research report 8, SSRC Survey Unit, 1976)
Other publications (links are to Google books pages)
1930 -1949
Marketing of fruit and vegetables in the Vale of Evesham (Avoncroft College, 1931)
The Condition of the British people: 1911-1945 (V. Gollancz 1945)
Types of families in Great Britain, 1945
(Appendix B in Town and country planning textbook, Architectural Press, 1950)
Britain and her Export Trade Pilot Press, 1946)
Die Lebenshaltung des Englischen Volkes, 1911-1945 (Scherpe, 1946)
The state of the nation: an economic survey in pictorial form (The Bureau of Current Affairs, 1947)
!950 - 1959
Social Surveys and Social Action (Heinemann, 1951)
The welfare state (Bureau of Current Affairs, 1951)
The readership survey of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising
(Explanatory manual prepared for the I.P.A , Argil, 1957 )
The National Readership Surveys of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising: years 1957 and 1958
(Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, 1958)
Teenage consumer spending in 1959
Teenage consumers (London Press Exchange, 1959)
Conference on statistical methods in social investigations
(Queens' College Cambridge, September 25th - 27th 1959)
1960 - 1969
Must Labour Lose? (with Richard Rose, Penguin, 1960)
Motivation research and depth communication (Green Meadow Foundation, 1960)
The Newspaper reading public of tomorrow (Odhams, 1964)
Education, social class and readership of newspapers and magazines:1968
(Joint Industry Committee for National Readership Surveys, 1969)
British society to-day: a critical approach. (with Michel Poussard and John Emery, Hachette, 1969)
1970- 1979
Estratificación social (with John Archer Jackson and Ed Shils, Ediciones Península, 1971)
The elderly: an overview of current British social research
(National Corp. for the Care of Old People and Age Concern, 1978)
Political action: an eight nation study, 1973-1976
(Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, 1979)
1980 onwards
Beyond Three Score and Ten (Age Concern 1980)
Education and elderly people (Age Concern Research Unit, 1982)
People in their late sixties: a longitudinal survey of ageing
(Age Concern Research Unit, Age Concern England, 1983)
Values and social change in Britain (with Gerard D and Timms N [Eds], Macmillan 1985)
The Population of Great Britain
(London Press exchange report, originally published by George, Allen & Unwin ??1960s??
Lightning Source Inc., 2007)
Correspondence following his death (on 25 Sep 1994)
(26 Sep 1994) Prof Martin Bulmer to Rebecca Abrams (Mark's grand-daughter)
(19 Oct 1994) John Hall to Martin Bulmer
(19 Oct 1994) Notes on Mark Abrams (by John Hall)
(21 Oct 1994) John Hall to Roger Jowell
(26 Oct 1994) Roger Jowell to John Hall
(31 Oct 1994) John Hall to Jean Abrams (Mark's widow)
The Guardian (27 Sep 1994)
Daily Telegraph (4 Oct 1994)
The Times (29 Sep 1994)
Mark Abrams Obituary (undated, by Dawn Mitchell for the Social Research Association)
There was also one in The Independent (yet to be tracked down)
Appreciations
The Guardian (5 Oct 1994)
Sunday Telegraph (2 Oct 1994)
Biographical/Historical
Abrams, Mark Alexander (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)
Mark Alexander Abrams (Wikipedia)
Mark Abrams and the Remaking of Modern Britain
(Dr Scott Anthony, Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship, History Faculty, Cambridge University)
The Papers of Mark Abrams
(donated to Churchill College Cambridge by his widow Jean and his daughter Evelyn)
Publications (from the SSRC Survey Unit years, 1970-76: links are to publications available on this site)
Mark Abrams & John Hall The Condition of the British People
(Joint UK/USA SSRC conference on Social Indicators, Ditchley Park, May 1971)
Mark Abrams Social Indicators and Social Equity
(New Society, 23 Nov 1972)
Mark Abrams & John Hall Life Satisfaction of the British People: October - November 1971
(OECD conference on Social Indicators, Paris, May 1972)
Mark Abrams Social Indicators and Social Equity
(New Society, 23 Nov 1972)
Mark Abrams & John Hall Attitudes and Opinions of Girls in Senior Forms
(SSRC Survey Unit, March 1973 (mimeo 20pp)
Mark Abrams Subjective Social Indicators
(in Nissel M [Ed] Social Trends No 4 HMSO, 1973)
Mark Abrams & John Hall Subjective Social Indicators
(OECD Working Party on Social Indicators, Paris, April 1973)
Mark Abrams This Britain 1: A Contented Nation?
(New Society, 21 Feb 1974 )
Mark Abrams Subjective Measures of Equity
(SSRC/OECD seminar, Social Inequality, Cambridge, 1974)
Mark Abrams Changing Values: a portrait of Britain
(Encounter, October, 1974)
Mark Abrams Middle Class Socialists
(Encounter, March, 1975)
Mark Abrams Note: Subjective Social Indicators
(Extract from Nissel,M [Ed] Social Trends 6, HMSO, 1975)
Mark Abrams Review of work on subjective social indicators, 1971 to 975 (Google books page)
(Research report 8, SSRC Survey Unit, 1976)
Other publications (links are to Google books pages)
1930 -1949
Marketing of fruit and vegetables in the Vale of Evesham (Avoncroft College, 1931)
The Condition of the British people: 1911-1945 (V. Gollancz 1945)
Types of families in Great Britain, 1945
(Appendix B in Town and country planning textbook, Architectural Press, 1950)
Britain and her Export Trade Pilot Press, 1946)
Die Lebenshaltung des Englischen Volkes, 1911-1945 (Scherpe, 1946)
The state of the nation: an economic survey in pictorial form (The Bureau of Current Affairs, 1947)
!950 - 1959
Social Surveys and Social Action (Heinemann, 1951)
The welfare state (Bureau of Current Affairs, 1951)
The readership survey of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising
(Explanatory manual prepared for the I.P.A , Argil, 1957 )
The National Readership Surveys of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising: years 1957 and 1958
(Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, 1958)
Teenage consumer spending in 1959
Teenage consumers (London Press Exchange, 1959)
Conference on statistical methods in social investigations
(Queens' College Cambridge, September 25th - 27th 1959)
1960 - 1969
Must Labour Lose? (with Richard Rose, Penguin, 1960)
Motivation research and depth communication (Green Meadow Foundation, 1960)
The Newspaper reading public of tomorrow (Odhams, 1964)
Education, social class and readership of newspapers and magazines:1968
(Joint Industry Committee for National Readership Surveys, 1969)
British society to-day: a critical approach. (with Michel Poussard and John Emery, Hachette, 1969)
1970- 1979
Estratificación social (with John Archer Jackson and Ed Shils, Ediciones Península, 1971)
The elderly: an overview of current British social research
(National Corp. for the Care of Old People and Age Concern, 1978)
Political action: an eight nation study, 1973-1976
(Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, 1979)
1980 onwards
Beyond Three Score and Ten (Age Concern 1980)
Education and elderly people (Age Concern Research Unit, 1982)
People in their late sixties: a longitudinal survey of ageing
(Age Concern Research Unit, Age Concern England, 1983)
Values and social change in Britain (with Gerard D and Timms N [Eds], Macmillan 1985)
The Population of Great Britain
(London Press exchange report, originally published by George, Allen & Unwin ??1960s??
Lightning Source Inc., 2007)
Correspondence following his death (on 25 Sep 1994)
(26 Sep 1994) Prof Martin Bulmer to Rebecca Abrams (Mark's grand-daughter)
(19 Oct 1994) John Hall to Martin Bulmer
(19 Oct 1994) Notes on Mark Abrams (by John Hall)
(21 Oct 1994) John Hall to Roger Jowell
(26 Oct 1994) Roger Jowell to John Hall
(31 Oct 1994) John Hall to Jean Abrams (Mark's widow)
