Fonds HDN - Margaret Hardiman

Margaret Hardiman was instrumental in expanding the teaching of social planning for administrators in developing countries at the London School of Economics from 1964 to the mid-1980s. During this era, many newly independent states were grappling with issues of development. Their often rigid implementation of theories on economic development commonly floundered when confronted with social realities on the ground. In the alternative "social planning" approach, development was recognised as more than economic growth, and included looking at societies as a whole so that policies could be applied that would improve the quality of life in the community.

Margaret's knowledge of conditions in developing countries was particularly relevant to such teaching. The course that she oversaw at LSE was interdisciplinary and interdepartmental, and dealt with social policy issues such as health, education, welfare, social justice and community development. Its main aim was to train public administrators from developing countries, or people who intended to carry out developmental work. Initially a postgraduate diploma course, it became a master's course from 1974 onwards, and it flourishes to this day.

Its students were exposed to debates about development. They were encouraged to apply social science methods in their analysis of their own societies. Margaret took a keen interest in each of her students. She put much effort into keeping in close touch with them after they had returned to their own countries. Many became close friends.

During her travels she observed their work and advised them, while also promoting her approach to development. In this way, she and her colleague on the course, Jimmy Midgley, had a huge influence on many students who would later become leaders in the civil service in developing countries, and work at the World Bank, the IMF or UN agencies and major NGOs. I took the master's course in 1975-76 and found it a life-changing experience.

Margaret was born in Calcutta, India, where her father, James Roger, was a businessman and her mother, Edna, moved in the more liberal colonial circles. She was sent to Bedales school in Hampshire in 1926. From there she went on to LSE, where she studied sociology, with an interest in anthropology, graduating in 1939. During the second world war she served in the ATS, working in the Northern Command in army education under the Labour politician George Wigg. This work is often considered to have helped pave the way for the vote for Labour in 1945 and the forging of a new welfare state. Margaret became a lieutenant colonel, and after the war was posted to the Middle East.

Meanwhile, she married John Hardiman, an army officer. When John was posted to India, she resigned from the ATS and joined him in Rawalpindi. There, she carried out a social survey of a Punjab village. They witnessed the horrors of the partition of 1947 at first hand. On their return to Britain in 1948, Margaret raised a family and took up pig-farming in Berkshire. After coming to London in 1958, she taught for a time at Battersea Training College, before moving to LSE in 1964. From 1968 until 1971, she took leave from LSE to teach at the University of Ghana. Having always had an interest in anthropology, she began a hands-on study of a cocoa-farming village to the north of Accra. She revisited the village periodically in the 1970s and 1980s, and later wrote up her observations in a book titled Konkonuru: Life in a West African Village (2003).

Besides her teaching in social planning, she acted as a consultant in developing countries. She worked with the Max Lock group of architects, involved in town planning in northern Nigeria; and she spent long periods there carrying out town surveys. In 1982 she and Midgley published the first major textbook for the subject: The Social Dimensions of Development, Social Policy and Planning in the Third World. She was a visiting lecturer at the Royal Institute of Public Administration in London.

After her retirement, Margaret served as a trustee of Oxfam from 1986 to 1992 where with her wide experience she served on the Africa and Asia committees. She was closely connected with the Nilgiris Adivasi Welfare Association, based in Tamil Nadu, India. She had first visited this NGO project in 1981, meeting the remarkable Englishwoman who then ran it, Victoria Armstrong. She became involved in their fundraising through the Nilgiris Adivasi Trust, which she chaired up until the time of her death.

Her husband died in 2000 and her younger son, Andrew, in 2008. She is survived by her elder son, David.

Margaret Gwendoline Winton Hardiman, teacher and social planner, born 16 September 1918; died 10 May 2011

The Guardian, 20 June 2011.