Institute of Race Relations - Early History

Early History

The founding of the IRR can be traced back to a 1950 Chatham House speech by Sunday Times editor Harry Hodson, ‘Race Relations in the Commonwealth’, in which he described Communism and race relations as the two transcendent problems. During its early life, the IRR was influenced in its work and funding by national strategic concerns about the future of Britain’s ex-colonies. Conferences were jointly organised with the Institute for Strategic Studies and the Ford Foundation funded comparative policy-oriented research on the Caribbean, Latin America and Asia. Members of the Africa Private Enterprise Group (which included Rio Tinto, Barclays, Unilever et al.) helped to fund IRR research into tropical Africa. In 1958, in response to ‘race riots’ in Nottingham and Notting Hill, IRR produced the first study of domestic race relations, ‘Colour in Britain’ by James Wickendon. In 1963, the Nuffield Foundation funded a five-year survey of British race relations, which commissioned forty-one pieces of research, and published its findings as ‘Colour and Citizenship’ by Jim Rose. Philip Mason, who had served as IRR director from 1952, retired in 1970 and was replaced by Professor Hugh Tinker. The IRR, centrally located in Jermyn Street in London’s West End, had over thirty staff, a full book publishing programme, a library and information service and domestic and international research units.