Maurice Reckitt

Maurice Reckitt (1888–1980): leading Anglo-Catholic and Christian socialist writer; editor of Christendom: A Quarterly Journal of Christian Sociology, 1931–50; primary organiser of the Oxford Summer School of Sociology. He was a dogmatically outspoken contributor to Christian policy conferences; and at his bidding, numerous thinkers and strategists – including TSE, Dorothy L. Sayers and Philip Mairet – participated in the discussion groups he promoted. ‘The Christendom group stood for autochthonous thought and activity and was once denounced as “the rudest group in the Church of England”’ (ODNB). Other works include Faith and Society (1932), Maurice to Temple (1947), and Prospect for Christendom (ed., 1945), to which TSE contributed. See Reckitt, As It Happened: An Autobiography (1941); V. A. Demant, Maurice B. Reckitt: A Record of Vocation and Versatility (1978); J. S. Peart-Binns, Maurice B. Reckitt: A Life (1988).