Peter Townsend reached 80 in April 2008. We thought it a particularly appropriate way to mark his outstanding contribution to the subjects of social policy and sociology by reprinting this essay published 50 years ago in the New Statesman.Footnote ¹ The title, ‘A Society for People’, identifies the dominant theme, not just for this paper, but for Peter's whole career.

We are given a remarkable insight into how, and why, the 30-year-old Peter went about analysing social policy then and ever since. His concern for ‘the cool test of evidence’ in ‘the analysis of social diversity’, and the need to set it in context, are backed up by the accounts of how he pursued problems and identified the key issues.

Principles that have concerned Peter throughout his teaching, research and participation in public life are set out trenchantly: insistence on a broad definition of structural social policy; commitment to a ‘faith in people’ that requires a single ‘standard of social value’ for evaluating needs, and policies and practice, across society; and rejection, therefore, of inequalities, including the many ways implicit in much policy of ordering, and setting some off from the rest of society.

Despite many changes in society and language in the half century since, many of the problems discussed are still with us today. I do not believe that you can read this today without having to think about the sort of society we want to live in now and the role that sociology and social policy can play in helping to create ‘a society for people’.