---
title: "Philip Sargant Florence (1890–1982)"
date: "2025-05-21T12:49:37+01:00"
modified: "2025-05-21T12:49:38+01:00"
url: "https://heritage.humanists.uk/philip-sargant-florence/"
post_id: 12717
categories: ["Education", "Ethical Movement", "Philosophy", "Social Reform"]
tags: ["Economics", "Ethical Movement", "Freethought", "Humanism", "Philosophy", "Rationalism", "Social welfare"]
---

# Philip Sargant Florence (1890–1982)

> Though hearing and discussing many philosophies and keeping open minds, many, if not most of us had a slightly utilitarian Benthamite bias for ‘doing’ rather than ‘being’ good.
> 
> Philip Sargant Florence, ‘The Cambridge Heretics 1909–1932’ in *The Humanist Outlook* (1968)







The obituary reprinted below was published in *New Humanist,* Summer 1982







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Philip Sargant Florence, who was best known as an economist, was also an active member of the Humanist movement.







Philip Sargant Florence was born in 1890 and went to Cambridge University. After various official posts on both sides of the Atlantic, he went into academic life. He was Professor of Commerce at Birmingham University from 1929 to 1955, and a prolific writer and speaker on many economic and social subjects until long after retirement.







  ![](https://heritage.humanists.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2025/05/Mary-Sargant-Florence-and-family.jpg)[Mary Sargant-Florence and family](https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw130828/Mary-Sargant-Florence-and-family?) by Unknown photographer, vintage snapshot print, late 1920s NPG Ax24023 © National Portrait Gallery, London

  

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He had become involved in the freethought movement while at Cambridge, in 1909, and he contributed to [A. J. Ayer](https://heritage.humanists.uk/a-j-ayer/)’s symposium *The Humanist Outlook* (1968) an entertaining and instructive account of the [Cambridge Heretics](https://heritage.humanists.uk/the-cambridge-heretics/) before, during and after the First World War, having been the Secretary from 1912 to 1914 and again from 1921 to 1923, and then President. He became an Honorary Associate of the [Rationalist Press Association](https://heritage.humanists.uk/rationalist-press-association/) in 1941, and was also a member of the Advisory Council of the British Humanist Association. Towards the end of his life he coedited *C. K . Ogden: A Collective Memoir* (1977), for the old friend who had influenced him so much.

 

 

 

 

 

He remained active even when he was very old, and much enjoyed meeting younger Humanists. He died on 29 January 1982, and a non-religious memorial meeting was held at Birmingham University on 5 February.







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Main image: [Philip Sargant Florence](https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw100821/Philip-Sargant-Florence?) by Elliott & Fry, bromide print, 1949 NPG x89252 © National Portrait Gallery, London







 See also 
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- [    C. K. Ogden  ](https://heritage.humanists.uk/c-k-ogden/)
- [    Cambridge Heretics  ](https://heritage.humanists.uk/the-cambridge-heretics/)
- [    Jane Ellen Harrison  ](https://heritage.humanists.uk/jane-ellen-harrison/)
- [    A. J. Ayer  ](https://heritage.humanists.uk/a-j-ayer/)