Maurice Cornforth
| Maurice C. Cornforth | |
|---|---|
| Born |
28 October 1909 Willesden, London |
| Died | 31 December 1980 (aged 71) Islington, London |
| Alma mater |
University College, London Trinity College, Cambridge |
| Spouse(s) | Kitty Klugmann (died 1965); Kathleen Elliott |
| School | Marxism |
Maurice Campbell Cornforth (28 October 1909 – 31 December 1980) was a British Marxist philosopher.
Cornforth was born in Willesden,London in 1909, and educated at University College School, where he was friends with Stephen Spender. In 1925 he went up to University College, London, graduating in 1929, and then went on to Trinity College, Cambridge where he was the only student on a specialised course in logic, taught by Moore, Braithwaite, and Wittgenstein. In 1931, after graduating, he was awarded a three-year research scholarship at Trinity. In the summer of the same year he joined the Communist Party, setting up the party's first organisation at Cambridge; and in the autumn married a fellow Cambridge student, Kitty Klugmann, sister of James. From 1933 Cornforth worked full-time for the Communist Party in East Anglia. Rejected for military service on medical grounds, during the Second World War Cornforth worked as a farm labourer. He published his first work, Science Versus Idealism, in 1946. In 1950 he was appointed as managing director of Lawrence & Wishart, a post he held until 1975, during which period he was responsible for the publishing of Marx's and Engels's Collected Works. Cornforth died in Islington, London, 1980, leaving a widow, Kathleen Elliott, his second wife.
When he began his career in philosophy in the early 1930s, Cornforth was a follower of Ludwig Wittgenstein, writing in the then current style of analytic philosophy. He later became a leading ideologist of the Communist Party of Great Britain. He vigorously opposed the aesthetic theories of fellow Marxist Christopher Caudwell.
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