When William Rivers returned to St Johns in 1919, people noticed the change in him. The acceptance shown him by his soldier patients made him a “far happier man”, Charles Myers recorded and described how his former tutor was now joining clubs, yachting and even dining out. The college provided with the new position of ‘Praelector of Natural Science Studies,’ with instruction to make of that whatever he wished. Colleague L E Shore noted that upon this announcement, Rivers “paced his room for several minutes, full of delight” and responded by declaring, “I have finished my serious work now, and I shall just let myself go”

Characteristically, ‘letting himself go’ did not mean neglecting his appearance work or really even resting apart from the odd visit to his family or friends’. He made acquaintance with as many students as possible ran ‘At Homes’ which involved meetings and talks held in his quarters on Sunday mornings. Forming a discussion group called the Socratics; he invited a number of well-known friends such as Sassoon, H G Wells and Arnold Bennett to address its members.

His war-related work had not finished along with the conflict in 1918: he published books “Conflict and Dream” and “Instinct and the Unconscious” recounting his findings as concerned various areas of related psychology and its treatment. Several former patients had kept in contact and he still mentored them, and had hopes to some day try out his techniques upon civilians having easily realised that many psychological conditions encountered in everyday life showed similarity to those exhibited by the soldiers, albeit from a different cause.

Awards and new appointments still came in. Rivers was (a little strangely) given the title President of the English Folk-Lore Society in 1920, followed by (more expectedly) the same rank in the Royal Anthropological Institute in 1921. Honorary degrees from universities of Manchester, St. Andrews and Cambridge were added to his list of attainments

1922 brought what could be called renewed stresses. Conditions in the country after the war were not what the ex-servicemen had been led to expect. This was no ‘Country Fit For Heroes’*; there were shortages, mass unemployment and an all-round lack of improvement. As in the past, injured men who had served were often reduced to homelessness, discarded by a government who had cajoled or conscripted many of them into fighting. Little help was offered the average widow, with or without children and the population was understandably beginning to object. The Labour party implied that they could remedy much of this strife if they were voted into power in the years’ election and, somewhere along the line, Rivers was persuaded to stand as a candidate for the London University seat and accepted nomination with the words “because the times are so ominous, the outlook for our own country and the world so black, that if others think I can be of service in political life, I cannot refuse.” Some of his campaign speeches can be found in the posthumous ‘Psychology and Politics’ published in 1923, as explored below.

Rivers’ Political Policies

Rivers famously joked more than once that the House of Commons desperately needed a “resident psychiatrist”; a  characteristic observation, that  carried a profound weight. His policies leak humanity and belief in the equal validity and importance of the individual whilst addressed in the needs of society. Throughout his varied career—from the psychological laboratories of Cambridge to the wards of Craiglockhart—Rivers had watched how trauma, fear, and institutional pressure could fracture the human mind. He looked at Parliament and diagnosed a similar problem: manipulation of unconscious “herd instincts,” tribal anxieties, and a collective form of neurosis that routinely paralyzed the machinery of state. *

He proposed that when a government ignores deep-seated social injustices—such as class friction or the exploitation of workers—it is merely repressing societal conflict. Left untreated, that situation would inevitably boil over into poverty, exclusion, strikes, stagnation, or violence. His political solution was essentially therapeutic: Parliament should serve as a place for diagnosing and healing the ills of society,  bringing to light tensions out of the shadows and resolving them through open, rational discussion. While his alignment with the Labour Party naturally placed his ideas within a socialist framework, this outlook bypassed traditional economic dogmatism. He did not approach policies through accounts or rules, but through the lens of the human condition, seeking ways to improve government so that it directly supported the people it was meant to serve. He poignantly believed that humanity could genuinely do better, if only it was shown how. His policies demonstrate learning and application from each of his areas of expertise:

1. A Diagnostic Approach to Society: Rivers firmly believed that “knowledge of the facts of social and political behaviour… can contribute to our understanding and treatment of social and political problems.” For him, psychology and sociology were not just academic exercises; they were tools to diagnose and heal systemic societal problems
2. Evidence Over Dogma: He treated public policy like a scientific hypothesis. If empirical evidence showed a law wasn’t working in the real world, it should be changed—regardless of party pride or dogma. He stood for complete transparency and deeply opposed the manipulation of voters through emotional, irrational passions merely to gain status.
3. Resource Distribution Based on Need: Rejecting the cutthroat framework of economic competition, Rivers argued that wealth and resources should be distributed according to actual human need rather than the ambitions of the state. He believed that replacing competition with mutual aid was the only way to build a truly stable, fair country.
4. Education for True Democracy: A passionate supporter of causes like the Workers’ Educational Association, Rivers pushed for widespread educational reform. He believed everyone deserved more than just basic schooling; they needed the tools to question authority and interrogate mass media—recalling the manipulation of wartime propaganda—so they could protect themselves and fully participate in a healthy democracy.
5. Bringing Hidden Conflict into the Light: Applying his clinical methodologies to labor disputes, he advocated for peaceful, rational negotiation between workers and employers. He insisted that hidden societal conflicts must be brought into the open and faced honestly, rather than left to simmer until violence or industrial action became inevitable.

This could have been a fascinating experiment into reform of the government system, however, his campaign fully take off, another duty took priority. In response to questions over the sheer number of shell-shock casualties seen during the war, and the government’s apparent reluctance to both concede that the illness was genuine and compensate those affected along similar rates to the physically injured, authorities called for an investigation.

Report of the War Office Committee of Enquiry into “Shell-Shock”

A board to produce the Report of the War Office Committee of Enquiry Into “Shellshock” was convened, led by Lord Southborough, a prominent man who had held several official civil service positions.

Fifty-nine witnesses were called, including doctors, neurologists and psychologists, such as Rivers, and military officers but no ordinary ranked soldiers, despite their making up a considerable percentage of the numbers who suffered. The purpose of the enquiry was to determine the causes, appropriate treatment and ways to prevent the condition becoming a problem in future wars.

Rivers himself argued five salient points, using his observation of the soldiers’ experiences and treatment alongside his expertise in neurology and psychology.

1. ‘Shellshock’ was not a result of physical injury to the brain from explosions, but that it stemmed from worn-down endurance and a “conflict between the instinct of self-preservationand the traditional code of conduct prescribed by society.”
2. Officers and Ordinary Ranks tended to suffer differently but both DID suffer, with officers showing more ‘anxious’ symptoms whereas the ranks often suffered physical manifestations such as muteness or partial paralysis. He attributed this to the different roles played by the men, not differences in intellect or morals: officers coming under pressure due to responsibility of command and the need to show example, the men from powerlessness to influence their own survival, likelihood of being treated dismissively by authorities if they broke down, and the societal expectation of ‘masculine’ behaviour.
3. “The conditions of modern warfare, and especially of trench warfare, involve a drastic suppression of the natural reactions to danger.” Trench warfare demanded a peculiarly passive behaviour amongst men and officers; a great deal of  time to think, between periods of extreme danger where often the individual could do very little to change his own chances of living, being wounded or killed. Repeatedly having to constantly be alert to some degree at all times except when in the ‘Rear’ wore down the individual’s ability to endure this stress and made it all the more difficult.
4. “War neuroses afflict persons whose social life seems to be wholly normal and commonplace… they are singular to no class.”  Rivers disagreed with many in society who believed that lower class troops who reported symptoms were malingering or simply pretending to have the condition to ‘shirk’ fighting. He maintained that the cause had nothing to do with lack of ‘moral fibre’, and that it was actually often the men who had endured the most or who had seemed most stoic that suffered hardest in the end because they had repressed their symptoms so much.
5. He objected to the accusation of cowardice or deserter upon soldiers that were suffering shellshock, and countered that they should automatically be assessed by a psychologist or similarly qualified person before any verdict was given since the unconscious mind “…must be taken into account, not only by the physician, but by the teacher, the politician, the moralist, the sociologist, and every other worker who is concerned with human conduct [including military courts].”

The Enquiry took these and similar points made by other experts into consideration, and if the authorities were expecting the outcome to favour any kind of dismissal of the condition, they were sadly mistaken. The conclusion, which unfortunately Rivers did not live to see, produced a number of findings, some helpful and other not so much.

1. Despite using the term in the naming of their own enquiry, the committee forbode the use of the phrase ‘Shellshock’, for two reasons: it was decided to be inappropriate given that the cause was now acknowledged to be nothing to do with concussion from shell blasts; the use of it in common language reduced its efficacy as a military or medical term, and had become a ‘catch all phrase’ that by then related to any type of ‘hysteria’. ‘War Neurasthenia’ or ‘Neurosis’, both terms that Rivers and several of his colleagues already used, was to be employed instead for psychological cases, and appropriate terms such as ‘concussion’ or ‘concussive injury’ for actual ‘blast’ cases (i.e. those caused by a close encounter with detonations or shell explosions)
2. They acknowledged that anyone could suffer a breakdown and agreed to move away from the labels of cowardice and malingering, and all that those entailed
3. However, they still blamed some cases on ‘misfits’ and poor military disciple and maintained that it was inherently necessary to still find some way of distinguishing genuine cases from those of ‘funk’ (i.e. cowardice and malingering)
4. Insisted that sufferers should be kept close to the area of duty when at all possible and not sent home, to ensure that men and units did not ‘lose their military identity’. To facilitate this more regular leave and shorter frontline time would be instigated whenever possible
5. Cases that were acknowledged to be still suffering to a certain degree would be given a pension, like those with physical effects from service

All in all, it is estimated that around 8 or 9 % of Officers are acknowledged to have ‘shellshock’ during the Great War, and about 4% of ‘Other Ranks’: this equates to at least 200,000 hospital admissions and 20,000 army discharges. According to author Lyn MacDonald, in ‘The Roses of No Man’s Land”, in 1938, 27,000 men were still being paid war disablement pension for the condition plus 3,200 were still in ‘mental asylums’ having still never recovered their memory or for similar symptoms. Some were still there in the 1980s. It is irrelevant but sad to note that some men listed on  memorials could the missing could have actually been the men in these homes who had not recalled their own identity since whatever stage of the War they became so ill. One must also be take into account that the above figures only represent the number of men ill enough for the Government not only to recognise their condition but that it was severe enough in each case to cause the man problems with gaining to maintaining employment – Others were not usually given financial help. In addition, the figure, of course does not count the men whose conditions went unreported or undiagnosed, or who developed neurosis died during the conflict

                                                               *******

June dawned sunny and bright, bringing with it the Whitsun celebrations that cheered the spirits of towns and villages around the country. On the evening of the Thursday 3rd, Rivers dismissed the college staff attending him and settled down to study an application for a scholarship to study Anthropology in the next Easter term. No one, perhaps not even the doctor himself, realised he was seriously ill. By the time he was found early the next morning, he was in agony, suffering from a strangulated hernia, with the affected area becoming cut off from his bloodflow. Despite being rushed to hospital, surgeons were unable to save him and he died just before nine am in Evelyn Convalescent Nursing Home, Cambridge. Found with him was a document bearing his signature. It was the application, approved whilst he was dying. The man who had already done so much for others had summoned his resources for one final act of compassion.

 

The Evelyn Nursing Home, Cambridge, 1922

 

 

* A promise made by David Lloyd George, Prime Minister during the Great War 1914-18
** For the entire report and a much more thorough examination of proceedings, please see specialist texts, for example  http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Report_of_the_War_Office_Committee_of_En.html?id=O5_XdP-VSZsC&redir_esc=y

Official statistics for men still receiving pensions in 1938 for other injuries include–

Men with :
One or both legs missing
8,000
”           ”         ”           ”    arms “-
3,600
”            ”       ”           more limbs withered or disabled due to War service
90,000
Total blindness
2,000
Partial blindness
8,000
Permanent deafness
11,000
Severe head injury
15,000
Inoperable hernia
20,000
Bronchitis or T.B. due to gas
41,000
Incapacitation by severe frostbite
2,200
Heart disease due to War service
38,000
Crippled by rheumatism due to War service
28,000
Incapacitated by other due to War service
32,000
Epileptic due to War service
2,800