My father, Bill Jordan, was a university lecturer and author whose work shaped the training and professional development of social workers.
Bill, who has died aged 85, taught sociology and social policy at the universities of Exeter, Huddersfield and Plymouth, and wrote more than 30 books on subjects such as social work practice, social policy, migration and political and economic theory, many of which have been translated into various languages.
He was also one of the founding members in 1986 of the Basic Income Earth Network, a body that campaigns for all citizens around the world to regularly receive a set, unconditional cash payment from their government, regardless of their employment status or wealth. Although no country has implemented such a scheme, some have introduced pilots.
Born in Dublin, Bill was the eldest of the four children of Rose (nee Gywnn), a teacher, and Radford, a solicitor. He spent his first five years in Ireland before going to South Africa, his father’s homeland. In 1955, after his parents’ divorce, he moved to England with his mother and siblings to Shaftesbury, Dorset, going on from Shaftesbury grammar school to study philosophy, politics and economics at Christ Church, Oxford (1959-62), where he gained a first-class degree.
Bill worked initially as a prison officer at Ley Hill, Gloucestershire, moved to a probation service job in Devon and gained a social work qualification at Exeter University, after which he was a probation officer in Devon (1965-74). During this period he also wrote his first book, Client-Worker Transactions (1970). He was then a social worker for Devon county council from 1975 to 1985.
Having also worked as a part-time lecturer in social policy at Exeter University from 1969 onwards, Bill eventually moved out of frontline work to become a lecturer at Huddersfield University in 1991, rising to be professor of social policy until 2007. He was also appointed professor of social policy at Exeter (1998-2004) and at Plymouth University (from 2004 until his death).
In addition he was a visiting professor at the universities of Amsterdam, Aalborg, Bremen, Bratislava, Budapest, Cologne and Prague, and had a European professorship of social policy at Comenius University in Bratislava, a post funded by the European Union.
In his spare time Bill was a talented cricketer, and played in the Minor Counties Championship as a bowler for Devon (1969-71). He also enjoyed cross-country running well into in his 60s, when he won the Great West run for his age group, and competed regularly in the annual Whimple Village Day run in east Devon.
His marriage in 1961 to Jane Laws, a secretary, ended in divorce. His second wife, Jean Packman, a researcher, whom he married in 1982, died in 2016. He is survived by three children from his first marriage, Tom, Henry and me, and six grandchildren. Another son from his first marriage, Joe, died in 2007.
