John Klauber (1917–1981)

The untimely death of John Klauber on 11 August 1981 at the age of 64 is a severe blow to psychoanalysis—not only to the British Psychoanalytical Society whose current President he was, but also to many psychoanalytical societies and individuals in Europe (on both sides of the Iron Curtain) and in America. This is the third time in its history that the British Society has suffered the death of a President in office, and the only time that this has happened so early in a presidential career; it was expected that he would hold the office for a further two years. It is also the first time that someone appointed to the post of Freud Memorial Visiting Professor of Psychoanalysis at University College London has died before being able to take up his appointment. He had already written his inaugural Public Lecture and had completed most of the other lectures he had planned to deliver. Fortunately he had seen published shortly before his death the volume of his selected papers entitled Difficulties in the Analytic Encounter (Jason Aronson, 1981).

For his many friends the loss is a very personal one, for he was an extremely well-loved, friendly and hospitable man; his warm, lively and stimulating presence will be sorely missed, and of course he will be missed above all by his devoted wife, Ruth, whose loving help and support were invaluable to him, and by his two gifted daughters, Jane and Susie.

John Klauber was born in Hampstead on 1 January 1917 of a distinguished Hungarian Jewish family, his parents having moved to London some time previously. Thus he was, although a Londoner born, by no means an ordinary cockney. He received his school education at St. Paul's School, where his main interest was in classics rather than history; but he was advised that his best chance of a scholarship was in the latter subject, and he did extremely well, proceeding to Christ Church Oxford as a history scholar. Whilst still at St. Paul's he had been fascinated by the writings of Jung;