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Dear Sir,
Joseph Aguayo's historical article in the Journal of December 1997 interested me, particularly his attempt to understand Ernest Jones's motives in encouraging Melanie Klein to settle in London. I have long believed that one of his aims was to have her analyse one or more of his children. But Aguayo suggests that he was concerned with the succession to Sigmund Freud: should there not be a British rival to Anna Freud, and should not London replace Vienna?
My own experience tends to support this idea. When I came to London at the end of 1931, after a year spent in Vienna as a holder of an Edinburgh University travelling scholarship, I had an initial interview with Ernest Jones with a view to continuing my psychoanalytic training in London. One of Jones's first questions was ‘Why did you choose Vienna instead of London?’ I had the good sense to suppress what my natural response would have been: ‘Because I thought Vienna was the Mecca of psychoanalysis’. Instead I said: ‘London would not have been regarded as travelling’. Now I realise that what Jones meant was: ‘How could you not know that London is superior to Vienna?’.
Yours sincerely
William Gillespie
4 Eton Villas
London NW3 4SX
February 1998