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Many of the ideas now associated with localism were championed for decades by John Papworth. Although never a household name, he spent much of his long life arguing that human beings flourish best in communities small enough for people to know one another and to take responsibility for their own affairs.

His own life was remarkable. Born in London in 1921 and brought up in an orphanage, he experienced poverty, loneliness and hardship from an early age. He left school young, worked in a variety of jobs, served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, and later studied under the influence of the great social thinker R. H. Tawney. It was Tawney’s suspicion of excessive centralisation that helped shape Papworth’s outlook for the rest of his life.

Like many people of his generation, Papworth experimented with different political ideas. He spent time in both the Communist and Labour parties before becoming disillusioned with large institutions and bureaucracies. He increasingly concluded that the central problem of modern society was that decisions affecting ordinary people were being made by distant organisations which neither understood nor cared about local circumstances.

This led him towards a philosophy which today would be recognised as localism. He believed that power should be dispersed rather than concentrated. Villages, towns and neighbourhoods should have far greater control over their own futures. Local economies should be encouraged. Citizens should participate directly in civic life rather than merely vote every few years and leave everything to professional politicians.

Papworth was not simply a theorist. He edited journals, organised campaigns, advised political leaders, stood for Parliament and served as a parish councillor. He spent time in Zambia advising President Kenneth Kaunda during the country’s early years of independence. Throughout these varied roles he retained a consistent belief that healthy societies grow from the bottom up rather than from the top down.

His views have considerable relevance to contemporary localism. Many of the problems discussed today – the decline of local high streets, the concentration of economic power, dependence upon distant supply chains, the remoteness of government, and the weakening of community life – were concerns he identified many decades ago.

Papworth argued that larger organisations are not automatically more efficient or more humane. As institutions grow, they tend to become increasingly detached from the people they are supposed to serve. Decisions become standardised, local knowledge is lost, and citizens become passive recipients rather than active participants.

These arguments resonate strongly with the localist response to the shrinking economy. As energy becomes more expensive, public finances come under pressure, and national systems struggle to maintain previous levels of service, there is renewed interest in local food production, local enterprise, local care systems and stronger community networks. Papworth would probably have regarded these developments not as a retreat but as a rediscovery of human-scale living.

Perhaps the most important lesson from his life is that localism is not merely an economic programme or a political reform. For Papworth it was fundamentally about restoring human relationships. He believed that people are happiest and most responsible when they belong to communities where their actions matter and where they can directly influence the decisions affecting their daily lives.

In that sense, John Papworth was not simply an advocate of local government. He was an advocate of a society built upon human scale. As the limitations of large centralised systems become increasingly apparent, his ideas appear more relevant today than when he first advanced them over half a century ago.