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Social Service and Social Legislation in Edwardian England: The Beginning of a New Role for Philanthropy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Michael J. Moore
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Extract

Many historians have written about the impressive social achievement of the last Liberal Government which sat in Britain from 1905 to 1916. Prominent among them is Bentley Gilbert whose Evolution of National Insurance in Great Britain importantly expands. Maurice Bruce's excellent survey The Coming of the Welfare State. Much of this work has emphasized the political maneuverings for legislation which increased the economic security of millions of British citizens. This paper takes a different, supplementary approach. It is an attempt to understand the impact of the Liberals' social reform program on a part of the philanthropic community which had asssumed an important role in meeting the problems of poverty. The focus is on the provisions for social welfare made by voluntary and statutory agencies in order to clarify the beginnings of their successful partnership which today operates in the Welfare State. David Owen, in his monumental study of English philanthropy, has rightly characterized the modern role for voluntary agencies as “Junior Partner(s) in the Welfare Firm,” but he has wrongly stated that this role was recognized only after the First World War. The voluntary-statutory partnership in social welfare was formed during the Liberals' legislative revolution from 1906 to 1911: voluntarists who were affected by it understood its signficance for their work.

The welfare measures of the post-Second World War Labour Government gave final recognition to the fact that in Britain social development was no longer to be the by-product of economic development, and that the State must plan comprehensively to meet social needs rather than filling in the gaps left by private effort. In a very real sense the proposals of the Fabians, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, given shape in this new age by a Fabian disciple, William Beveridge, became the foundation of British policy. But the social legislation enacted by the Labour Government was implanted in ground haphazardly prepared by previous measures which provided for specific needs, but often with little reference to related questions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , Spring 1971 , pp. 33 - 43
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1971

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References

NOTES

1 Gilbert, Bentley B., The Evolution of National Insurance in Great Britain: The Origins of the Welfare State (London, 1966Google Scholar); Bruce, Maurice, The Coming of the Welfare State, 4th ed. (London, 1968)Google Scholar.

2 The study of this relationship was begun by British social worker and educator Elizabeth Macadam. See her The New Philanthropy: A Study of the Relations Between the Statutory and Voluntary Social Services (London, 1934)Google Scholar. Miss Macadam was primarily interested in its operation in the nineteen-thirties, but she believed its origins to be in the years prior to the First World War (pp. 17-18). More specific is Rooff, Madeline who argues in her Voluntary Societies and Social Policy (London, 1957)Google Scholar, that the beginning of this partnership lay in the attempts to meet the crises of the First World War. Owen's, David later date is based on when he believed voluntarists preceived their changed status, English Philanthropy 1660-1960 (Cambridge, Mass., 1964), pp. 525, 527CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The evidence shows, however, that voluntary workers understood that a revolution in their responsibilities had been created by the Liberals' reform program — especially by the National Insurance Act of 1911. An early, instructive article to be consulted on this problem is Davison, R. C., “The Voluntary Worker and the State,” Economic Review, XXII (July, 1912), pp. 264–73Google Scholar. The position of the Charity Organization Society can be followed in these years in its own journal, the Charity Organisation Review. The editorial comments were primarily those of Charles Loch, its General Secretary, but they show clearly that the leaders of the C.O.S. were well aware of their new role.

3 20 November 1869, Parliamentary Papers (House of Lords), XXX, C. 123, 1870Google Scholar, “Twenty-Second Annual Report of the Poor Law Board,” p. 9.

4 This was a primary concern of the Family Welfare Association's Centenary Conference in 1969. See especially the speeches by Lord Redcliffe-Maud, “Non-Statutory Organisations in the Social Field in the 1970's,” and Roger Wilson, “The Outcome: Principles and Blue Prints,” both available in typescript by special request to the Family Welfare Association.

5 Although today the ability to pioneer new services is not as unique a characteristic of voluntary as opposed to statutory action, it still obtains. See Wilson, “Outcome.” For a fuller discussion of the respective merits of these two approaches to social needs see Mess, Henry A., “The Place of Voluntary Service in the Life of the Nation,” in Mess, H.A.et al., Voluntary Social Services Since 1918 (London, 1947), pp. 204–13Google Scholar; Carter, Eyre, “The Partnership Between the Statutory and Voluntary Services in Postwar Britain,” The Social Service Review, XXIII (June, 1949) pp. 158–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rooff, , Voluntary Societies, pp. 276ff.Google Scholar; Owen, , English Philanthropy, pp. 533ff.Google Scholar

6 Wilson, “Outcome.”

7 Quoted in Gilbert, , National Insurance, pp. 249–50Google Scholar.

8 Churchill to Asquith, 29 December 1908, quoted in ibid., p. 252.

9 Parliamentary Papers (House of Lords), LXXIX, Cd. 5608, 1910Google Scholar, “Minutes of Evidence,” Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and the Relief of Distress, p. 979.

10 Parliamentary Papers (House of Lords), LXVII, Cd. 4499, 1909Google Scholar, “Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and the Relief of Distress,” p. 523.

11 Ibid., p. 520.

12 Carter, C. A., “Unemployment,” Fifth Report of the National Association of Guilds of Help, 1912, p. 76Google Scholar; Break Up the Poor Law and Abolish the Workhouse: Being Part I of the Minority Report of the Poor Law Commission (London, 1909), pp. 547–48Google Scholar.

13 Ibid., pp. 547ff.; Sidney, and Webb, Beatrice, The Prevention of Destitution, (London, 1911), pp. 240ff.Google Scholar

14 Annual Report of the Hampstead Council of Social Welfare, 1917, p. 36Google Scholar.

15 Sidney, and Webb, Beatrice, English Poor Law History, Part II: The Last Hundred Years (New York, 1929/1963), pp. 528ff.Google Scholar

16 Parliamentary Papers (House of Lords), XXX, Cd. 1507, 1903Google Scholar, “Report of the Royal Commission on Physical Training (Scotland),” p. 30.

17 Bulkley, Margaret E., The Feeding of School Children (London, 1914), p. 25Google Scholar.

18 The appeal was led by Lords Avebury, Rosebery, Rothschild, and Arthur Balfour. It brought £12,000 which was added to the £10,000 raised independently by feeding charities. The Times, 21 December 1907, p. 8; Annual Report of the London County Council, IV, 1910, p. 34Google Scholar.

19 In the year 1905-06, 27,159 children had been fed 72,714 meals at 164 Council schools; in 1907-08, 37,979 children received 143,962 meals at 531 schools. Ibid., p. 38.

20 Ibid., p. 34.

21 One volunteer was so impressed by these schemes that she believed them to be the most important arena for future social work. Her conclusions had a very wide acceptance in the social work community. Moser, Florence, “The Relation of Guilds of Help to Public Authorities,” Report of the Second National Conference on Guilds of Help, 1909, p. 12Google Scholar.

22 Davies, Maud F., School Care Committees: A Guide to Their Work (London, 1909)Google Scholar; Frere, Margaret, Children's Care Committees: How to Work Them In the Public Elementary Schools (London, 1909)Google Scholar.

23 Parliamentary Papers (House of Lords), LXXVII, Cd. 5925, 1911Google Scholar, “Report of the Chief Medical Officer to the Board of Education for 1910,” p. 10.

24 London County Council, Education Committee, Handbook Containing General Information with Reference to the Work in Connection with the Children's Care (Central) Sub-Committee, No. 1332, 1910Google Scholar.

25 If not well placed boys faced changing jobs nearly a dozen times a year. See Greenwood, Arthur, Juvenile Labour Exchanges and After-Care (London, 1911), p. 8Google Scholar.

26 Quoted in King, O. Bolton, The Employment and Welfare of Juveniles: A Handbook for those Interested in Choice of Employment and After-Care (London, 1925), p. 4Google Scholar.

27 Annual Report of the London County Council, IV, 1911, p. 37Google Scholar.

28 See Iselin, Henry, “The Story of a Children's Care Committee,” Economic Review, XXII (January, 1912), pp. 42–46Google Scholar; Bulkley, , Feeding of School Children, pp. 147–54Google Scholar.