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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2008
War, it has been asserted, stimulates the development of public welfare. Increased physical and social mobility, fostered by wartime conditions, exposes social inequalities and injustices, gives rise to demands for redress and thereby encourages government to introduce social reforms. This argument implies that, in order to maintain national solidarity in the face of a common enemy, central government becomes more sensitive to external political demands and thereby more – rather than less – responsive to democratic pressure. Certainly, during the First World War, it is possible to see increased state involvement in a number of initiatives designed to effect social improvement. This article examines one of them. It aims to analyse the role of central government in stimulating the development of private industrial welfare in Britain during this period. However, as will be shown below, the growth of industrial welfare – especially in the latter part of the war – was not designed to further industrial democracy. Rather,the form it took implicitly placed new constraints on the right of organised labour to demand improvements in working conditions. Although outwardly the industrial welfare movement sponsored by government seemed to win benefits for the working man, the use of scientific method to legitimate these improvements did not imply an increase in the power of organised labour to determine working conditions.
1 Titmuss, R. M., “War and Social Policy”, in Essays on “The Welfare State”, 3rd ed. (London, 1976).Google Scholar
2 A guide to the literature is provided in Hay, J. R., The Origins of the Liberal Welfare Reforms (London, 1975).Google Scholar
3 See Woodroofe, K., “The Royal Commission on the Poor Laws, 1905–09”, in: International Review of Social History, XXII (1977), especially pp. 151–55.Google Scholar
4 Such studies include Pribićević, B., The First Shop Stewards' Movement and Workers' Control (Oxford, 1959)Google Scholar; Hinton, J., The First Shop Stewards' Movement (London, 1973)Google Scholar; Wrigley, C. J., Lloyd George and the Labour Movement (London, 1976)Google Scholar; Harrison, R., “The War Emergency Workers' National Committee”, in Essays in Labour History 1886–1923, ed. by Briggs, A. and Saville, J. (London, 1971)Google Scholar; Adams, R. J. Q., Arms and the Wizard: Lloyd George and the Ministry of Munitions (Harvard, 1978).Google Scholar
5 Whiteside, N., “Welfare Insurance and Casual Labour”, in: Economic History Review, Second Series, XXXII (1979).Google Scholar
6 Melling, J., “Industrial Strife and Business Welfare Philosophy”, in: Business History, XXI (1979).Google Scholar
7 Briggs, A., Social Thought and Social Action: A Study of the Work of Seebohm Rowntree 1871–1954 (London, 1961), p. 103.Google Scholar This describes the use of “social helpers” in the Rowntree cocoa works at York.
8 Melling, “Industrial Strife and Business Welfare Philosophy”, loc. cit., p. 176.
9 Kozak, M., “Women Munition Workers in the First World War” (unpublished Ph. D. thesis Hull, 1976).Google Scholar
10 Melling, “Industrial Strife and Business Welfare Philosophy”; also id., “‘Non-Commissioned Officers’: British employers and their supervisory workers”, in: Social History, V (1980).Google Scholar
11 Beveridge, W. H., Power and Influence (London, 1953), pp. 123–25Google Scholar; Harris, J., William Beveridge (Oxford, 1977), pp. 204–05.Google Scholar
12 From that date, hours of work were nominally limited to 67½ hours per week; the prevalence of overtime and widespread use of shift systems made such regulations inoperable.
13 Rubin, G. R., “The Origins of Industrial Tribunals”, in: Industrial Law Journal, VI (1977), p. 162.Google Scholar
14 Beveridge, Power and Influence, op. cit., pp. 124, 128–29. Rowntree's work as director of the Welfare Department is described in Briggs, Social Thought and Social Action, op. cit., ch. V.
15 The operation of the leaving-certificate system is described in Hinton, The First Shop Stewards' Movement, op. cit., pp. 35–37.
16 Health of Munition Workers ' Committee, Final Report [Cd 9065] (1918), p. 3. This committee included representatives from the Board of Education, Factory Inspectorate and the Medical Research Committee as well as the Ministry of Munitions.
17 Health of Munition Workers' Committee, Conclusions (12 1918), p. 3, § III (vii).Google Scholar Confidential print in the Ministry of Reconstruction Papers 1/805, Public Record Office.
18 Correspondence on compensation for the victims of various industrial diseases is in Treasury Papers 1/12059/21319/1917, PRO, whence is derived information in this paragraph.
19 Ibid., 24 August 1916.
20 Meta Zimmeck, editor at the Public Record Office, has examined compensation case-files, and informs me that, in practice, the implementation of policy was less generous than these concessions seem to suggest.
21 Under the Police, Factories, etc. (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1916.
22 For further detail, see Rose, M. E., “The Success of Social Reform? The Central Control Board (Liquor Traffic) 1915–21”, in: War and Society, ed. by Foot, M. R. D. (London, 1973).Google Scholar
23 The HMWC eventually produced twenty published reports, besides its Final Report, op. cit. Documentation on the work of the committee is to be found in Ministry of Munitions Papers 4/6338, PRO.
24 History of the Ministry of Munitions, V (London, 1920), P III, pp. 21–22.Google Scholar
25 A copy of the Handbook for Welfare Supervisors and Apprentice Masters is in the Ministry of Munitions Papers 4/6338.
26 Infant and maternal welfare excited much official concern during the war. See Winter, J. M., “The Effects of the First World War on Civilian Health in Britain”, in: Economic History Review, Second Series, XXX (1977)Google Scholar, and Davin, Anna, “Imperialism and Motherhood”, in: History Workshop, No 5 (1978).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
27 Medical Research Committee, Memorandum on Hours of Work in Relation to Output and Health (02 1918), p. 5Google Scholar, Ministry of Reconstruction Papers 1/803.
28 History of the Ministry of Munitions, loc. cit., pp. 37, 42.
29 By the end of the war, the Ministry had received Treasury sanction for the building of 152 hostel blocks and over 8000 houses and cottages (figures for August 1919), see Ministry of Munitions Papers 4/6772.
30 Briggs, , Social Thought and Social Action, pp. 120–26.Google Scholar
31 Rowntree's successor, Dr Collis, had been medical advisor to the Home Office factory inspectorate. Orders concerning heating, protective clothing, canteens, cloakrooms, etc., were issued under the Act cited in note 21. The expansion of the department's responsibilities caused it to change its name to the Welfare and Health Department early in 1917.
32 History of the Ministry of Munitions, loc. cit., p. 169.
33 Ibid, pp. 176–77.
34 The Ministry's handling of contracts and keeping of accounts was chaotic and, in spite of persistent pressure to rationalise its procedure, little improvement was made by the end of the war. The extent of this mismanagement of public funds was first revealed in the Comptroller and Auditor General's Appropriation Account for 1916–17, Treasury Papers 172/831.
35 Collis, Memorandum to MrPiggott, , “Should the Ministry of Supply have a Welfare and Health Department?” (01 1919), pp. 1–2Google Scholar, Ministry of Munitions Papers 4/6338. After the Armistice, the future of the Ministry as a peacetime Ministry of Supply was under serious consideration.
36 These included one on techniques in scientific management, Ministry of Reconstruction Papers 1/882, and one on the employment and training of juveniles, Ministry of Reconstruction Papers 1/880.
37 See Handbook for Welfare Supervisors and Apprentice Masters, op. cit., p. 5.
38 Collis, , Memorandum to Mr Piggott, p. 8.Google Scholar
39 In this respect they echoed demands made before the war by the Home Office factory inspectorate. See, for example, the Lady Factory Inspector7ap;s Report in Annual Report of the Chief Factory Inspector for 1913 [Parliamentary Papers, 1914, XXIX]. Asa Briggs also mentions the early co-operation between Rowntree and the women's organiser MacArthur, Mary, Social Thought and Social Action, p. 121.Google Scholar
40 See early chapters in Lowe, R., “The Demand for a Ministry of Labour, its Establishment and Initial Role” (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, London School of Economics, 1975).Google Scholar
41 TUC, Annual Report 1917, pp. 114–18.Google Scholar
42 History of the Ministry of Munitions, loc. cit., p. 169.
43 Kozak, “Women Munition Workers”, op. cit., ch. VII.
44 See the autobiography of the Ministry's organising officer for juvenile welfare, Reverend (later Sir Robert) Hyde, , Industry Was My Parish (1968), pp. 82–83.Google Scholar
45 Commission of Inquiry into Working Class Unrest: Report for the South East Area [PP, 1917–1918, XIV], pp. 3–5.Google Scholar
46 Ministry of Munitions Papers 5/93/346/131 and 133.
47 History of the Ministry of Munitions, loc. cit., p. 47.
48 Ibid., pp. 47–49, and Hyde, Industry Was My Parish, op. cit., pp. 65–66.
49 Kozak, , “Women Munition Workers”, pp. 277–82.Google Scholar
50 History of the Ministry of Munitions, loc. cit., p. 49.
51 Ibid.
52 The National Health Insurance Commission created the committee in the spring of 1916; extra public money was made available for medical research, see Treasury Papers 1/11915/7373/16.
53 Memorandum on Hours of Work, p. 1. See also note 27 and HMWC, “Causes of Fatigue in Munition Work”, Ministry of Munitions Papers 5/92/346/36.
54 Government acceptance of the 48-hour week was probably due less to the recommendations of the Medical Research Committee than to the need to keep in line with the International Labour Convention's agreement of 1919, and to respond to persistent pressure from organised labour for legislation on this point (the proposal originally came from the Provisional Joint Committee of the National Industrial Conference). However, restrictions on hours of work introduced in 1916 were justified by reference to American and British research into the effects of industrial fatigue. The point is that such research could be used to vindicate concessions made to organised labour on such questions, while simultaneously denying that workers' demands were, in themselves, legitimate.
55 Rubin, “The Origins of Industrial Tribunals”, loc. cit., p. 163.
56 The foundation and activities of the society are described in Hyde, Industry Was My Parish, ch. 8.
57 The Ministry of Labour'forts to arbitrate in the dispute are documented in Ministry of Labour Papers 2/741/T6402/1920, PRO.
58 Tawney, R. H., “The Abolition of Economic Controls, 1918–21 (1941)”, in History and Society, ed. by Winter, J. M. (London, 1978), pp. 154–55.Google Scholar For further examination of the withdrawal of state controls, see P. Barton Johnson, Land Fit for Heroes (1968), ch 10, 13 and 14. See also Hammond, M. B., British Labour Conditions and Legislation During the War (London, 1919), pp. 243–63.Google Scholar
59 See First and Second Reports of the Select Committee on National Expenditure, 1917, Treasury Papers 172/653, and the Auditor General's Appropriation Account for 1916–17. Treasury dissatisfaction with the Ministry's financial competence was still being voiced the following spring, see minute 18 April 1918, Treasury Papers 172/832.
60 Lowe, R., “The Ministry of Labour: A Graveyard of Social Reform?”, in: Public Administration, LII (1974).Google Scholar
61 The inequitable treatment of women – especially married women – under the unemployment-insurance scheme gave rise to a number of deputations of protest. For example, see report of the deputation from the National Union of General Workers (Women's Section), 18 July 1921, Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance Papers 7/54, PRO.
62 Ministry of Labour Papers 2/741/CS204/1920.
63 Lists of such publications appear on the covers of the Ministry of Labour Gazette by the end of the decade.
64 Beynon, H., Working for Ford (London, 1973).Google Scholar
65 Hinton, The First Shop Stewards' Movement, ch. 1.
66 See Titmuss, R. M., “Benefits in Kind”, in Income Distribution and Social Change (London, 1962).Google Scholar
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