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Social Class and Social Observation in Edwardian England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

R. I. McKibbin
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Extract

In 1887 Charles Booth addressed the Royal Statistical Society on the condition and occupations of the inhabitants of the Tower Hamlets, after which Leone Levi, a well-known statistician of the hard school, posed a testing question:

‘Who was a poor man? … The author [Andrew Mearns, writer of The Bitter Cry of Outcast London] had not mentioned the causes of poverty … His own impression was that poverty proper in the district which had been described was more frequently produced by vice, extravagance and waste, or by unfitness for work, the result in many cases of immoral habits, than by real want of employment or low wages.’

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 28 , December 1978 , pp. 175 - 199
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1978

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References

1 Booth, C., ‘The Inhabitants of Tower Hamlets (School Board Division), their Condition and Occupations’, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 1, pt. II (1887), p. 394Google Scholar.

2 Hennock, E. P., ‘Poverty and Social Theory in England: the Experience of the 1880s’, Social History, i (1976), p. 83Google Scholar.

3 Ibid., p. 83.

4 Rowntree, B. S., ‘Poverty: A Study of Town Life (London, 1901), pp. 32–118Google Scholar.

5 Vorspan, Rachel, ‘Vagrancy and the New Poor Law in late-Victorian and Edwardian England’, Eng. Hist. Rev., xcii (1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 See, for example, Money, L. Chiozza, Riches and Poverty (London, 1905)Google Scholar; Masterman, C. F. G., The Condition of England (London, 1909)Google Scholar.

7 Reeves, M. S. Pember, Round about a Pound a Week (London, 1913)Google Scholar.

8 , T.S. and Simey, M. B., Charles Booth: Social Scientist (Oxford, 1960), pp. 111, 226, 248Google Scholar; Asa Briggs, Seebohm Rowntree: The Man and his Times (London, 1957), pp. 322–8Google Scholar.

9 See, particularly, Betting and Gambling: A National Evil ed. Rowntree, B. S. (London, 1905)Google Scholar, and Rowntree, B. S. and Lavers, G. R., English Life and Leisure (London, 1951)Google Scholar.

10 Branford, V., Interpretations and Forecasts (London, 1914)Google Scholar.

11 The standard history of the C.O.S. is Roof, M., A Hundred years of Family Welfare (London, 1972)Google Scholar. See also Moore, M. J., ‘Social Work and Social Welfare: The Organization of Philanthropic Resources in Britain, 1900–1914’, Journal of British Studies, xvi (1977)Google Scholar.

12 Walton, R. G., Women in Social Work (London, 1975), p. 113Google Scholar.

13 Bell, Lady Florence, At the Works (second edition, London, 1911), pp. 80–128Google Scholar.

14 ‘Economic Club’, Family Budgets: Being the Income and Expenses of Twenty-eight British Households, 1891–94 (London, 1894)Google Scholar.

15 Bosanquet, H., Rich and Poor (London, 1896), pp. 89–90Google Scholar.

16 Loane, M., Neighbours and Friends (London, 1910), p. 278Google Scholar.

17 Bell, , At the Works, p. 117Google Scholar.

18 Ibid., pp. 341–76.

19 Bosanquet, H., ‘Wages and Housekeeping’ in Methods of Social Advance, ed. Loch, C. S. (London, 1904), p. 133Google Scholar.

20 Booth's, comments were relegated to appendices in the last volume of his Life and Labour of the People in London (revised edition, London, 1902–1908), vol. xviiGoogle Scholar.

21 Bosanquet, H., The Standard of Life (London, 1906), p. 68Google Scholar.

22 See below p. 199.

23 Loane, , Neighbours and Friends, pp. 278–9Google Scholar.

24 Ibid. p. 280.

25 Bell, Lady F., Landmarks (London, 1929), pp. 24–5Google Scholar.

26 Bosanquet, , Standard of Life, p. 80Google Scholar.

27 Bosanquet, , ‘Methods of Social Advance’, p. 143Google Scholar.

28 Bullen, F. T., Confessions of a Tradesman (London, 1908)Google Scholar.

29 Bosanquet, , ‘Methods of Social Advance’, p. 136Google Scholar.

30 Bosanquet, , Rich and Poor, p. 40Google Scholar.

31 Bosanquet, , Standard of Life, pp. 168–9Google Scholar.

32 Bosanquet, H., The Strength of the People (second edition, London, 1903), p. 51Google Scholar; Bell, , At the Works, p. 196Google Scholar; Loane, M., From Their Own Pont of View (London, 1908), pp. 104–05Google Scholar.

33 Loane, M., The Common Growth (London, 1911), p. 116Google Scholar.

34 Loane, , From Their Own Point of View, pp. 67–8Google Scholar.

35 Bosanquet, , Rich and Poor, p. 92Google Scholar; Bell, , At the Works, p. 135Google Scholar; Loane, M., An Englishman's Castle (London, 1909), pp. 32–3Google Scholar.

36 Bosanquet, , Standard of Life, pp. 152–6Google Scholar.

37 An illustration of this, see MissLoane's, own manual, Simple Sanitation: The Practical Application of the Laws of Health to Small Dwellings (London, n.d.)Google Scholar, passim.

38 Bosanquet, , Rich and Poor, pp. 4–5Google Scholar.

39 Bosanquet, , Strength of the People, p. 313Google Scholar.

40 Roof, , A Hundred Years of Family Welfare, p. 255Google Scholar.

41 Bell, , At the Works, pp. 175–6Google Scholar.

42 Ibid., p. 289.

43 Loane, M., The Next Street But One (London, 1907), p. 79Google Scholar.

44 Loane, , From Their Point of View, p. 64Google Scholar.

45 Loane, , The Common Growth, p. 144Google Scholar.

46 Loane, M., Outlines of Routine in District Nursing (london, 1905), p. 141Google Scholar.

47 Ibid., p. 145.

48 Loane, , The Common Growth, p. 271Google Scholar.

49 Ibid., p. 5.

50 See below p. 190.

51 Loane, , From Their Point of View, p. 231Google Scholar.

52 Bosanquet, , Rich and Poor, pp. 150–1Google Scholar.

53 Loane, M., The Queen's Poor (London, 1905), p. 120Google Scholar.

54 Loane, M., The Common Growth, p. 233Google Scholar.

55 Bell, , Landmarks, p. 68Google Scholar.

56 Loane, , The Next Street But One, p. 46Google Scholar.

57 Loane, , The Common Growth, pp. 221–2Google Scholar.

58 Loane, , From Their Point of View, p. 83Google Scholar.

59 Ibid., p. 82.

60 Ibid., p. 85.

61 Loane, , An Englishmans' Castle, pp. 201–02Google Scholar.

62 Loane, , The Queen's Poor, p. 63Google Scholar.

63 Loane, , An Englishman's Castle, p. 121Google Scholar.

64 Loane, , Outlines of Routine in District Nursing, p. 146Google Scholar.

65 Bell, , Landmarks, pp. 30–1Google Scholar.

66 Bell, , At the Works, pp. 205–08Google Scholar.

67 Loane, , The Next Street But One, pp. 37–8Google Scholar.

68 Loane, , The Common Growth, pp. 151–2Google Scholar.

69 I have discussed this at greater length in ‘Working-Class Gambling in Britain, 1880–1939’, an article forthcoming in Past and Present.

70 Loane, , From Their Point of View, p. 240Google Scholar.

71 See Horn, P., The Rise and Fall of the Victorian Servant (Dublin, 1975), especially pp. 109–32Google Scholar; Thompson, Flora, Lark Rise to Candleford (World's Classics edition, London, 1954), pp. 180–2Google Scholar.

72 Loane, , An Englishman's Castle, pp. 142–3Google Scholar.

73 Loane, , The Next Street But One, p. 11Google Scholar. But she thought literacy would soon be ‘indispensable’.

74 Loane, , The Common Growth, pp. 250–1Google Scholar.

75 Bosanquet, , Rich and Poor, p. 50Google Scholar.

76 Sims, G., How the Poor Live and Horrible London (London, 1889), pp. 116–17Google Scholar.

77 Bosanquet, , Rich and Poor, p. 37Google Scholar; Bell, , At the Works, p. 319Google Scholar.

78 Bosanquet, , Standard of Life, p. 240Google Scholar; Loane, , Simple Sanitation, pp. 16–20Google Scholar. For the difficulty of enforcing the legislation, see Burnett, J., Plenty and Want (London, 1966), pp. 137–66Google Scholar.

79 Loane, , An Englishman's Castle, pp. 262–3Google Scholar; also Bosanquet, , Rich and Poor, pp. 46–54Google Scholar.

80 See below pp. 196–7.

81 Mrs Bosanquet denied the truth of Rowntree's argument that there was ‘structural’ poverty in York, the result of low wages alone and existing independently of all ‘moral’ influences. She contended (The Poverty Line (London, 1903)Google Scholar and letters to The Times, 16 September and 4 October 1902) that all poverty was ‘preventable’, and that, in any case, it was impossible, given the nature of the working-class family and economy, to calculate wage-rates in the way that Rown-tree had done. She also asserted that York was not a representative town since it contained large numbers of ecclesiastical charities ‘with all the endowments and abuses incidental to cathedral cities’. She was clearly trying to have it both ways, as well as committing herself to propositions she did not actually hold, and Rowntree had little trouble in disposing of her objections (Rowntree, B. S., The ‘Poverty Line’: A Reply (London, 1903), pp. 13, 20–8Google Scholar; also Briggs, , Seebohm Rowntree, pp. 21, 34–5Google Scholar). There was, however, a certain simple-mindedness in Rowntree's use of evidence, and Mrs Bosanquet's recklessness deprived her argument of some force. More recent work gives her a limited support: see, Oddy, D. J., ‘Working Class Budgets in Late Nineteenth-Century England’, Economic History Review, second series xxiii (1970), 322Google Scholar; Roberts, Elizabeth, ‘Working Class Standards of Living in Barrow and Lancaster, 1890–1914’, Economic History Review, second series xxx (1977), 319Google Scholar.

82 Vorspan, , ‘Vagrancy and the New Poor Law in late-Victorian and Edwardian England’, 80–1Google Scholar.

83 See, for example, Hilton, J., Rich Man, Poor Man (London, 1944)Google Scholar.

84 For an example of Sherwell's work, see Sherwell, A., Life in West London (London, 1897)Google Scholarand Rowntree, J. and Sherwell, A., The Temperance Problem and Social Reform (London, 1899)Google Scholar. These represent only a fraction of his writing—usually with Joseph Rowntree—on temperance and social policy.

85 Times Literary Supplement, 9 April 1907.

86 Bell, , At the Works, pp. 9–10Google Scholar.