chapter 2 social issues 1900-18

why were there debates about poverty and concerns for national efficiency and what was their significance in bringing about changes in social policy in 1900-14?

the work of individuals

• increase in the debates about poverty
• much greater awareness of it through the work of key individuals
• John Galt, Charles Booth, Seebohm Rowntree

John Galt

• Scottish Baptist
• draper who had moved to London to work in the textile industry
• involved collecting goods from the sweatshops of the poor East End
• witnessed the poverty and exploitation of workers
• led to his church establsihing the London City Mission to bring the gospel to the poor
• worked in Bethnal Green and Poplar
• collected for a relief fund by touring the churches round the country
• documented his work among the poorest workers
• accounts of the poverty were published by the Religious Tracts Society and in magazines like Mission
• took a series of photographs to illustrate his talks
• brought home the sheer degradation of urban life

Charles Booth

• successful Liverpool businessman
• produced the seventeen volume Life And Labour Of The People Of London between 1886 and 1903
• made use of existing information
• began by looking at census returns to prepare a report on where London charitable donations should be allocated
• claim by Marxist Henry Hyndman of the Social Democratic Federation that 25% of Londoners lived in poverty
• lived with poor families
• divided into poverty, industry and religous influences
• used information from school boards
• produced coloured maps to show poverty levels and reasons for this in different areas of london
• offered detailed and disturbing evidence of the severe problems of poverty in London
• showed that 35% of people in London lived in abject poverty
• discovered there were many coauses of poverty
• old age, illness, poor wages, irregular employment
• high levels of crime and prostitution- Jack the Ripper
• acted as member of an 1893 commission on the aged poor and the Poor Law
• urged the introduction of old age pensions

Seebohm Rowntree

• 1901- major survey of York
• Quaker
• member of the famous chocolate manufacturing family
• had a strong religious motivation to investigate and allieviate poverty
• led a team of researchers in York's poorer areas in 1897-98
• based on a study of 46,000 people- 2/3 of the city
• 1899- preliminary findings published in Poverty, A Study Of Town Life
• claimed that over 20,000 people were living in poverty
• defined by not having enough food, fuel and clothing to maintain basic health
• stressed that even if they were careful, they would not succeed in saving money because their income did not meet the basic needs for rent, food and clothing
• problem was that so much labour was casual and subject to fluctuating demand
• great deal of unemployment
• if workers were sick, then family income stopped and the only means of subsistence was applying to the workhouse
• particularly shocking for many- london was recognised as having poor areas, but this research indicated that poverty levels in a prosperous cathedral city like York seemed just as bad
• influential with the new Liberals
• …