British Depth Study
- Created by: Cadence Dawn
- Created on: 14-01-17 17:28
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- Liberal Reforms
- Background of the 1890-1905
- all children had to go to school and eduation was free
- all male house owners had the right to vote in elections
- houses were connected to the sewer systems
- wages had risen and the average family was better off than it had been at the start of the century
- the poor were arranged into starving, homeless, honest poor, druggies and people in crime
- it was thought that 25% of people were living poverty
- Work of social reformers (Booth and Rowntree)
- most Victorians believed that the poor were responsible for their own poverty - 'laissez-fair'
- by the end of the 19th century people were staring to see the social and economis reasons of poverty
- Charles Booth
- born into a wealthy ship owning family and moved to London
- he refused to accept the statistics of 25% of the population were living in poverty
- set up a team of investigators and spent 17 years investigating the living conditions, income and spending of over 4000 people.
- the work was published between 1889 and 1903, called 'Life and Labour of the People of London'
- he found that nearly 31% of Londoners were living below the 'poverty line'
- 'poverty line' = didn't have money to but enough food, shelter and clothing
- he split the poor into 4 classes:
- Class A: lowest class- street sellers, criminals, and loafers. Live like savages with extreme hardship, represent 1.25% of London's population
- Class B: casual earnings- widows, deserted women and part-time labourers who are shiftless and helpless, represents 1.25% of London's population
- Class C: Occasional earnings- hit by trade depression, 8% of London's populatin
- Class D: low wages- less than 21 shillings a week, wages barley enough to stay alive
- Seebohm Rowntree
- belonged to a York biased chocolate factory
- interested in Booths findings he decided to see if it was the same in York
- he found that 28% of people in York were living in poverty
- he divided poverty into 2 types:
- Primary poverty: no matter how hard the family worked they would not have enough money for food, shelter and clothing - they had no chance
- Secondary Poverty: could just about afford food, cloths and shelter for themselves - living on the edge
- both showed that the poverty problem was not solved and that poverty usually wasn't the fault of the poor
- Charles Booth
- born into a wealthy ship owning family and moved to London
- he refused to accept the statistics of 25% of the population were living in poverty
- set up a team of investigators and spent 17 years investigating the living conditions, income and spending of over 4000 people.
- the work was published between 1889 and 1903, called 'Life and Labour of the People of London'
- he found that nearly 31% of Londoners were living below the 'poverty line'
- 'poverty line' = didn't have money to but enough food, shelter and clothing
- he split the poor into 4 classes:
- Class A: lowest class- street sellers, criminals, and loafers. Live like savages with extreme hardship, represent 1.25% of London's population
- Class B: casual earnings- widows, deserted women and part-time labourers who are shiftless and helpless, represents 1.25% of London's population
- Class C: Occasional earnings- hit by trade depression, 8% of London's populatin
- Class D: low wages- less than 21 shillings a week, wages barley enough to stay alive
- Charles Booth
- wrote a book called 'A study of Town life'
- Rowntree and Booths books were read by thousands of people
- Life for the poor at the beginning of the 20th century - charities/poor law
- Charities
- Provided help in the form of money, food and clothes
- by 1905 there were 700-800 in London
- some charities were set up for children e.g. Barnardo's made by DR.Barnardo in 1865
- The Poor Law, Workhuses
- the most dreaded and feared type of help
- workhouses provided food shelter for the poor but were very grim places; conditions were awful
- the usual form of relief, outside the workhouse, was payments in cash and goods.
- it was one thing to be poor but another to accept relief there was big shame and discrace attatched it
- like to admit defeat
- poor people lived in poor housing with seasonal jobs
- there was no government help if they were sick or unemployed
- they were expected to save when they had jobs although did not earn enough to do this
- Charities
- Why did poverty became such a political issue?
- thousands of people read Charles Booth's and Seebohm Rowntree's books- even Churchill who would be in the position to do something
- The Boer War in 1899. Young men volunteered to fight and thousands were rejected for being too unfit.
- as many as 2/3 of volunteers were turned down because of medical examinations
- the economies countries as America and Germany were highly successful due to a skilled and hardworking workforces
- it looked like the British workforce hadn't got the strength or stamina to compete
- in Germany reforms were made to help the poor
- competition from the conservative party
- in 1905 the conservatives introduced the Education act, which showed that they were trying to help the poor
- most likely to gain votes and this worried the Liberals
- competition from the Labour party which was formed in 1900 by socialist groupes
- they pledged to help workers get better living conditions
- wted a fairer distribution of wealth
- liberals worried this would make them loose votes
- many younger 'new liberals' like David Lloyd George and Winston Curchill actually wanted to help people
- Reforms for children
- Free school meals (1906)
- provided free school meals for children from the poorest families
- +ve by 1914 150,000 children we having them once ever day
- -ve as councils had to pay for it they often chose not to
- School medical Inspections (1907)
- doctors and nurses and gave free medical checks to kids and recommended treatment
- +ve childrens parents were told what their child needed
- -ve checks were free but treatment children went untreated
- Children's act, aka Children's Charter(1908)
- children became protected people, children homes were inspected and juvenile courts were made
- +ve parents could be punished for being cruel to their children and children in homes gained better care
- School clinics(1912)
- a network of clinics were set up providing free treatment for children
- +ve it meant kids could get the treatment that they had to pay for before
- -ve the standard varied depending on the council
- Free school meals (1906)
- Reforms for the sick and unemplyed
- the Labour Exchange act (1909)
- like a job centre
- +ve unemployed workers could go to labour exchange to get a job instead of tramping back and fourth from place to place
- the National Insurance Act Part 1 (1911)
- set up to aim to reduce poverty resulting from illness
- +ve in the beginning around 10 million men and 4 million women were covered, helped when they were ill and given free treatment
- -ve only workers were covered and they had to pay from their already low wages
- the National Insurance Part 2 (1912)
- aimed at preventing poverty from unemployment by insuring workers whilst they were jobless
- +ve at first covered 2.25 million workers most skilled men
- -ve restricted to seasonal trades so unemployment was common
- the Labour Exchange act (1909)
- Reform for the elderly
- the Pensions act (1908)
- gave weekly money to the elderly
- +ve kept some old people out of workhouses
- -ve funds were cut in 1909
- -ve only around 1/2 million people qualified. as they had to be over 70, earn less than £21 a year, been a British citizen for 20 years =, not been in prion 10 years before, and could prove they had tried to find work all their life.
- the rich were against this because they were taxed more for it
- the Pensions act (1908)
- Opposition to the reforms
- as the reforms had to be air for Lloyd George introduced the a budget in 1909 which taxed the rich and the landowners
- the house of Lords, full of rich land owners opposed the budget at first, people a 'lasses faire' attitude.
- people felt it was wrong for the state to encourage people to be lazy
- after the general election in in Jan 1910 which the liberals won the House of Lords had to agree with the budget
- effectiveness of the reforms
- the liberal reforms did not help everyone, nor did they intend to
- the 2 main reforms, pension and national insurance were both quite limated
- Historians views on the reforms
- disagree about the importance
- some see them as the beginning of the Welfare State
- others see it purely as economic biased move to improve the health of Britain's workforce
- disagree about the importance
- Background of the 1890-1905
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