How successful were the Liberal Reforms of 1906-1914?

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Vicky Stanforth-Green.                                                        October 14, 2001

How successful were the Liberal Reforms of 1906-1914?

At the General election of 1906, the Liberal Party, led by Henry Campbell-Bannerman won a landslide victory over the Conservatives. They won 377 seats, giving them an enormous majority of 84 over all other parties combined. Henry Campbell-Bannerman was the first Liberal Prime Minister for 20 years, and then following his reign was Herbert Asquith, who came into power in 1908. Asquith appointed two radical ministers - Winston Churchill (Chancellor of the Exchequer) and Lloyd George (Board of Trade). These characters were very influential in the idea of “New Liberalism” which was totally committed to radical, social reforms. This is exactly what the government tried to enforce between 1906-1914 and the “Lib Labs” (radical Liberals) passed several reforms to try to liberalise Britain from the previous Conservative rule.        

The huge scale of the Liberal party's victory in the 1906 general election guaranteed many new faces among the ranks of Liberal MPs, in favour of change in the field of social welfare. Between the years 1906 and 1914, the Liberals took steps to improve the health standards and the living and working conditions of the lower class. The main areas of people new legislation was targeted on was the working class under risk of poverty due to sickness or unemployment, their children and old age pensioners. In 1906, the Liberals passed the Trades dispute Act this reversed the Taff Vale Dispute of 1901, thus protecting union funds from claims for damages arising from strikes.

The government introduced the Education Act in 1906. This meant that local education authorities were providing school meals for destitute children by levying an additional rate of halfpenny in the pound. Although the Act was seen as progressive, the fact that it was not made compulsory argues if it was effective enough. By 1911, less than a third of all education authorities were using rates to support school meal provision and it had taken until 1914 for the Board of Education to make such provision compulsory.

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Meanwhile, in 1907, the Education Act made medical inspections for children compulsory. Under this Act, the Board of Education was able to specify that at least three inspections must take place during a child's school years. This was introduced in order to reduce the outbreaks of disease, which were very frequent at the time. Although this step helped improve national health levels in children, there were no such measures introduced after school life. The fact that there was no National Health Service introduced shows that although the Liberals attempted to improve the welfare of children, they did not improve the ...

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