"Did the Liberal Government of 1906-14 create the early Welfare State?"

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"Did the Liberal Government of 1906-14 create the early Welfare State?"

The Liberal government returned to office on 4th of December 1905 after a ten-year absence. In January 1906 the Liberals won the general election by a massive majority of 400 seats to the Conservative Party's 157 seats. From 1906 to the start of the First World War the Liberal government embarked on a numbers of social reforms that were to lay the foundations of a system under which the state (rather than the individual) would take responsibility for the welfare of its citizens. These reforms aimed to ease the plight of the poor and improve their standard of life.

Before the creation of the welfare state in the 20th Century the 'Poor Law' was the only form of aid that was offered to the poor. The 'Poor Law' consisted of a combination of out door relief and the workhouses. The living condition for those not in steady employment were harsh to say the least. The choices that many poor people were faced if they were unable to finds work was to, beg, steal, prostitution or starve to death. The latter may seem some-what extreme, but many people at this time would have rather starved themselves to death, rather that go into the workhouses. The workhouses were extremely harsh and deliberately striped away any dignity or self-respect of whose who were desperate enough to enter them. Those who did lost their right to vote.

The work of Charles Booth and Seebohm Rowntree was instrumental in illustrating the levels of poverty that existed in Britain prior to the creation of the welfare state. Booth was born in Liverpool, moved to London at the age of twenty-two to run the family ship-building business. He was deeply influenced by Auguste Comte's theory that scientific industrialists would eventually take over the social leadership from the church. Booth began his investigations into poverty in 1885. He questioned H.H. Hyndman's suggestion that 25% of the population of London were living in abject poverty. The results of Booth's investigations suggested that the situation was far worse then previously anticipated and that 35% of the population of London were living in abject poverty. Booth continued to carry out research and published books on the standard of life and the levels of poverty in London over a twelve-year period. He suggested that a social revolution could the one of the consequences the state may face if they continued to ignore the needs of the poor.

Other research into the extent of poverty was carried out in York by Seebohm Rowntree who had been inspired by the work of Charles Booth. Rowntree spent two years studying levels of poverty in York and the living conditions of its inhabitants. The results of Rowntree's study "Poverty, A Study of Town Life" was published in 1901. In this book Rowntree suggested that there were two distinct levels of poverty. He suggested that primary poverty occurs when a family lacked the income to provide the bare essentials that were required to maintain physical efficiency. Secondary poverty is when there is a sufficient amount of earning was coming in, but was wasted in some way or other, such as alcohol or gambling.
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Booth and Rowntree's research was deeply importance for two main reasons. Firstly, their research clearly showed that the levels of poverty that existed in Britain was far greater and more wide spread than previous estimated Secondly, both studies provided detailed quantitative evidence about the levels of poverty that people were experiencing not just in London or York, but in the length and breadth of Britain.

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