History Revision for year 11. The Liberal Reforms, the Beveridge Reforms and the Welfare State.

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Revision for Year 11 Mocks

  1. The causes of the Liberal Reforms

  1. Charles Booth

In 1886 Charles Booth, a wealthy shipping line owner, began a survey of life in the East End of London. Over the next seventeen years he and his workers visited every house in every street and questioned the occupants. They found out how many people lived there, what work they did and how much they earned. His findings were published in ‘Life and Labour of the People in London’ in 1903. Charles Booth’s findings were astounding. He showed how many people lived in dreadful conditions, with families squashed into one room in damp tenement blocks.

  1. Seebohm Rowntree

At the same time as Charles Booth was carrying out his survey, Seebohm Rowntree was doing almost exactly the same in York. Rowntree was a member of the family that made chocolates and other sweets. In 1901 he published Poverty: ‘A Study of Town Life’, which was based on interviews with every family in York.

Although they worked in two different areas, Booth and Rowntree came to very similar conclusions. Both found that about 30% of the population lived in poverty. That meant that they had too little money to buy food and pay for other essentials each week. They reached that conclusion by estimating what was the least amount that a family needed to earn in order to survive. Both Booth and Rowntree worked out that a family of five, two adults and three children, would need about £1.08 each week.

Rowntree also worked out why each family did not earn enough to live on. He found that the most common reason was low pay, which accounted for 52% of the families. The other reasons were: unemployment, sickness, death of the main wage earner, large families and old age.

But despite the dramatic findings of Booth and Rowntree, the government did not act. It took something else to bring about changes.

  1. The Boer War

In 1899 Britain went to war with the Boers, the Dutch settlers in South Africa. Everybody expected the British Army to win easily and thousands of men volunteered to fight in the Army. Altogether about 450,000 men were recruited. For the first time, however, volunteers had to take a medical and many failed. They were simply too unhealthy to join the Army. Overall, about 37% of volunteers were rejected, but in some inner city areas of Britain, the figure was as high as 90%. The Government became worried that there would not be enough men fit enough to fight in a war in the future. In fact the figures were so bad that they were kept secret until after the war had ended in 1902.

This concern for the health of the people of Britain became known as National Efficiency. What would happen, people wondered, if Britain became involved in a war with a much more powerful enemy? Would it be possible to recruit a large enough army if so many people were unhealthy?

The main fear at the time was the growing power of Germany.

  1. Germany

From 1900 to 1914 it appeared that the Germans were intent on causing a war sooner or later and many people became alarmed at the prospect. In Germany the situation was quite different. The Germans had a form of welfare system, in which workers received unemployment benefits, medical treatment and old age pensions. It meant that Germans were fitter than many British people.

After the Boer war a committee was set up to investigate the problem and it received some alarming reports. The school leaving age had just been raised to twelve and teachers wrote in to their pupils were too tired to work and were unable to stay awake in class.

  1. The Labour Party

In 1900 a new political party was set up, it was called the Labour Representation Council, but changed its name to the Labour Party in 1906. This party was set up to represent working people and it wanted to make changes, which would benefit the lowest paid people in Britain. The Labour Party offered to support the Liberals if they would agree to bring in changes in the ways that the poor were looked after. In 1903 the Liberal Party and the Labour Party formed the Macdonald-Gladstone Pact. The two parties agreed not to fight against each other in the next general election.

  1. The Liberal Party

Some of the Liberal leaders decided that changes had to be made to help the poorest people of Britain. The most important figure was David Lloyd George. He helped to develop the idea of ‘New Liberalism’, which was aimed at working people. The idea was a so attractive that Winston Churchill, who had been a Conservative until then, changed sides and became a Liberal. Lloyd George and Churchill both played important roles in the Liberal Reforms from 1906.

So when the Liberal Party won the general election in 1906, they decided to introduce some reforms to improve the health and the welfare of the British people.

The Liberal Reforms

  1. Children

The Liberals began by trying to improve the health of children. They were the future and would also have to form an army in a future war. The best way of improving National Efficiency was by trying to ensure that children grew up healthily. Children were also easier to get at, because they would be at school. Two measures were introduced in 1906 and 1907.

In 1906 local authorities were allowed to offer free school meals to very poor children so that they received at least one decent meal a day. Not all local authorities decided to do this and only about 100,000 children benefited. The meals helped to prevent diseases like rickets, which were caused by malnutrition.

In 1907 the government began school medical inspections and dental checks. These were intended to try to prevent children catching infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis (TB), which was a major killer at the beginning of the twentieth century. It was known as ‘white death’ because victims coughed white fluid, which was their lungs being eaten away. The medical inspections soon revealed startling facts. Children who lived in poor inner city areas could be up to 10 cm shorter than children in other areas.

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In 1908 the Liberals passed the Children’s Act, which became known as the Children’s Charter. This set up juvenile courts and juvenile prisons called ‘Borstals’. These allowed children to be treated differently from criminals. Children were also banned from buying tobacco and alcohol. The most surprising part of the Act stated that Parents were legally responsible for the upbringing and welfare of their children by.

  1. Old Age Pensions

Having dealt with children, the Liberals moved on to tackle the problems of the elderly. The Pensions Act was passed in 1908 and pensions were paid for the ...

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