They were forced to stay in different parts of the workhouse and were not even permitted to meet in communal areas such as the chapel. There was no free lunch in the workhouse, everyone was expected to work long hours in often difficult and demanding jobs. Men would be expected to do heavy work like breaking stone, cutting wood or grinding corn. Women were expected to work long hours washing, scrubbing and cleaning or other tasks in payment for a bowl of gruel and a piece of bread. Children around this time were still working down the mines and often doing dangerous work in factories so children would be expected to do heavy work within the workhouse. There was a social stigma attached to being in the workhouse, conditions were harsh and very few personal items where allowed to be kept by the pauper. The Workhouse dweller was given a uniform in exchanged for their clothes, usually a coarse gown or cotton shirt. These would have letters sewn on them, 'P' for pauper, followed by the letter of the parish.
Changing attitudes
At the dawn of the 20th century two social surveys were published that not only shocked the British public but changed popular opinion on the causes of poverty. They helped pave the way for a whole range of government-led welfare reforms.
It was the contribution of these two men that was to spur on the change. The first was Charles Booth, a ship-owner from Liverpool who undertook seventeen years' worth of work investigating the extent of poverty in London. The report found that over 30% of the population of London was living below an acceptable standard. The work of the second, Seebohm Rowntree, found that in York 28% of the population was living with less means than to sustain "merely physical activity". That is, the minimum money required for food, water, clothing, light, and to pay the rent.
The opinion of the country was gradually changing; evolving from the established ideas of self-reliance and moving towards a acceptance of state assistance. Though these were not the ideals that won the Liberals under Campbell Bannerman the election in 1906 - they were still very much for the notion of "Old Liberalism", maintaining the belief in personal freedom. The two years Bannerman spent as prime minister reflected this.
Independently of each other, the two wealthy businessmen, Charles Booth and Seebohm Rowntree, sponsored major investigations into the extent and causes of poverty in British cities. Their findings agreed on two key points:
- up to 30% of the population of the cities were living in or below poverty levels
- The conditions were such that people could not pull themselves out of poverty by their own actions alone. Booth and Rowntree both identified the main causes of poverty as being illness, unemployment and age - both the very young and the old were at risk of poverty
It began to be recognized that the government had a role to play. To do this, political and social reforms were necessary. Other reforms involved the setting up of Labor exchanges and the introduction of a basic old age pension scheme.
Lloyd George was a Chancellor of the Exchequer and he became one of the campaigners for help the poor and privileged. He tried to help the poor and in 1909 he introduced a people’s budget which led to his demise and the rich because the rich saw him as a thief who was milking them for all their wealth by helping the poor because they believed the poor were responsible for their own poverty and he believed that the poor had a right to some help from the government because what the rich got the poor had to work had for and the least they could do was reward them. The liberals were also interested in the fact that the poor who recently got the franchise was where the majority of the votes lied and by helping them they would gain their approval and win the vote even if it meant upsetting the pockets of the minority rich in the way of taxes.
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 were the working class under risk of poverty due to sickness or unemployment, their children and old age pensioners. The liberals introduced many changes even though they had a huge amount of opposition mainly from the rich they embarked on the following programmes soon after they were elected to government:
1906 School Meals
1907 School Medical Inspections and Dental Checks
1908 The Children’s Act
1908 Old Age Pensions
.1909 Labor Exchanges
1909 and 1913 Trade Boards
1911 The National Insurance Act
Workers received unemployment benefit of 30 pence for 15 weeks a year, AND sickness benefit of 50 pence for 26 weeks a year. Workers also got free medical treatment and medicines.
In conclusion, there are two views on how successful the Liberals were in dealing with the problems of poverty and need. Firstly, there is a view that legislation was filled with 'holes' causing huge numbers of exclusions to promising schemes from the government, which resulted in an improvement of a reduced size. The government did not introduce laws to deal with the poor, but to in fact to prevent more poverty, as social security for the working class was made more possible mainly through contributions from the working class. Lastly the liberal government embarked on a programme of social reforms and was successful in winning the votes from the poor whom they promised many changes which were effective and helped the majority of the population.
This shows that the Liberals were very successful at dealing with the situation if considering the magnitude of task they undertook.