Victorian Social Reforms

The Victorian Laissez-Faire system of social reform relied on voluntary contribution of the wealthy and the charitable to relieve poverty, rather than the now standard system of using money from universal taxes to pay for universal services such as public health and housing. The founding laws of this welfare state we now live in today where known as the liberal reforms, a series of legislation that encouraged a far more collectivist attitude to social reform that verged on socialism, dreaded by the upper classes. The 5 groups of people who benefited from these laws introduction were; The Old, The Young, The Sick, The Unemployed and the Employed.

The Working Class Elderly generation of early 20th century Britain where some of the hardest
hit by poverty, since their lives where directly affected by how long they could work. Once the age came about where they were simply to old for work they had the choice of either the street or moving in with their families, if they were lucky enough to have them. In either situation they would either need to worry about food and shelter, but in the case of those with family they might find themselves as being a serious financial burden to already impoverished working class families. The liberal government attempted to relive this problem with the introduction of The Old Age Pensions Act of 1908, which guaranteed a universal pension for all persons aged 70 and over with an annual income above £20. The scheme was moderately successful, by 1914 over one million people where receiving pensions, but there was a serious set of drawbacks to consider, one being that very few people lived to over 70, had a qualifying income, or even had birth certificates to prove their age, and even if they did have all the vital requirements, the given pension was below the poverty line, so the only way to survive would be to use to relive the financial pressure of elderly people living with their family.

The young were the second group to benefit from the introduction of the reforms.
Malnourishment, disease, and lice hit children in the working class the hardest, and often the conditions they lived in forced many young people into a life of crime, if only to survive. The liberal government tried to curb some of these problems with the introduction of The Education Act of 1906, the Education Act of 1907 and The Children Act of 1909. The Education acts introduced the provision of school meals and annual medical checkups, both provided by the local authority, and the Children Act introduced penalties against persons who sold alcohol or tobacco to children. While the education acts where successful, by 1914 millions of school meals had been provided, they did have some major limitations. By 1914 only half of local authorities even bothered to provide school meals and the 1907 Education Act only provided free medical inspections, not treatment.

The sick where benefited by the introduction of The National Insurance Act (Part I) of 1911, which provided government sponsored health insurance and sick pay, as well as maternity pay, and to a lesser extent, from the Workman’s Compensation Act of 1906, which provided the first workers compensation for injuries and illness sustained at work. The fault with these acts was that health insurance did not extend to the workers family, and in the event there was any misconduct workers compensation was forfeit. Neither of these acts paid a significant amount of support a family in times of sickness either to
either.

The Unemployed benefited from the National Insurance Act of 1911 (part 2), as if provided the first jobseekers allowance for unemployed workmen, and from the introduction of the Labour Exchange Act of 1909, which place people in jobs across the country and was one of the first government sponsored work schemes. Unfortunately, these laws served mainly as temporary solutions for unemployment, as the jobseekers allowance only lasted a set period of time and jobs provided by the Labour exchange program where largely temporary jobs in construction (Railroads, Ship Building etc.)

The Employed largely befitted from the introduction of the Trade Boards act of 1909, which reduced a working week to 60 hours and set up boards to determine the minimum wage, The Shops Act 1911, which granted shop keepers a half day off on Sundays, and the and the Coal Mines Act of 1909, which granted miners an 18 hour day. All had their limitations such as the Trade boards act didn’t attempt to define a minimum wage, and the Coal Mines Act only introduced an 8 hour mining day after miners had been campaigning for more than 40 years.

In conclusion though the Liberal Reforms did lay the foundation of the welfare state that would later drastically improve the conditions of the working classes after world war 2, the liberals were only partly successful in dealing with the problems faced by the British people, but didn’t, by any definition, fail.