Rowntree sent investigators to survey every working class household in York (11,560) to establish family income and expenditure and to record their impressions of living conditions and that of neighbours, voluntary workers and clergy. His methods were impressionistic like Booth ` s and similarly did not seek to construct a precise poverty line. He perceived poverty as not simply lack of income but as possessing insufficient means `for decent independent life`, i.e. he saw poverty as a relative concept not, as is sometimes thought, as absolute.
?Rowntree felt the need to establish the minimum income on which survival in a state of `physical efficiency` was possible. This included an amount sufficient to buy food adequate for energy needs at various ages, at the lowest current prices. This calculation was made possible by the recent exploration of nutritionists of the relationship between diet and health. He concluded that the minimum income necessary for a family consisting of a father, mother and three children was 21s 8d a week. He found that 6.8% of the working class population of York (3.6% as a whole) lived in houses with an income below this level. Rowntree described these as living in primary poverty.?
(Thane, 1996, p.8)
Rowntree` s study made a further important contribution to the study of poverty when he reasoned,
?The life of a labourer is marked by five alternating periods of want and comparative plenty?.
(Thane, 1996 p. 10.)
These were firstly childhood, when the family had most dependants, in early middle life after marriage and the arrival of a family, then finally, old age. The implication was that almost everyone experienced some kind of poverty at some stage of their lives, and that a great deal of blame could be laid at the door of drinking and gambling. However, he understood this as a form of escapism from their harrowing existence.
?Rowntree to some extent reaffirmed the earlier Victorian view that the poor were not a `class apart` but were deeply intertwined with the rest of the working class. `Poverty` and `comfort` were not mutually exclusive cultural conditions: they were cyclical phases that most working people might expect to pass through at some stage of their lives.?
(Harris 1993 p.240)
Both Seebohm and his father, Joseph, believed that a healthy and well-fed workforce would be efficient, and thus raised the wages in their own company, saying that the existence of those firms who refused to follow suit were bad for the nation` s economy and humanity.
Rowntree , Booth, and Beatrice Webb all drew attention to the structural and organic effects of poverty , as well as its implications for the poor individual . The Committee on Physical Deterioration in 1904, condemned the habits of the poor and analysed poverty as a form of organic social disease. Five years later the Majority and Minority Reports of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws, appeared in 1909. The Poor Law Commission embraced a wide range of economic and political opinion, including Beatrice Webb and Helen Bosanquet. Surveying the history of poverty since 1834, The Majority Report, which represented the views of Helen Bosanquet , endorsed the traditional individualist view that pauperism was fundamentally a moral condition, but at the same time came to the conclusion that ` something in our social organisation is seriously wrong` . Social policy, it was thought, should in future have elements of preventative, curative and restorative methods, be geared towards the needs of the individual, and to foster a spirit of independence. The Minority Report drafted by Sidney and Beatrice Webb, shared the Majority view in that much poverty and destitution were linked to bad moral character. Unlike the Majority, however, the Webbs considered bad moral character as a consequence rather than a cause of the wider issue of social disorganisation. The solution of the Minority was not more humane and restorative treatment of those specifically defined as poor, but a network of comprehensive public services dealing with health, child care, education, and employment; services which would be equally available for all classes of the community.
?The authors of the Majority and Minority Reports on the Poor Laws were at one in the belief that there were savage tribes ` lurking at he bottom of our civilisation`, which if not tamed and disciplined would ultimately overthrow it.?
(Harris 1993 p242)
In considering the effect of the revelations concerning poverty, it must be said that all the tireless work by recorders and reformers alike brought the plight of the poor to the attention of successive governments. The Conservative ministries, to their shame, prioritised their imperialistic ambitions to the detriment of social reform. Gladstone`s 1892/5 ministry was stifled in its endeavours by a Conservative House of Lords and a divided Liberal party, and it was n`t until the 1906 Liberal administration that Campbell-Bannerman and Balfour laid the foundations of the Welfare State.
The work of Dickens, Gaskell and Mayhew seeped into popular consciousness, whilst the work of the Webbs , Pember-Reeves, Black, Collet, et al raised the awareness of social ills in governmental circles.
Chadwick`s ? Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain? lead to, amongst other things, the Public Health Acts of 1848 and 1875 and its further amendments in 1890.
Charles Booth `s discovery of so many old people in the workhouses, lead to his proposal of a state pension of five shillings per. week for men and women aged sixty-five. His concerted effort, and that of trade unions for state pensions, resulted in the Liberal government of 1906 incorporating the proposal into its platform, the result being The Old Age Pensions Act of 1908.
The Rowntree study featured a wealth of statistical information on wages, conditions, food and nutrition, health and housing, and he hoped that his conclusions would be incorporated into Liberal party policy. Lloyd George ` s rise to Chancellor of the Exchequer meant that Rowntree` s influence was felt in the Old Age Pension Act of 1908, and The National Insurance Act of 1911.
?Overall, by 1900, central government action on recognised social problems was greater than in 1870, but still slight in contrast with the magnitude of those problems and of the range of demands for action. .In the 1880s and 1890s there was an impressive number of official investigations. Royal Commission on Labour(1893-4) Housing of the Working Classes ( 1884-5) Aged Poor (1895) the Depression of Trade & Industry ( 1886) Sanitary Laws (1871) Factory Acts (1876) select committees on Distress from Want of Employment (1895) National Provident Insurance (1885-7) Old Age Pensions (1896,1899) The Sweating System (1890) Poor Law Relief ( 1888) Artisans and Labourers Dwellings Improvements (1881) to name but a few. The results were unsubstantial, owing partly to continuing powerful opposition to government intervention.?
(Thane 1996 p.42)
However, even considering this list of investigations, sympathy for the poor did not lead to a desire for reforming action by the state, whose interference was strongly opposed. Fear of the growing Labour movement, as well as German military and economic rivalry accounted for the apparent new governmental paternalism, which was tempered by the cost of implementation, and orthodox ?laissez-faire? ideals. Ultimately, the reformer`s success was in the raised awareness of the problem of poverty, but implementation proved to be a more gradual process, and thus success could be regarded as limited and long term.
BIBLIOGRAPHYClementina Black (ed), ?Married Women`s Work? (London, Virago,1983)
Friedrich Engels, ?The Condition of the Working Class In England ? (London, Lawrence & Wishart, 1984)
Albert Fried. ?Charles Booth` s London? (London, Hutchinson, 1969)
Richard. M. Elman, Jose Harris, ?Private Lives, Public Spirit: Britain 1870-1914? (London, Penguin Books, 1993)
Gertrude Himmelfarb, ?The Idea of Poverty,England in the Early Industrial Age? (London, Faber & Faber, 1984)
A McBriar, ?Fabian Socialism and British Politics? (Cambridge,Cambridge University Press, 1962) in Pat Thane ?Foundations of The Welfare State, 2nd Edition? (London, Longman, 1996)
Pat Thane, ?Foundations of The Welfare State, 2nd Edition? (London, Longman, 1996)
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