The Liberal welfare reforms (1906–1914) were a series of acts of social legislation in the United Kingdom passed by the Liberal Party after the 1906 general election. They represent the Liberal Party's transition rejecting the old laissez-faire policies and enacting interventionist state policies against poverty and thus launching the modern British welfare state. David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill led in designing and passing the reforms, and building nationwide support.
The historian G. R. Searle argues that the reforms had multiple causes, including "the need to fend off the challenge of Labour; pure humanitarianism; the search for electoral popularity; considerations of National Efficiency; and a commitment to a modernised version of welfare capitalism." By implementing the reforms outside the English Poor Laws, the stigma attached to a needy person obtaining relief was also removed. After 1911 Liberals turned to other issues, but never abandoned their support for the welfare programmes.
During the 1906 general election campaign, neither of the two major parties (the Liberals and the Conservatives) made poverty an important election issue and no promises were made to introduce welfare reforms. The Liberals, led first by Henry Campbell-Bannerman and later H. H. Asquith, won a landslide victory and began introducing wide-ranging reforms as soon as they took office.Searle, pp. 358–365.
Previous social legislation The Conservative government in office before the Liberals came to power passed the Unemployed Workmen Act 1905 (The Liberals, as noted by one study, did not oppose the bill that produced this legislation.)The Strange Survival of Liberal Britain Politics and Power Before the First World War By Vernon Bogdanor, 2022 Slum housing was also cleared for new houses to be built. Much of this legislation was left for local authorities to implement – their attitudes affected whether legislation was fully implemented. The Conservatives passed the Education Act 1902 that provided funds for denominational religious instruction in Church of England and Roman Catholic schools. The Nonconformists, who formed a major Liberal constituency, were outraged at the help to their theological enemies, but failed to repeal it.N.R. Gullifer, Opposition to the 1902 Education Act, Oxford Review of Education (1982) 8#1 pp. 83–98 in JSTOR
Liberal reforms 1906–1914 Licensing pubs A favourite goal of Protestant nonconformists was to sharply reduce the heavy drinking by closing as many pubs as possible.David M. Fahey, "The Politics of Drink: Pressure Groups and the British Liberal Party, 1883–1908." Social Science (1979): 76–85. in JSTOR Asquith—although a heavy drinker—took the lead in 1908 by proposing to close about one-third of the 100,000 pubs in England and Wales, with the owners compensated through a new tax on surviving pubs.Donald Read, Edwardian England, 1901–15: society and politics (1972) p 52. The brewers controlled the pubs and organised a stiff resistance, supported by the Conservatives, who repeatedly defeated the proposal in the House of Lords. However, the "People's Tax" of 1910 included a stiff tax on pubs, and during the First World War, their hours were sharply restricted from about 18 hours a day to . Beer and alcohol consumption fell in half from 1900 to 1920, in part because there were many new leisure opportunities.Colin Cross, The Liberals in Power, 1905–1914 (1963) pp. 69–71.Paul Jennings, "Liquor Licensing and the Local Historian: The Victorian Public House". Local Historian 41 (2011): 121–137.
Education
Children were provided with free school meals from 1906 onwards; via the Education (Provision of Meals) Act 1906. However, many local councils ignored this system, as it was not compulsory for them to provide the free meals and the cost to the council was far greater than was subsidised for. The provision of free school meals was made compulsory in 1914, in which year fourteen million meals per school day were served (compared with nine million per school day in 1910Whigs, Radicals, and Liberals, 1815–1914, by Duncan Watts), most of which were free. In 1912, half of all councils in Britain were offering the scheme. Recruitment for the Second Boer War demonstrated the undernourishment and illness among the working classes, and there were fears over future generations being unable to maintain military control of Britain's empire. Also, following an unfavourable report by the Board of Education's inspectors on infant education in 1906, school provision for children under five was restricted (previously, the normal age for the entry of working-class children into full-time education had been three).Foundations of the Welfare State by Pat Thane
In 1906 a major education bill failed to pass, to the annoyance of Nonconformists Protestants who were angry that since the Education Act 1902 local rates were used to support Church of England schools. Liberals sought to limit religious teaching in all schools to vague nondenominational Christianity (as already required in state schools under the Cowper-Temple Clause of the Elementary Education Act 1870). Under the proposal many Anglicans and Catholics would lose the right to use their schools to teach their religion to their children. The House of Lords, where the Liberals were outnumbered 5 to 1, rewrote the bill to make it more favourable to the Anglicans, so no compromise was possible.N.D. Daglish, "A 'difficult and somewhat thankless task': politics, religion and the Education Bill of 1908." Journal of educational administration and history 31.1 (1999): 19–35.Gilbert, David Lloyd George (1987) pp.215–266. The Nonconformists had been a major factor in the Liberal landslide of 1906, and they dominated the Liberal front bench. But the bitter defeat of their highest priority now became a factor in their loss of enthusiasm for the Liberal Party, and played a key role in its decline.John F. Glaser, "English Nonconformity and the Decline of Liberalism," American Historical Review 63#2 (1958), pp. online
Nevertheless, a few uncontroversial minor education bills did become law. The Education (Administrative Provisions) Act 1907 introduced what became known as the Free Place System. The Regulations for Secondary Schools issued that year authorised the payment of a £5 per head grant for each pupil between the ages of 12 and 18, and schools had to conform to certain requirements in order to attain this grant. Schools could not restrict admission to pupils belonging to particular religious denominations, governing bodies had to be reconstituted to include a number of representative governors (some of whom represented the LEA), and at least 25% of the annual intake should be pupils from elementary schools. The act also provided local education authorities (LEAs) with the power to acquire land for constructing new secondary schools, which led to the coming into being of many county and municipal secondary schools.S.J. Curtis and M.E.A. Boultwood, An Introductory History of English Education Since 1800 (1960) p.175. online
In 1907 the number of free scholarship places in secondary schools was increased. If working-class pupils passed a scholarship examination, then their fees would be paid for them by the Local Education Authority. One-quarter of places in most secondary schools would be reserved for scholarship pupils. Bright working-class children were therefore provided with the opportunity to climb "the educational ladder", while for those pupils who failed the scholarship exam, some LEAs had "Central Schools" which provided a practically based curriculum for children between the ages of 11 and 15. Professional training was improved, while support was also provided for 150 schools for mothers, while classes in domestic economy were encouraged and grants were provided for day nurseries. I addition, the normal allowance for teachers was doubled under the Elementary School Teachers' Superannuation Act 1912, while the War Service Superannuation Act 1913 made war service (as noted by one study) “equivalent to teaching for superannuation entitlement.”A Liberal Chronicle in Peace and War Journals and Papers of J. A. Pease, 1st Lord Gainford, 1911-1915, 2023, P.14
The Education (Scotland) Act 1908 enforced medical inspection, free books and travel, free meals and clothing grants, and some bursaries. The Irish Universities Act 1908 gave to Roman Catholics new higher education facilities which they had lacked for centuries. The Education (Choice of Employment) Act 1910 enabled local authorities to provide vocational guidance for school-leavers, with the Board of Education providing grants to authorities from 1911 onwards to carry out this purpose. By mid-1912, however, only forty-one local authorities had responded. The Public Libraries (Art Galleries in County Boroughs) (Ireland) Act 1911 empowered Dublin and other county councils to raise a half-penny rate for the support of art galleries,Dear, dirty Dublin: a city in distress, 1899–1916 by Joseph V. O'Brien In 1913, the status of day technical classes was raised to that of junior technical schools. In 1914, an Elementary Education (Provision of Meals) Act was passed that legalised (as one study has noted) “the provision of meals during holidays and other days when the schools were not open” and also increased the expenditure limit on school meals.Great War Britain Bradford Remembering 1914-18 By Kathryn Hughes, Publisher: History Press, 2015
Women and children The Notification of Births Act 1907 sought to quantify and analyse the causes of (and ultimately further reduce) infant mortality while the Matrimonial Causes Act 1907 empowered courts to order divorced husbands to make unsecured payments to wives for their support and maintenance,Family Law in the Twentieth Century A History By Stephen Michael, 2003, P.397 while the Probation Act 1907 established a probation service to provide supervision within the community for young offenders as an alternative to prison.Britain, 1846–1919 by Jocelyn Hunt The Children and Young Persons Act 1908 formed part of the "Children's Charter" which imposed punishments for those neglecting children. It became illegal to sell children tobacco, alcohol and fireworks or to send children begging. Juvenile courts and borstals were created instead for young offenders so they did not have to stand in adult courts and go to adult prisons for most offences.
Medical inspections began in 1907 but many poor families could not afford the cost of the doctors fees to get treated; it was not until 1912 that medical treatment was provided. However, education authorities largely ignored the provision of free medical treatment for school children. Nevertheless, by 1914, 214 out of the (then) 317 local authorities were providing some kind of medical treatment for children. A tax allowance for children was introduced in 1909Between soft and hard law: the impact of international social security standards on national social security law by Frans Pennings, International Labour Organisation to help families on low incomes.A companion to early twentieth-century Britain by Chris Wrigley This allowance of £10 a year was introduced for every child below the age of 16 in the case of income tax payers whose income fell below £500 per annum (this rebate was later doubled in the 1914 budget).Eugenics and politics in Britain, 1900–1914 by Geoffrey Russell Searle