Before Beveridge: Welfare Before the Welfare State: No. 47. (Choice in Welfare S.) - Softcover

With welfare reform high on the political agenda, politicians and policy-makers have begun to show an interest in how welfare services were delivered in the years before the post-war Beveridgean welfare state. Simultaneously, historians have become more interested in the operation of what is termed the 'mixed economy of welfare' in the past. In this volume leading social historians examine welfare provision Before Beveridge. They present a picture of a complex web of interlocking institutions, involving, at the most basic level, family and neighbours, then the formal voluntary sector, which embraced both charitable and mutual aid bodies, together with services delivered by central and local government and the commercial market. This was the 'mixed economy of welfare' which has once again become an important part of the contemporary policy maker's agenda. As a consequence, this collection of historical essays has a direct bearing on one of the most important debates of the present time. "This is not just a book for history swots...Each of the chapters tells a story which ends before the 1942 Beveridge Report, yet each is more than relevant to the present attempts at welfare reform. Indeed, there are a number of lessons here which even now it is not too late for the Government to learn." Frank Field, The Independent. "If [Friendly Societies'] involvement in providing welfare up to 1948 has vanished totally from the public mind, as until recently seemed to be the case, this book is part of the process of putting the record straight and reminding people of the true cost of nationalising welfare." Friendly Face. "Britain's Institute of Economic Affairs, one of the world's leading organisations that analyses welfare, has ...performed a service with this collection of five articles ...that look at various aspects of the British welfare debate between 1870 and 1940." Philanthropy.