1 the historiography of voluntary action: where have we come from and where are we going? bernard...

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The historiography of voluntary action: where have we come from and where are we going?

Bernard Harris

Voluntary Action History Society

London School of Economics

18/4/11

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1. Introduction

• The historiography of voluntary action– ‘Voluntary action was not seen as a subject in

its own right, [and was] often considered only as a minor part of social policy’ (www.vahs.org.uk/about.background)

• Own interests– Voluntary action, welfare and social policy– Voluntary action, association, participation…?

http://www.vahs.org.uk/about.background

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1. Introduction, cont.

• Defining voluntary action– ‘“Voluntary action” … means private action,

that is to say action not under the directions of any authority wielding the power of the state’

– ‘as wide as life itself, covering all the undirected activities of individual citizens in their homes as well as outside’

– ‘voluntary action outside each citizen’s homes for improving the conditions of life for him and his fellows’ (Beveridge 1948: 8)

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1. Introduction, cont.

• This paper– Quantitative dimensions of voluntary action in

Britain in 19th and 20th centuries– Charitable expenditure– Motives and social functions– Contemporary challenges

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2. Measuring voluntaryassociation

• The varieties of voluntary association (Morris 1990)

Pre- 1780 1780- 1890 1890- 1950

Recreational groupings Taverns Coffee hours Fraternities

Clubs and Institutes Union Sporting associations (football, rugby, etc.)

Church societies Youth associations (Scouts, Guides, Boys’ and Lads’ Brigades) Rambling associations

Information and self-education

Edinburgh Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Sciences, Manufactures and Agriculture Select Society for Promoting the Reading and Speaking of the English Language in Scotland

Literary and Philosophical Societies Scientific societies Mutual improvement societies

Mutual aid Friendly societies Friendly societies Cooperative societies Building societies Trade unions

‘Coercive’ organisations Proclamation Society Society for the Suppression of Vice Volunteer yeomanry Societies for the Suppression of Beggars

Social action Voluntary hospitals Anti- slavery societies Anti- Corn Law League Visiting Societies Voluntary hospitals Educational societies (Sunday schools, elementary schools, adult education societies) Temperance societies Bible and missionary societies Reform societies (e.g. Female Political Union)

Church societies Visiting associations Dorcas societies Soup kitchens Political associations (especially labour groups) Women’s Cooperative Guild

Networks Masonic lodges Manufacturers’ associations

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2. Measuring voluntary action,cont.

• Friendly societies– ‘No appeal whatever to the grey, faceless, lower third

of the working class’ (Gilbert 1966: 166)– ‘Both Hanson and Green concluded that

approximately seventy five per cent of the men who might have been eligible for friendly-society membership in the years leading up to the introduction of the state’s national health insurance scheme were actually members’ (Harris, forthcoming)

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• Problems– What proportion of all registered members

were eligible for the full range of benefits offered by registered societies (see e.g. Harris 2004: 81-4)?

– How many individuals belonged to unregistered societies?

– How many of the individuals who belonged to unregistered societies also belonged to registered societies (see also Gorsky 2006)?

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• What do the registered statistics suggest?– Up to half the male working class may have been

fully-qualified members of societies offering the full range of benefits before the introduction of national insurance

– Prior to 1911, an increasing proportion of members contracted for individualised benefits or a limited range of benefits

– Numbers continued to grow after 1911– Friendly societies not a viable alternative to welfare

state– But growth of state welfare did not lead to their

demise

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2. Measuring voluntary action,cont.• Other voluntary associations

1876 1899 1910 1935 1945

Ordinary friendly societies - 2,807,823 3,577,504 - -

Societies having branches - 2,409,438 2,803,429 - -

Friendly societies (Beveridge) - 5,217,261 6,380,933 8,166,426 8,719,972

Collecting friendly societies - 5,922,615 7,168,092 22,593,703 29,644,895

Benevolent societies - 18,363 33,433 91,444 127,249

Workingmen's clubs - 175,469 316,407 662,843 947,394

Specially authorised societies - 39,923 97,445 - -

Specially authorised loan societies - 74,384 176,454 - -

All specially- authorised societies - 114,307 273,899 221,591 248,782

Medical societies - 298,691 329,450 - -

Cattle insurance societies - 3,424 5,749 1,691 1,712

Shop clubs - - - 60,244 67,738

Societies under the Friendly Societies Acts 4,364,772 17,081,698 21,162,795 - -

Industries and trades - 1,685,134 2,692,112 - -

Businesses - 40,561 157,577 - -

Land societies - 15,367 20,049 - -

Smallholdings and allotments societies - - 10,241 - -

Industrial and Provident Societies/ Cooperative societies 444,547 1,741,062 2,879,979 8,200,503 10,322,199

Trades Unions 303,196 1,456,283 2,017,656 3,794,680 6,535,938

Building Societies - 602,981 629,621 1,938,684 2,065,324

Loan Societies 31,694 31,542 31,940 20,743 11,399

Workmen's compensation schemes - 100,397 68,140 44,788 -

Railway savings banks - 52,730 69,455 160,504 224,257

Trustee savings banks - 1,601,485 - 2,142,676 4,438,160

Post Office savings banks - 8,046,680 - - -

Savings banks - 9,700,895 - - -

Industrial assurance companies - - - 71,037,447 85,902,821

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• Post-1945:– ‘the expansion of the welfare state has not

weakened civic participation. In many instances, the state has promoted and strengthened the voluntary sector, the state has acted as a spur to further voluntary initiatives and, rather than being in competition, the state and the voluntary sector have complemented one another’ (Hilton et al. 2010: 1).

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3. The measurement ofcharitable activity

• Modern writers on charity– The gift of time and the gift of money– How much time or money?– How many people?

• Membership figures → the gift of time

• Incidence and volume of the gift of money

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3. The measurement ofcharitable activity, cont.

• Historical debate (19th century)– Charity more important than poor relief– Scale of charity grew enormously (see also Morris 2006)

• Antecedents– ‘Every calculation … which can be made, respecting the number of poor, who

subsist by private charity, and the amount of charitable contributions from this source, seems fully to warrant this conclusion: - that a legal provision for the poor, although professedly intended to relieve every object in want, very imperfectly answers the end of its institution; that, although it appears to be calculated to supersede the necessity of our exercising the first of Christian virtues, and may, consequently, often relax the emotions of benevolence, private relief will still frequently be both required and exerted; and that more is expended annually on those objects, who are selected by the discretionary charity of individuals, than on the national poor’ (Eden 1797, vol. i: 465; emphasis added).

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• What was charity used for (see e.g. Low 1862)?

• What role did it play in the lives of poor people (Booth 1894: 33)?

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Figure 1. Sources of aid for the ‘aged poor’ in England and Wales in 1892

Poor Law

RelationsCharity

458

469 462293

112 256 486

Source: Booth 1894: 339.

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• But was important in relation to institutions– Convalescent homes, refuges, orphanages

(see e.g. Low 1862; Hawksley 1869)– Elementary schools– Voluntary hospitals

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• How much?– Sums distributed by private charity to the

poor: 1790: 0.4% of GNP; 1861-76: <0.1% of GNP (Lindert 2004: 41-4) but limited to Charity Commission returns

– ‘the prosperous mid-Victorian years saw the luxurious growth of civic and charitable enterprise’ (Prochaska 2005: 13-14)

– But difficult to find figures (Harris 2004; see also Morris 2006).

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• Measuring charitable giving after 1914– First World War (Grant 2011)– Between the wars (Gorsky, Mohan and Powell

2002; Mohan and Wilding 2010)

• How was charity affected by recession (Mohan and Wilding)?

• Was charity ‘crowded out’ by ‘the onward march of social policy’ (Hopkins 1932)?

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• Even though ‘charities in general received a growing proportion of their total receipts in payment for services … there is little if any evidence from the collected figures for the fairly common assumption that the increase of taxation and the greater provision of social services by public authorities have had the effect of decreasing the amount of legacies and of other charitable gifts. The amount given in charity appears to have varied surprisingly little over the period if we consider all the concurrent changes in economic circumstances and public social policy which might have been expected to affect it’ (Braithwaite 1948: 202-3; see also ibid. 1938: 83-196).

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4. The voluntary impulse

• ‘Elitist rather than egalitarian, patchy and moralising, ameliorative rather than curative, amateur rather than professional, overlapping and wasteful rather than properly-planned, [and] dependent on suspect goodwill or objectionable ability to pay rather thane being centred on needs or entitlements’ (Finlayson 1994: 11).

• ‘suggestive to think of the history of philanthropy as the history of kindness’ (Prochaska 1990: 360).

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4. The voluntary impulse,cont.

• Individual motives– Childlessness (Mocatta); bereavement

(Butler, Malvery); ‘inner conflicts of personality’ (Shaftesbury)

– Personal advancement (Morris 1983)– Leisure (Harrison 1966)– Female emancipation (Prochaska 1980)

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• Charity and the state– ‘confirmation of the limitless benevolence of a

generation … [and an] implicit condemnation of the notion of self-help for all’ (Fraser 2009: 148)

– But why charity as a response?– Religion and virtue– ‘Control’

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• Charity and control– ‘A fixed, a certain and a constant … provision for the poor …

tends to destroy the harmony and beauty, the symmetry and order of that system, which God and nature have established in the world’ (Townsend 1817: 40-1)

– Public welfare ‘creates no feelings of gratitude and not infrequently engenders dispositions and habits calculated to separate rather than unite the interests of the higher and lower orders of the community’ (Sturges-Bourne Committee [1817], p. 4)

– ‘The social mingling of the rich and poor … and the personal interest thus exhibited in the enjoyments of the humbler classes are well adapted to strengthen and consolidate the bonds of civil society’ (qu. Harris 2004: 62)

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• Charity and religion– ‘All virtue must be free; if you force charity,

you destroy her’ (Alcock 1752: 11)– Religion as source of charity (Prochaska

2005)– ‘British philanthropy, like Victorian charity as a

whole, became tinctured with the Evangelical spirit’ (Owen 1965: 95)

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• Charity and the decline of religion?– If ‘the prosperous mid-Victorian period saw the

luxurious growth of civic and charitable enterprise’ (Prochaska 2005: 13), how was this related to the decline of religious faith and the growth of humanism?

– Reorientation of charitable activity (‘the emphasis shifted from man serving God to man serving his fellow man’ [Fraser 2009: 151])

– But also ‘secular altruism’ (Collini 1991)?

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5. History and contemporarysocial policy

• ‘Mainstream’ welfare history (the ‘welfare state escalator [Finlayson 1994: 3])

• Alternative views (West 1994; Hartwell et al. 1972; Green (1985; 1993; 1999); Prochaska (1988; 1990); Himmelfarb (1992; 1995); Barnett (1986; 1995); Bartholomew (2006).

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5. History and contemporarysocial policy, cont.

• How have these views influenced contemporary policy (the ‘Big Society’)?– Welfare state growth ‘nationalised a previously mutual

society and reformed it according to an individualised culture of universal entitlement’ (Blond 2010: 82)

– ‘The history of British government is littered with attempts at reform that have ignored existing institutions and so undermined them; and, correspondingly, with late rediscoveries of the wisdom of some forgotten tradition’ (Norman 2010: 109)

– ‘the once natural bonds that existed between people – of duty and responsibility – have been replaced with the synthetic bonds of the state – regulation and bureaucracy’ (Cameron 2009).

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5. History and contemporarysocial policy, cont.

• Challenges and opportunities– ‘“History and Policy” was invited by the Cabinet Office

Strategy Unit to convene a group of expert historians to inform their work on the government's “Big Society” agenda’ (http://www.historyandpolicy.org/resources/research.html )

– ‘Connected Communities will enable the AHRC to contribute to the government’s initiatives on localism and the “Big Society”….’ (http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/About/Policy/Documents/DeliveryPlan2011.pdf )

– What are the implications for historians of voluntary action?

http://www.historyandpolicy.org/resources/research.html

http://www.historyandpolicy.org/resources/research.html

http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/About/Policy/Documents/DeliveryPlan2011.pdf

http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/About/Policy/Documents/DeliveryPlan2011.pdf