Beneath the Surface: A Country of Two Nations

Page 9 of 11

• 1. A country of two nations
• 2. Optimists and pessimists
• 3. The labouring poor
• 4. Rural and urban poverty
• 5. Official attitudes to the relief of poverty
• 6. Lowest standard of living
• 7. The workhouse
• 8. The Scottish Poor Law
• 9. Charity and self-help
• 10. Conclusion
• 11. Find out more
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Charity and self-help

Because the operations of the Poor Law were so circumscribed and the poor were unwilling to apply for relief, other ways of dealing with life's misfortunes became increasingly important. Almsgiving and charitable endowments already had a long history but from the end of the 18th century the number of voluntary charities gradually increased. Charity was directed at those least able to help themselves, such as children and the sick, while relief for the destitute was influenced both by the ideology of self-help and by evangelical religion.

'Charity was increasingly directed at those least able to help themselves...'

These placed an emphasis on the role of charity in encouraging moral regeneration and on the virtues of self-reliance and respectability. Like the poor law, charities sought to distinguish the 'deserving' from the 'undeserving' poor. The Charity Organisation Society, founded in 1869, at a time when outdoor relief was being further curtailed, was partly an attempt to ensure that charity did not undermine the intent of state provision. Their use of an early form of social investigation - visiting homes and interviewing the poor - was designed to link assistance to observable conditions.

People were not necessarily helpless or passive recipients of state intervention in nascent welfare provision, nor were they simply the beneficiaries of groups with charitable intent. Formally organised mutual aid - especially the friendly societies (the most popular form of social insurance for the working man and woman) formed from the late 18th century - levied a weekly subscription on members and provided financial assistance in times of need, such as sickness and death. Trade unions, which grew more slowly in the 19th century, usually offered similar benefits. Co-operative societies from the 1840s sought to provide cheap, unadulterated food for their members.

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Published: 2001-01-01