Victorian Social Reforms
The Victorian Laissez-Faire system of social reform relied on voluntary contribution of the wealthy and the charitable to relieve poverty, rather than the now standard system of using money from universal taxes to pay for universal services such as public health and housing. The founding laws of this welfare state we now live in today where known as the liberal reforms, a series of legislation that encouraged a far more collectivist attitude to social reform that verged on socialism, dreaded by the upper classes. The 5 groups of people who benefited from these laws introduction were; The Old, The Young, The Sick, The Unemployed and the Employed.
The Working Class Elderly generation of early 20th century Britain where some of the hardest …show more content…
Malnourishment, disease, and lice hit children in the working class the hardest, and often the conditions they lived in forced many young people into a life of crime, if only to survive. The liberal government tried to curb some of these problems with the introduction of The Education Act of 1906, the Education Act of 1907 and The Children Act of 1909. The Education acts introduced the provision of school meals and annual medical checkups, both provided by the local authority, and the Children Act introduced penalties against persons who sold alcohol or tobacco to children. While the education acts where successful, by 1914 millions of school meals had been provided, they did have some major limitations. By 1914 only half of local authorities even bothered to provide school meals and the 1907 Education Act only provided free medical inspections, not treatment.
The sick where benefited by the introduction of The National Insurance Act (Part I) of 1911, which provided government sponsored health insurance and sick pay, as well as maternity pay, and to a lesser extent, from the Workman’s Compensation Act of 1906, which provided the first workers compensation for injuries and illness sustained at work. The fault with these acts was that health insurance did not extend to the workers family, and in the event there was any misconduct workers compensation was forfeit. Neither of these acts paid a significant amount of support a family in times of sickness either to
The Working Class Elderly generation of early 20th century Britain where some of the hardest …show more content…
Malnourishment, disease, and lice hit children in the working class the hardest, and often the conditions they lived in forced many young people into a life of crime, if only to survive. The liberal government tried to curb some of these problems with the introduction of The Education Act of 1906, the Education Act of 1907 and The Children Act of 1909. The Education acts introduced the provision of school meals and annual medical checkups, both provided by the local authority, and the Children Act introduced penalties against persons who sold alcohol or tobacco to children. While the education acts where successful, by 1914 millions of school meals had been provided, they did have some major limitations. By 1914 only half of local authorities even bothered to provide school meals and the 1907 Education Act only provided free medical inspections, not treatment.
The sick where benefited by the introduction of The National Insurance Act (Part I) of 1911, which provided government sponsored health insurance and sick pay, as well as maternity pay, and to a lesser extent, from the Workman’s Compensation Act of 1906, which provided the first workers compensation for injuries and illness sustained at work. The fault with these acts was that health insurance did not extend to the workers family, and in the event there was any misconduct workers compensation was forfeit. Neither of these acts paid a significant amount of support a family in times of sickness either to