The Problem of Poverty around 1900

1
The Problem of Poverty around 1900
Changing Attitudes to Poverty

• From Cradle to the Grave

2
Starter

• Collect The Causes of Poverty help sheet.
• We have looked at the main causes of poverty
  around 1900.
• In your pairs, look at the list/diagram of the 11
  causes of poverty. Show whose fault it is by
  putting a tick in the columns for eg. Old age
  must be no-one because we all grow old at some
  point this is no-ones fault.
• NB. Some of the causes might be the fault of
  more than one group

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Part 1

• The last 3 factors were not really as important
  as some people thought.
• However, they did mean that the people who did
  think they were important believed if people were
  poor then it was their own fault.
• They could stop being poor if they changed the
  way they behaved and did not waste money.

4
contd

• The years 1890-1951 saw a tremendous change in
  attitudes to poverty.
• By the end of the nineteenth century many people
  of the governing classes believed that it was not
  the governments job to get rid of poverty.
• People were expected to help themselves out of
  poverty or just suffer for being poor

5
contd

• Around the start of the century a great deal of
  more accurate information emerged about the
  causes and extent of poverty.
• This helped lead to attitudes changing.
• Governments began to take action to tackle the
  problem of poverty.

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Nineteenth Century Attitudes to Poverty

• Before 1850 governments in Britain believed in
  the idea of laissez-faire.
• Thus, governments believed they should leave
  things alone, not interfere).
• COPY ABOVE
• Soif a family lived in bad conditions in a slum
  it was up to them to move somewhere better.
• It was not up to the government or local council
  to force the landlords to improve things

7
contd

• They believed that the individual person was
  responsible for his or her own life and they knew
  best what was good or bad for themselves.
• The government did not seem to realise people
  lived in slums because they had to live near the
  husbands work and they could not afford anything
  better.
• If they complained to the landlord and asked him
  to improve things they might find themselves
  evicted from their home.

8
contd

• Even in 1850 one or two exceptions to the idea of
  laissez-faire had begun to appear.
• In the 1830s and 1840s the governments passed
  laws to control the conditions and hours of
  children working in factories and mines because
  children could not control their own lives.
• They also passed laws to improve public health,
  that is, improve conditions in towns to stop
  epidemics of diseases like cholera which killed
  many thousands of people.

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What did people say?
Source A Part of a book written in 1814 by Jeremy
Bentham, a writer and thinker
Nothing should be done or attempted by government
for the purpose of improving the wealth of the
people. Be quiet should be the motto of the
government.
The only purpose of government exercising power
is to prevent harm to others. Acting for
peoples own good is not the purpose of
government.
Source B From one of Benthams followers, John
Stuart Mill, who wrote in 1859.
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• Between 1850 and 1900 governments gradually
  passed more laws to improve conditions but they
  did so when there was a particular problem which
  was harming people.
• Many people in government still believed the
  government should interfere as little as possible
  and they still believed poverty was peoples own
  fault

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Question Check

• What does laissez-faire mean?
• What did Jeremy Bentham think the government
  should do to help the poor?
• When does John Stewart Mill think the government
  should step in and do something?
• Name the two things that the government did to
  improve conditions before 1900.
• (clue they were the exceptions to the idea of
  laissez-faire
• in 1850).

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Self Help

• Self-help was the idea that people could get
  themselves out of poverty if they only tried hard
  enough.
• In 1859, Samuel Smiles published a best-selling
  book called Self Help which showed how this
  could be done.
• COPY ABOVE

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Source C
Heaven helps those who help themselves is a
well-known saying. Help from others is often
weakening but help from within always invigorates
(gives strength). Whatever is done for men or
classes to some extent takes away their need to
do things for themselves
Just exactly how they were meant to do this was
shown elsewhere. Smiles was quoted in the Leeds
Times, 25th October 1845 explaining how this
could be done
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Every working man should make great efforts to
raise himself in his social class and become
independent. With this in mind, every working
man in times of prosperity and good wages should
try to save something and gather money in case of
bad times
Source D
15
contd

• Many working class people, especially skilled
  workers who were better paid, did try to save in
  the Friendly Societies which were like insurance
  companies.
• People put some money into these every week so
  that they would get some payment if the father
  was sick, unemployed or died.

16
contd

• The most common payments were penny policies
  where the payment of 1d (1 old penny) would pay
  for a funeral.
• Some skilled workers could also afford to belong
  to trade unions where part of their subscription
  (weekly payment) was used for welfare benefits
  like sickness, unemployment or death.

17
contd

• Jean Faleys book Up Oor Close gives peoples
  memories of Springburn, Glasgow at the beginning
  of the century. It tells of how people coped.

If you called in the doctor it cost 2s and 6d
(12.5p) for his visit, then you had to buy the
medicine. But most people were in societies and
they paid the bills.
Source E
18
contd

• Therefore, it may have been possible for skilled
  workers to cope but there were people who did not
  earn enough to save in this way.
• They could not help themselves and people did not
  think it was the governments job.

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Task

• In your jotters, write heading Self Help
• Questions
• Using Source C, give two reasons why Samuel
  Smiles believed in self help.
• How, according to Source D does he suggest they
  should help themselves?
• Describe the ways skilled workers did try to help
  themselves.