Changing Attitudes

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Changing Attitudes
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Investigators

• Booth founder of Salvation army
• Andrew Mearns The bitter Cry of Outcast London
• GR Sims report on the poor in London

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Charles Booth

• Wealthy Liverpool ship owner
• Began investigation to disprove the claim that a
  quarter of Londoners lived in poverty
• Over 1 million families investigated

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'Map Showing Degrees of Poverty in London for
1889-1890',
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Booths classification of the people he
interviewed
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Charles Booth

• Shocked to discover that figures were actually
  underestimated
• 30 living below poverty line
• But only 10 been helped by Poor law

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Seebohm Rowntree

• Wealthy York manufacturing family
• Aim to see if the level of poverty in York was
  different to london
• 1901 published Poverty, A study of Town Life

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Key findings

• Identified two types of poverty
• Primary poverty, those people whose earnings were
  so low they could not survive on them alone
• Secondary Poverty those who had enough to live
  on but spent money

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Key findings

• Determined poverty line at 21s 8d (1.08)
• Found York had 27.8 of its population living in
  poverty
• Poverty was not always the fault of the person
  e.g. low wages, sick, elderly

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Significance

• Both investigators used new methods to study
  poverty
• Charity was not enough, the government would have
  to provide help
• Greater awareness of poverty

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Pressures

• Employers e.g Rowntree, Lever, Brunner believed
  there was a need for action
• Politicians increasing number ready to support
  state action
• Extension of the franchise to working class men
  (1867 and 1884)

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Pressures

• Growth of the labour and socialist societies
• E.g. Fabian society Sidney and Beatrice webb
• Boer war many men unfit to fight
• In Manchester 8,000 volunteered but only 1200
  were accepted

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Overall

• For all these reasons there was a gradual shift
  from self help and hard work attitude towards a
  collectivist belief in social reform

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• Activity
• What were the main causes of Poverty in the late
  nineteenth century
• Describe the work of Charles Booth and Joseph
  Rowntree in changing attitudes to poverty in the
  early twentieth century