Physical Deterioration and National Efficiency

Question 1

How was the period viewed by contemporaries

Answer 1

One of decline; socially, morally and economically

By the period the optimism of the Victorian period has been replaced by one of degeneracy

Question 2

Give some internal factors of decline

Answer 2

• Increased domestic economic threat, reliance on imports
• Industrial unrest
• Social unrest, with votes for women

Rowntree and Booth’s reports

Question 3

Give some external factors for decline

Answer 3

• Economic threat
• Shift in military power balance
• Relative dominance of the Navy
• Colonial resistance from Ireland, India, and Egypt

Question 4

Why as reliance on imports causing unrest

Answer 4

British Industry was increasingly in need of modernisation

The Americans, in particular, were able to produce cheap agricultural goods and manufactured ones that Britain imported

Increasing criticism of free trade, which is what the Empire was built on

Question 5

Give a quote from E.E. William’s 1896 book ‘Made in Germany’

Answer 5

“In all our industries you find a steady slowing-down… it is Germany who is in for the ‘marvellous progress’ now”

(Growing criticism of free trade)

Question 6

Give evidence of a relative economic decline

Answer 6

Imports of cheap goods were crucial to fuel Britain’s large urban centres

Continued to profit from traditional industries such as steel and cotton, trade with Empire crucial

Lack of state investment in education and industries compared to countries like Germany

Decreasing share of global trade, but still the majority of

Question 7

Give evidence of a military power imbalance

Answer 7

1870 onwards saw the growth of continental armies

Threat from the sea
- In 1883, the Royal Navy possessed 38 battleships, only 2 fewer than the rest of the entire world but by 1897, this gap of 2 had increased to 34.

No large standing army and army offered few prospects

Empire feels increasingly unwieldy

• Boer War

Question 8

Give some background to the Boer War

Answer 8

Fought against the Transvaal and Orange Free state

The Empire struggled to defeat the guerrilla farmers

The black week was in December 1899, when the Empire suffered 3 successive defeats

Characterised by extreme brutality and military incompetence
- The guerrillas were only defeated after the use of scorched earth tactics and concentration camps

Question 9

Give some domestic reactions to the Boer War

Answer 9

Created a considerable degree of political backlash in Britain

The controversy was raised in the House of Commons, Lloyd George and Campbell-Bannerman led the Liberals in attacking the government

Official estimates are that 18K to 28K people died in the camps

By the end of the war in 1902 Britain had committed 450,000 men to defeat two republics with a combined population of 60,000

Question 10

Give a quote from Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman with regards to the Boer War

Answer 10

“When is a war not a war? When it is carried on by methods of barbarism in South Africa”

Question 11

What was Lloyd George’s response to the Boer War

Answer 11

“Owing to mal-administration and owing to our having embarked upon a policy which is absolutely wrong, about 15,000 or 16,000 innocent people have died”

Question 12

How many died in the Boer War

Answer 12

Number of Boer men, women and children who died in the camps vary between 18,000 and 28,000.

There were over 100,000 casualties of all kinds among the 450,000 British soldiers to defeat a population of less than 60,000

5,774 were killed by enemy action and 16,168 died of wounds or were killed by disease.

Question 13

How was there a shift in foreign policy

Answer 13

The strength and loyalty of the empire was demonstrated, but also that it was over-extended and coordinated

Move from ‘Splendid Isolation’ to greater security and alliances

• Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902
• Ententes with France in 1904 over North Africa and with Russia in 1907 over Persia

Question 14

What was the financial impact of the Boer War

Answer 14

200 million pounds - more than all of Britain’s previous imperial ventures over the last century

Question 15

Give some new army reforms that tool place after the Boer War

Answer 15

• New war office
• New General Staff
• Chief of the General Imperial staff
• Committee of Imperial Defence
• Defence without parliamentary interference

Some Historians say that these made Britain readier for WWI, but that technology was not considered enough

Question 16

Give some educational reforms to tackle national inefficiency

Answer 16

The Education Act of 1902 abolished old school boards and replaced with them the Local Education authorities and provided rate aid for church schools

By 1900 the public schools had 110 army cadet corps

From 1878, imperial knowledge was embedded in the
history and geography curricula

Education (Administrative Provisions) Act 1907

Education (Provision of Meals) Act 1906 – but not enforced until 1914.

Question 17

Give some evidence of new youth movements

Answer 17

Boys’ Brigade 1883 (35,148 members by 1899)

1901-National Service League

1903-Tariff Reform League, British Brothers League

1907-9 - Union Defense League, Imperial Maritime League, Anti-Socialist League.

Question 18

When was the Committee on Physical Deterioration created

Why was it created

Answer 18

1903

As a result of the 37% rejection rate

A specific set of military recruiting figures, which stated that of 11,000 would-be
volunteers in Manchester, 8,000 had to be turned away due to physical defects.’ (Heggie)

Rowntree: “at least one-half of the manpower of England was unfit for military duty”

Whilst many of these figures are in all probably;y flawed/exaggerated, they nevertheless caused widespread public alarm and anxiety

Question 19

Outline the differences between deterioration and degeneration (social vs biological)

Answer 19

DETERIORATION

• Remediable through social intervention
• Welfare solutions
• Focus on Environment Factor
• Group Solutions

DEGENERATION

• Intractable
• Eugencical solutions
• Focus on hereditary factors/biology
• Individual solutions

Question 20

Describe what the 18thc book ‘Rotten Bodies’ argued

Answer 20

In 18C the lower classes with their ‘plebian bodies’ were considered uniquely contagious as both literally and morally ‘unclean’

The idea that certain groups were uniquely vulnerable to disease was transmitted from science to social policy through the efforts of eugenicists

Question 21

What does Radick argue about Darwinism

Answer 21

Darwin could easily slip across “what tends now to be thought of as a borderline between the biological and the social”

Question 22

How did Darwin ideas about inheritance translate into a desire for social reform

Answer 22

Neo-Lamarckian revival

“The idea that living in cities and towns was bad for the health and that these bad effects were heritable seemed to be backed up by Booth and Rowntree’s investigations” (Solloway)

These new developments in the biological sciences provided theoretical scaffolding to support welfare changes.

Question 23

How did Darwinism and inheritance give rise to social darwinism

Answer 23

Medical and charitable intervention would erode ‘biological quality’
Mapped onto ideas about ‘race’ and ‘fitness’

Paul and Moore - “Didn’t they allow the less adequate members of society to survive and reproduce? Wouldn’t these people eventually swamp the more capable and thus reverse the direction of evolution?”

Question 24

How did Darwinism cause fears and anxiety in Britain

Answer 24

Origin of Species (1859)
Descent of Man (1871)

Fed growing hysteria around national deterioration
Directly tapped into the anxieties about Britain’s global position, economic supremacy, and national fitness
(H.G. Wells - Time Machine’)

Question 25

Give the background to Eugenics

Answer 25

Francis Galton coined the term Eugenics in 1883

Wanted to create a galazy of genius’
Meant to extend Darwin’s theory of evolution

Fear of the survival of the unfitest. That the working class are reproducing more than the upper classes

Question 26

Give the background to eugenics

Answer 26

Francis Galton coined the term in 1883

• Wanted to create a galaxy of genius’
• Meant to extend Darwin’s theory of evolution

Fear of the survival of the unfittest. That the working class are reproducing more than the upper classes

Question 27

What did the the Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration in 1904 outline

Answer 27

No evidence of irreversible physical decline
Seemed to vindicate support of environmental and health reforms

Recommended sanitary regulation, education of girls, P.E. in schools,
teaching hygiene and domestic science, inspection of schoolchildren, and
state sponsored meals

Question 28

How does Solway view the 1904 Report

Answer 28

A decisive riposte to the idea of degeneration and eugenic thinking

A refutation of eugenic thinking as well as a call for increased public health measures

“The accuracy of the data, which was sometimes in short supply, was often far less important than the preconceptions that analysts brought to it in the first place”

Question 29

How does Heggie interpret the 1904 Report

Answer 29

The recommendations in the report are entirely social and environmental, not medical, and certainly not eugenic

Recruiting figures, in themselves, were not important, but the Boer war could not help but provoke an internal questioning of the stat of the nation

Urban legend - Women transgressing social boundaries posed a threat to the nation

Question 30

Give some liberal reforms in the early 20thC

Answer 30

Education (provisions of meals act) 1906

Medical care of schoolchildren (1907)

Children’s act (1908)

Old age pensions (1908)

Question 31

How does Smith interprate the 1904 report

Answer 31

Report evidences sustain concern about degeneration

Whilst many educators involved it had connections with anthropologists and eugenics