Poverty and Social Research

Question 1

Give some background to Charles Booth

Answer 1

Shipowner and merchant, chairman of the steamship company until 1912

Unitarian (Religiously minded)

Initially a liberal, but a unionist at time of inquiry. Supports tariff reform after 1903
Successful capitalist

Question 2

Give some of the origins of Booth’s survey (4)

Answer 2

1. Marxist Social Democratic Federation 1885 estimated that 25% of London working-class suffered extreme poverty – allegedly provoked Booth to produce surveys to prove the claim to be a gross exaggeration.
2. Bloody Sunday, Trafalgar Square 1887 – extreme poverty provokes social disorder, necessary to know the extent that exists
3. Age of progress:
   - 1883, Robert Griffen’s essay ‘The progress of the Working classes in the last half century’ – suggests that were was extreme progress and material improvement, but extreme poverty still exists.
   - Rev Andrew Mearn’s pamphlet, ‘the bitter cry of Outcast London’ describes the bitter living conditions of the poor. In the midst of the moral and material progress, depravity ad poverty exits – why is this the case?
4. 7/17 volumes concerned with religious influences – does poverty excliude religious influence?

Question 3

Give the methodology of Booth’s survey

Answer 3

Covered the whole of London

Did not conduct a house to house to house survey, nor does he construct a clearly defined poverty line.

He collected systematically the impressions of school board visitors as to the numbers of families living in discernible poverty.
- This was a reasonable procedure at the time when poverty was evident in
clothing, household goods and malnourished faces
- Booth then cross-checked these impressions with those other local
people such as clergymen.

• Booth also collected household budgets from 30 families.

Question 3

Give the methodology of Booth’s survey

Answer 3

Covered the whole of London

Did not conduct a house to house to house survey, nor does he construct a clearly defined poverty line.

He collected systematically the impressions of school board visitors as to the numbers of families living in discernible poverty.
- This was a reasonable procedure at the time when poverty was evident in
clothing, household goods and malnourished faces
- Booth then cross-checked these impressions with those other local
people such as clergymen.

• Booth also collected household budgets from 30 families.

Question 4

What were Booth’s findings

Answer 4

Classified London according to their degree of poverty:

Classes F & E - High paid labour and regular standard earnings (51%)

Classes D & C - Small regular and intermittent earnings, sometimes in poverty (22.3%)

Classes A & B - Casual earnings, extreme poverty (8.4%)

Question 5

How did Booth define poverty

Answer 5

“Having no surplus”

30% were in poverty or want
8.4% were in want at all times

These figures refer to the whole of London.

Question 6

What were the causes of poverty

Answer 6

Poverty in old age (38% over 65’s on poor relief)

Major cause was low pay and irregular work
The issue is not unemployment (never a major issue) but underemployment is

Question 7

What was Booth’s radical solution

Answer 7

“The entire removal of this class (A and B) out of the daily struggle for existence I believe to be the only solution of the problem of poverty”

Saw the social scale as a scale of morality. The removal of classes A and B would mean less labour, so the price of labour rises, allowing classes C and D to enjoy regular standard earnings

A and B would be sent to labour colonies, far from London and under close supervision

Idea of removing classes form society was not unique to Booth, though the method varied

Question 8

What were Booth’s more socialist solutions

Answer 8

Limited socialism to those who cannot stand alone - old-age pensions (s a week) or over 65s
- This was not a living pension but a supplement to personal savings. Not enough for those who have nothing

Booth also argues that the care of the elderly should fall to children rather than the state

Charles Booth - moralist or social scientist?

Question 9

What were some liberal welfare reforms in 1908

Answer 9

Wages Board

Old-age pensions

Question 10

What were some liberal welfare reforms in 1908

Answer 10

Wages Board

Old-age pensions

Question 11

Give some background to Rowentree

Answer 11

Praises Booth and says he wants to do for York what Booth did for London

Came from a rich family, and develops an interest in improving working conditions when young

Was a new liberal – favoured using the state in order to address social difficulties
Rowentree family key founders of the liberal press

Question 12

What was the main criticism of Booth’s investigation

Answer 12

Critics of Booth criticise the methodology as well as London being unique –
not representative of the rest of the country

Rowntree was determined not to make the same mistake and so argued that York was “fairly representative of many, if not most of our provincial towns”

Question 13

What was Rowentree’s clearly defined poverty line

Answer 13

“No expenditure of any kind is allowed for beyond that which is absolutely necessary for the maintenance of merely physical efficiency”

Question 14

What was Rowentree’s assessment of the minimum amount a family of 5 needed to stay alive each week

How was this calculated

Answer 14

21s 8d a week

Meticulous in calculating this.
Looks at the price of food across a number of months in York – aware of the varying fluctuations of prices.
Looks at the price of housing in different parts of York. Cutting everything but the essentials for the poverty line

Investigates every working-class household in York (11,550)

Question 15

What were Rowentree’s findings

Answer 15

10% lived in families with earnings below the poverty line

17.93% lived in secondary poverty – income above the minimum but still living in a state of squalor.

Question 16

Give a quote from Rownentree

Answer 16

“Comparing with Booth, ‘we are faced with the startling possibility that from 25 to 30 per cent of the town population of the United Kingdom are living in poverty”

Question 17

How did Rowentree’s occupation assist in his findings

Answer 17

York is smaller than London, and the Rowntrees are major employers in York.

Can ask other employers who are part of his social and business circle what they’re paying their workers – able to roughly assess what the income of the family was.

Question 18

What is the difference between primary and secondary poverty

Answer 18

Primary poverty is not the fault of the individual – underemployment/low wages

Secondary poverty – potential to argue that it is the fault of the individual for living in squalor. Earn above the minimum required – problem with their expenditure?

Question 19

What did Rowentree find as the main reasons for primary poverty

Answer 19

51.96% of the chief breadwinner was “in regular work but at low pay”

• 22.16% child poverty
• 15.6% death of chief wage earner
• 2.8% irregular work
• 2.3% unemployment

Question 20

What is Rowentree’s solution to primary poverty

Answer 20

Looks to the state

Favours a minimum wage, has to be implemented by the state.

Question 21

How did Rowentree respond to criticism that his findings represent a static picture, and that economics, and thus poverty, were a dynamic phenomenon

Answer 21

Rowntree responded with the lifecycle of poverty. Argues that ‘the life of a labourer is marked by five alternating periods of want and comparative plenty

Rowentree discovered that every labourer with a normal-sized family of three children passed through a period of probably ten years when he and his family would be underfed.

Question 22

What did Rowentree determine the causes of secondary poverty

Answer 22

Less precise about the causes

Had no doubt that major reasons were drink/gambling

However, these “are themselves often the outcome of the adverse conditions” under which too many of the working classes live
- Certainly an element of blame, but in some circumstances, these are often the conditions of poor living and working conditions

Question 23

What was Rowentree’s concensus regarding rural poverty

Answer 23

Little public attention was paid towards rural poverty before Rowentree’s and Kendal’s studies

Whilst housing density was lower, they were often as overcrowded and unsanitary as in towns

Question 24

What was the reaction towards Rowentree’s findings

Answer 24

That 30% were living in poverty shocked some contemporaries. However, others were reassured in the fact that 70% were in relative affluence

By the time Booth and Rowntree are writing, the idea that poverty is a result of the individual is becoming less significant. The problem instead looked at how the state and charities etc. can manage it

Question 25

Give a quote form Alfred Marshall

Answer 25

“While the problem of 1834 was the problem of pauperism, the problem of 1893 is the problem of poverty”

1834 - poverty is an individual issue
1893 - poverty becomes the problem of the state

Question 26

How many charities were there in London in 1864, and with what annual income

Answer 26

640 London charities

Income = £2.5 million - exceeded poor law expenditure

Question 27

What is a major factor of the charities

Answer 27

Religion

¾ charities in second half of 19thC judged to have evangelicalism roots

Question 28

Who generally an the charities

Answer 28

Underemployed middle and upper class women

Question 29

When was the COS formed

Answer 29

1869

COS formed to coordinate charitable giving

Question 30

What was a central ideology of the COS

Answer 30

Categorises the deserving poor and the vicious poor.
Alfred Marshal describes it as a “moral infamy”

If you help people with money and time for those who cannot be helped – you are wasting resources and depriving the deserving of much-needed resources

This clashed with the evangelical view that any soul was worth saving, with the COS assuming that poverty is the choice the individual makes