Unit 3.6 (Complete) Flashcards
1
Q
Who was Charles Booth?
A
- Wealthy, serious-minded entrepreneur.
2
Q
What drove Charles Booth to investigate poverty in London?
A
- his social conscience.
3
Q
How long did Booths study of the poor in London take/
A
- 17 years.
4
Q
What were Booth’s enquiries?
A
- Rejected the hard line of the COS that poverty was at the fault of the pauper.
- Unlike Mayhew, Booth wanted to explore why the poor lived the way they did.
- Booth wanted to explore the idea that there may be structural explanations for poverty not just moral ones.
5
Q
What did Booth and his team divide the population into?
A
- 8 Classes.
- Although Booth did acknowledge that the classes did overlap and no sharp distinctions were really possible.
- Booth firmly believed that an appreciation of the differences between the classes was fundamental in understanding the causes of poverty.
6
Q
How reliable were Booth’s findings?
A
- He relief on observation only thus Booth did not take into account income when defining poverty.
- Therefore his study is criticised for being subjective and unreliable.
7
Q
Why did Helen Bosanquet criticise Booth’s findings?
A
- She objected to the social survey method developed by Booth because it had no underpinning philosophy or principle.
- She believed that his ‘poverty line’ was flawed because she disputed the ‘facts’ on which it was based as they were produced by the dubious survey method.
- She attacked the statistical basis of Booth’s findings, claiming it underestimated the income level of poor families.
- She criticised Booth’s workers who although they did spend some time living in poor quarters, tended to rely on primary research findings shedding some downy on the reliability of Booth’s findings.
8
Q
Who was Seebohm Rowntree?
A
- Devout quaker.
- His faith tended to dominate his attitude to society in general and his own workforce in particular.
- He believed that healthy, contented workers were also efficient workers.
- He championed democracy in the workplace, a minimum wage, family allowances and old age pensions.
9
Q
What were Rowntree’s enquiries?
A
- Conducted three surveys of poverty in York that provided a wealth of statistical data which supported the findings of Booth in London.
- His aim was to find out the numbers of people living in poverty and the nature of that poverty.
- He hoped to build on Booth’s work and give more precision to Booth’s idea of a ‘poverty line’.
10
Q
What was Rowntree’s first survey?
A
- Carried out in 1899 and his findings were published in 1901.
- Used one full-time investigator who made house-to-house visits and relied on information from clergymen, teachers and voluntary workers.
- Rowntree was focusing on the working classes in York, whom he defined as those families where the head of the household was a wage earner and no servants were employed.
- Altogether, 11560 households were visited and information obtained from 2/3rds of the population.
11
Q
What did Rowntree find?
A
- 28% of the population of York were in obvious need and living in squalor.
- He worked out that the minimum wage that would be necessary for a family to live in a state of physical efficiency was 21 shillings a week.
- At this level he drew his poverty line and concluded that around 10% of the population of York were living in primary poverty.
- The remaining 18% were living in secondary poverty.
- Rowntree also began to discover a ‘poverty cycle’.
12
Q
What was Rowntree’s definition of primary poverty?
A
- People cannot obtain even the basic necessities of life no matter how well they organise their budgets.
13
Q
What was Rowntree’s definition of secondary poverty?
A
- People can obtain the basic necessities of life provided there are no extra calls on their budget.
14
Q
What was Rowntree’s poverty cycle?
A
- Childhood was a time of poverty.
- Conditions improved when children grew and became wage earners and continued into their early married years.
- As soon as children were born, couples slipped below the poverty line and remained there until their children began to earn.
- After a period of relative prosperity, couples would fall below the poverty line again when they were old and could no longer work.
15
Q
Why did Helen Bosanquet criticise Rowntree’s findings?
A
- ## She claimed he had overestimated the level of poverty by setting the poverty line too high.
16
Q
How reliable were Rowntree’s findings?
A
- His findings were mainly based on observation.
- His definitions of primary and secondary poverty could be interpreted as too subjective.
- The criteria Rowntree used to identify the poor did not include income.
17
Q
What were the strengths to Rowntree’s findings?
A
- Despite his criteria and analyses being subjective they were more or less consistent.
- His distinction between primary and secondary poverty was not designed to identify the poor but was instead intended to describe the nature of that poverty.
18
Q
What did the findings of Booth and Rowntree suggest?
A
- They both found that around 30% of a total urban population were living in poverty at the end of the 19th century.
- Both investigations suggested that poverty was a state that was beyond the control of the poor.
19
Q
What was the objective of the Fabian society?
A
- Founded in 1884.
- Had the objective of advancing the principles of socialism in a gradual, non-confrontational way.
20
Q
Who were the most notable members of the Fabian Society?
A
- George Bernard Shaw.
- H.G Wells.
- Annie Besant.
- Ramsay MacDonald.
- Emmeline Pankhurst.
21
Q
What did the Fabian Society do?
A
- Held meetings.
- Handed out pamphlets.
- Held meetings and lobbied with politicians about Poor Law reform to international alliances.
- Targeted trade unions.
- Rejected violent upheaval as a way to protest, preferring to use the power of local government and trade unions.
22
Q
What did the Fabian Society lobby for in 1906?
A
- Lobbied for a minimum wage to stop businesses from lowering wages to become more competitive.
23
Q
What did the Fabian Society lobby for in 1911?
A
- Lobbied for a national health service that would enable the British Empire to remain strong.
24
Q
What was the Fabian Society’s opinion on the Boer War?
A
- They were in support of the Boer War as they believed that small nations had no place in a world of empires.
- They also believed that without an empire they would not be able to get a national health system.
25
Q
Why did the Fabian Society advocate for a Citizen Army?
A
- They were shocked at the poor physical state of recruits to the army.
- Advocated for the formation of a citizen army to replace the professional one.
- This citizen army would be full of fit and healthy men.
- They believed this would only come about provided the government accepted their proposals for a universal health service and the extension of the Factory Acts so that those in half-time employment could be subjected to extensive physical training, education in citizenship and training in the use of modern weapons.
