The First World War, Women’s Suffrage and Social Work

Dave Burnham,

Social Work History Network, November 27th 2014

• 1918 was the ‘Coupon Election’ • The brief Post War Boom soon ended and economic decline set in • a wave of industrial disputes followed the lifting of wartime labour restrictions • No loans from the US to prop UK up – no ‘Marshall Plan’ • ‘Geddes Axe’ followed – plans under the Ministry of Health Act shelved

The word ‘Social Worker’ was only applied to voluntary workers, who were also referred to as philanthropic workers or charity workers. It was never applied to paid ‘officials’ The phrase ‘Social Work’ referred to any activity which improved the lot of individuals, families, communities or society – education, legal aid, children’s holidays, voluntary visiting, health treatments, maternity clinics, free school meals....

The State of ‘Social Work’ in 1914. - Affluent Social Entrepreneurs - University Settlements - Religious Missions - Trades Unions, Co-operative Societies, Friendly Societies - Specific Charities – Blind Schools, NSPCC, District Nursing - Visiting Charities - Poor Law Activities

- Receiving Children into Public Care - Visiting children discharged from Public Care - Visiting Children Boarded out from Public Care - Surveillance of children receiving ‘out ‘relief’ - Infant Life Protection Visiting - Specialist ROs to remove people to Lunatic Asylums - Management of Bastardy Orders

- State intervention on a national level included: -Old Age Pension -Unemployment Benefit -Sickness Benefit -Medical Examinations in Board Schools -Free School Meals for poor Scholars

•Paid Probation Officers from 1908 and women from 1912 •Education Care Committee Organisers •Central Association for Mental Welfare paid enquiry agents •Infant Life Protection Visitors from 1899 •Specialist Relieving Officers for Lunatics from 1905 •Lady Child Welfare Visitors from 1910 •OAP and Sickness Benefit Visitors •Lady Almoners

When the War Came the voluntary response in terms of money raising, imaginative offers and people stepping in to undertake necessary and dangerous work was extraordinary. Examples here are: • the women of Pervyse – Elsie Knocker and Mairi Chisholm • Australian Masseuses, possibly from Almeric Paget’s Military Massage Unit

• a Scottish Women’s Hospitals ambulance

Many voluntary and state organisations which sought women volunteers wore uniforms – a great controversy at first.

These ‘intrusions’ of women into public life and work caused unease – traditional views of women’s roles being challenged. And while some feared that manual work would make women less feminine, less able to bear children for instance, films (Mary Pickford in Stella Maris, 1918 bottom left), encouraged working class women (with money for the first time) to aspire to better clothes, make up and so on. There were several ‘women’s patrols’ which tried to prevent immorality between couples (left), and there was a general fear of women being lured into prostitution (below)

Millicent Fawcett, (sister of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson), was leader of the NAWSS – constitutional working through back channels. Dragged along from 1903 into more public demonstrations by the WSPU.

Poor Women had to work... Affluent Women with ambition, a social conscience, or just wanting to get out of the house... had proscribed opportunities. Charitable Work... Poor Law Guardians... Women’s Suffrage Movement

WSPU – unconstitutional, radical, increasingly shocking – but these women’s public lives ALL started with social work: - Emmeline

Pankhurst - Charlotte Despard - Sylvia Pankhurst - Edith Rigby

Bolton Women’s Local Government Association Bolton Women’s Suffrage Society • Personally visiting women whose behaviour was ‘unsatisfactory’ • Police Court visiting •Representation on the County Council mental deficiency committee •Discussion and support for women’s patrols •After care of children leaving public care •Support for the Royal Commission on VD’s proposals that LAs should offer treatment •Nominating members (nine a day) to help with school dinners •Providing two helpers a day at the Poor Protection league Offices •Supporting the LA involvement and support for the voluntary Mother and Baby Clinic •Establishing a kitchen for mothers to help them buy good food, cook and feed their children healthily, as well as providing food for them. •Considerable financial support and lobby for the Scottish Women’s Hospitals •Lobbying government about VD and the 1912 CLAA....

After the war – 750,000 dead, many old attitudes swept away, many taking new opportunities, there was no going back. Attlee, writing in 1920 said that • the notion of ‘charity changed into the idea of ‘social service’, • that the responsibility for welfare sat firmly with the state after the war, not ‘charity’. • The idea of the ‘responsibilities of citizenship’ loomed large after the war, with the electorate having nearly trebled and women voting in parliamentary elections for the first time. •Political parties began to champion ‘women’s issues’...

• Post war changes

The practical importance of Visiting Charities fell away... • state financial support meant there was less complete destitution...state support meant children were healthier. • mixing of volunteer and state activity during the war (Bolton Maternity Clinic) blurred the boundaries. • higher income tax, death duties and more means that fewer young women could volunteer... •...besides more affluent women wanted to work... • ...this undermined the previous view that volunteers were ‘superior’ to and more ‘trustworthy’ than paid workers • some visiting charities had worked for War Pensions, thus compromising their independence.

Shift in Language Employment in the war undermined the argument that poor preferred handouts to work. The word ‘pauperised’ was less used replaced by ‘unemployment’. The experiences of many in the war reduced ‘deference’ by working classes. Affluent volunteers could no longer rely on unquestioned influence... Attlee’s view was that so much was now offered by the state, that volunteers were best used in work of ‘personal influence’ Ideas about child development, educational psychology, shell shock and the debate about emotional trauma...led to volunteer social workers seeking a ‘method’. During the 1920s social workers shifted from the language of ‘moral education’ to the language of ‘scientific method’

Nursing Registration Act of 1919 , Housing (Addison Act) 1919 Women Police Poor Law Guardians began establishing women visitor posts and 140 women were relieving officers by 1919. Education Care Committees relied on volunteers but employed paid co-ordinators. Moral Welfare Committees were established in many places, employed ‘outworkers’ Maternity and Child Care Act 1918, the creche movement, Occupational Welfare Officers, Women factory inspectors , JUC for SW training...

1919 Ministry of Health Act transferred Local Government Board (i.e. Poor Law) responsibilities to the new Ministry of Health – with the clear aim of abolishing the Poor Law and transferring its responsibilities to Local Authorities and establishing a form of National Health Service

And those Bolton political women’s organisations merged nationally becoming the Women’s Citizens Association... (Elizabeth Macadam worked at the National Office of the WCA – she was also secretary of the JUC for SW training) •Lobbying for more female Relieving Officers, Sanitary Inspectors, Magistrates.

•Operating as a Political Party, supporting candidates for the Council – Mrs Agnew became the first female councillor in Bolton in 1923 .

•Supporting and championing the development of maternity clinics

•Supporting the development of education and treatment for VD

•Intervening directly where women employees were exploited

•Controversially, advocating Birth Control

The local paid organiser, Mrs Blincoe, of the WCA covered their office five mornings a week in the early 1920s, often reported individual women who came into the office with problems, who she took on as ‘cases’.

More support for poor people and the sick and unemployed and an acceptance of state responsibility undermined the strength of voluntary visiting charities in ‘leading’ the debate. As Atlee said in 1920 local authorities drove social work and not the voluntary effort any longer. The class superiority of affluent volunteers over the poor people they served, was slowly replaced amongst social workers by a more ‘scientific’ analysis of need. Originally paid workers played second fiddle to volunteers. After the war volunteer’s work was co-ordinated and led by paid workers. The optimism about an extension of state support for those in need in 1919/1920 was palpable and in truth a lot changed and developed...

Summary