To Read Part I
To Read Part III
Nineteen men and women were appointed the Royal Commission For Poor Law Reform and Relieving of Distress. Most of the appointees were social reformers, investigators, and public officials who had dealt directly with relief efforts for the poor. Many had subscribed to common late-Victorian/Edwardian notions of responsibility and charity. Thus it was considered highly unlikely that the Commission would recommend drastic changes to the Poor Law; rather many saw the Commission's goal simply to recommend ways of better administering the laws. [1]
By 1909, however, the Commission totally confounded all the expectations from 1905. The Commision split, with 15 signing the Majority Report, and the remaining four signing the Minority Report, which was authored by Webb. This report recommended the gradual abolition of the Poor Law. Even the Majority Report, while not agreeing that the Poor Law should be abolished, recommended significant and radical changes to it. As Webb wrote twenty years later: ...so empathetic and decisive a condemnation... a condemnation which is safe to say had not been in the mind of any one of the Commissioners on their appointment... [which] was entirely unexpected by the nation.... [which] produced a great effect on public opinion.
[2]
It is interesting to note that Beatrice was writing about a transformation that she, more than anyone else, helped to create.
This transformation, however, was a long, bitter battle which began immediately after the Commission was formed. At first the contention was procedural. Initially, a majority on the committee wanted to rely on government officials to provide the evidence, a desire that Beatrice derided as being ...spoon-fed by evidence carefully selected and prepared they [the officials] were to draft the circular to the boards of guardians; they were to select the inspectors who were to give evidence; they were virtually to select the guardians to be called in support of this evidence... And above all we were to be given opinions and not facts.
[emphasis mine] [3]
Instead of accepting this arrangement, which very well could have been utilized to rubber-stamp certain political positions, Beatrice fought it vigorously like a "restive... race-horse compelled to run in harness with a team of lumbering dray-horses." [4] As a result, the battle soon expanded to become a broad ideological one, with the "lumbering" faction believing that the issue was how to relieve destitution, and Beatrice increasingly beginning to believe that it was rather to discover the causes of it. [5]
