HOW SIGNIFICANT WERE CHARITY AND SELF-HELP IN DEALING WITH THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY?

Question 1

When was the Charity Organisation Society founded?

Answer 1

• 1869.

Question 2

What sort of people attended the COS inauguration meeting?

Answer 2

• members of the commons.
• aristocracy.
• armed forces.
• established Church.
• high up professions.

Question 3

What were the 3 main aims of the COS?

Answer 3

• cooperation with the Poor Law authorities at a local level to establish a clear division between the different work of the 2 groups.
• organisation of the work of other charities, to coordinate their efforts to ensure charitable relief was given appropriately.
• ensure only the deserving received charitable relief.

Question 4

What did the COS members believe about the nature of charity and who it should be given to?

Answer 4

• charity was a gift not a right, given at the discretion of the giver.
• should be given to the deserving poor, who would be given limited charity to help them get back on their feet.

Question 5

How was charitable relief designed to be both moral and material?

Answer 5

• moral- permanent impact, reform the behaviour of the recipient, whose lifestyle would be forever changed.
• material- temporary help, put food on the table.

Question 6

How was the COS not a national organisation?

Answer 6

• federal structure meant local branches tended to work in their own way.
• even in London where the COS headquarters were, there was considerable variety in the work of the offices.

Question 7

How was the COS criticised?

Answer 7

• provincial branches failed to recruit sufficient volunteers or raise enough funds.
• their rigorous investigative methods were resented by the poor.
• charities found the COS were overbearing, preferring to raise funds and dispense help as they thought fit.
• boards of guardians had had strained relationships with their local COS branches as they thought the COS interfered with the way they chose to administer the Poor Law.

Question 8

What did COS actually achieve?

Answer 8

• the views of its intellectual supporters were listened to in the corridors of power so had influence on official thinking. COS viewed as experts on poverty and charity, so members often gave evidence to enquiries on social problems.
• 1880- the COS had established practices and procedure when visiting poor families where they could make comparisons between different applicants. This would form the basis of later social work and social work training.

Question 9

What were friendly societies originally?

Answer 9

• groups or friends, neighbours or workers who joined together to provide for themselves in times of need.

Question 10

For a weekly subscription, what would friendly society members be entitled to?

Answer 10

• payment in times of sickness, death or unemployment.

Question 11

Why was there a surge in friendly society membership at the beginning of the 19th century?

Answer 11

• workers tried to protect themselves from the uncertainties thrown up by the Industrial Revolution, a mobile population and the decline of traditional occupations.

Question 12

Why was there a further surge in 1834 of friendly society memberships? What did this signal?

Answer 12

• people anticipated a more rigorous Poor Law and increased problems in obtaining state relief.
• signalled a change in in the organisation of friendly societies- to a wider organisation.

Question 13

By 1847, how had friendly societies changed?

Answer 13

• they were no longer independent and local- the friendly society movement had become a national organisation with central bodies to which individual societies could join.
• the be if it’s could no be provided over a wider geographical area.

Question 14

Which were the biggest friendly societies in the 19th century? How many members did they have?

Answer 14

• the Manchester Oddfellows- 434,000 members- mostly joined after 1834.
• the Ancient Order of Foresters- 362,000 members.

Question 15

After 1846, who were friendly societies required to register with? What were the benefits of this?

Answer 15

• the office of the Registrar of Friendly Societies.

* gave them legal protection of their funds.

Question 16

By 1877, what was the membership of friendly societies across Britain?

Answer 16

• 2.7 million.

Question 17

What were the practical and moral benefits of joining a friendly society for poor people?

Answer 17

• promised them security.
• freed them from the process, procedures and shame of pauperism.
• companionship- members new each other well and meetings were held in a local pub, allowing the exchange of advice and acts of kindness.

Question 18

How did friendly societies meet an aim of the Poor Law Amendment Act?

Answer 18

• self help should be the main source of relief for the poor to reduce the numbers in workhouses- assistance by friendly societies was given due to the contributions members had made.

Question 19

What reasons are there for not all working people being able to benefit from friendly societies?

Answer 19

• societies requires an entry fee and weekly contributions were expected- about 6d a week. This was beyond the means of the poorest workers due to irregular unemployment.
• societies fined members who missed a payment, further adding to debt from joining.
• risky groups of people- those over 40, people with a history of illness and those in dangerous occupations were rarely accepted.
• bad management and financial organisation caused societies to collapse, some societies encouraged workers to join eventhough they wouldn’t be able to keep up with payments- not always guaranteed the benefits.

Question 20

What did those would couldn’t afford to join a friendly society turn to?

Answer 20

• burial societies- focused on the poorer members of society.

Question 21

What drove paupers into joining a burial society?

Answer 21

• fear of a pauper funeral (buried in a pauper grave- a mass grace with no markings, brought immense shame to a pauper).

Question 22

What contribution did the Blackburn Philanthropic Burial Society require, what’s did this pay for?

Answer 22

• 1d per week= burial allowance of £4, enough for a funeral.

Question 23

What example of a burial society shows how they went from being local affairs to larger enterprises?

Answer 23

• the Royal Liver Friendly Society- founded by Liverpool workers in 1850, 20 years later had 550,000 members.

Question 24

What were the 3 largest friendly societies by 1880 and what did their membership total up to?

Answer 24

• the Royal Liver.
• the Liverpool Victoria.
• the Royal London.
• over four million members.

Question 25

Why did trade unions expand rapidly in the mid-late 19th century?

Answer 25

• industrialisation was well established- workers wanted to combine, or fight for, better working conditions and higher pay.

Question 26

What examples are there of trade or skilled based trade union?

Answer 26

* Amalgamated Society of Joiners and Carpenters. | * Amalgamated Society of Engineers.

Question 27

What was the average weekly subscription to join a trade union?

Answer 27

• 1s per week.

Question 28

What benefits did joining a trade union offer?

Answer 28

* pensions. * benefits for sickness and death. * unemployment pay.

Question 29

What example is there of a less generous friendly society?

Answer 29

• Brickmakers Society of London- didn’t offer sickness fund.

Question 30

How was the ability to join a trade union limited?

Answer 30

• only skilled workers could afford the weekly subscription and therefore receive the benefits that would keep them from pauperism.

Question 31

Where did the cooperative movement originate?

Answer 31

• Rochdale- a group of weavers started the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, using their contributions to rent a ship and buy in/ sell on good-quality goods to working class families.

Question 32

How did the cooperative shops work?

Answer 32

• they were owned by their members, who were payed a dividend on every purchase they made, which families often used to pay rent or if they could afford it left them in the shop to gain interest.

Question 33

After 7 years, how many cooperative shops were there in the North of England?

Answer 33

• 130.

Question 34

By 1880, how many shareholders were there in cooperative shops?

Answer 34

• almost 1 million.

Question 35

Why were cooperative societies so popular?

Answer 35

* the regular dividends. | * the knowledge the food they were buying being unadulterated.

Question 36

What did cooperative societies give working class families experience of?

Answer 36

• gave them the ability to plan their finances and save.

Question 37

Why was cooperative society membership limited?

Answer 37

* cooperative shops wouldn’t give credit- everything had to be payed for there and then which limited membership to the skilled and semi-skilled workers of the working class. * cooperative dividends were based upon the amount people spent in the shops- this was not a movement for those living close to the edge.