In 1912, Sir Ratan Tata, an Indian philanthropist and son of the founder of the Indian industrial conglomerate, gave £1,400 per year for three years to fund research into poverty and inequality. This led to the foundation of a department of social science and administration at the London School of Economics (LSE), and the study into the conditions of the poorer classes by the University of London.
As a direct consequence, a study was conducted in 1912-13 into the lives of working classes in five medium-sized industrial towns: Northampton, Warrington, Bolton, Stanley and Reading. The results were published in 19151. The work was repeated in 1924 and published in 19252.
Taken together, these two studies give us a detailed view of working-class life and economic conditions in Northampton on the eve of World War 1 and the somewhat better situation in the early 1920s.
The work of the LSE, the University of London and these studies and others laid the foundations of the future Welfare State. William Beveridge was Director of the LSE 1919-37 and author of the Beveridge Report, which laid the foundation for free healthcare in the United Kingdom.
Who were the Working Class?
Defining the working class had inherent problems as opinions would differ, and then there might be complications where households were deemed middle-class, e.g. business owners and yet have working-class children living with them.
In 1913, households were counted as middle-class or working-class according to the occupation of the head of the household. In 1924, a more rigorous approach was used; working-class households excluded public-houses and hotels, as well as all shops except very small concerns where the income from the shop was subsidiary to that of the main wage-earner. Also excluded by occupation were all professional men or women, clerks, draughtsmen, managers, insurance or wholesale agents, and all shop assistants except butchers, fishmongers, grocers, greengrocers and bakers.
The purpose here is not to re-publish the data from the original reports, which can be accessed if required, but to summarise the findings which may be of use to researchers after 100 years.
This is an introduction to a series of four posts covering Northampton between 1913 and 1924:
- Northampton on the Eve of Change: Life in 1913 and 1924
- Parks, Libraries and Leisure: Northampton’s Social Life in the 1920s
- Schools, Skills and Community: Education in Northampton, 1913–1924
- Work, Housing and Health: Northampton Behind the Numbers (1924)
- Bowley, A. L. (Arthur Lyon)., Burnett-Hurst, A. Robert. (1915). Livelihood and poverty: a study in the economic conditions of working-class households in Northampton, Warrington, Stanley and Reading. London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd. https://archive.org/details/livelihoodpovert00bowlrich Bowley, A.L., & Burnett-Hurst, A.R. Economic conditions of working-class households in Bolton, 1914: a supplementary chapter to “livelihood and poverty”.
- Bowley, A. Lyon., Hogg, M. Hope. (1925). Has poverty diminished?: A sequel to “Livelihood and poverty”. London: P. S. King & Son, Ltd. https://archive.org/details/dli.ministry.13797
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