BEVERIDGE AND HIS PLAN by JANET BEVERIDGE A toast to Power al1d Ilif/uel1ce, the day it saw the light . PSw LONDON HODDER AND STOUGHTON 351. 84 G BEVE 54 A_UIA_UIA_UIA_UIf 1I11111 11 111\11 111\ 11111 0311111~,~~m~\~~ililm 03 0217435 1 ------------------------ Text continues after this page ------------------------ This publication is made available in the context of the history of social work project. See www.historyofsocialwork.org It is our aim to respect authors’ and publishers’ copyright. Should you feel we violated those, please do get in touch with us. Deze publicatie wordt beschikbaar gesteld in het kader van de canon sociaal werk. Zie www.canonsociaalwerk.eu Het is onze wens de rechten van auteurs en uitgevers te respecten. Mocht je denken dat we daarin iets fout doen, gelieve ons dan te contacteren. ------------------------ Tekst gaat verder na deze pagina ------------------------ FIRST PRINTED MAY 1954 MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN To all of those FOR HODDER AND STOUGHTON LIMITED, on whose behalf William went out LONDON, BY T. AND A. CONSTABLE LTD., PRINTERS, EDINBURGH to slay five giants All the characters in this book are real PREFACE people. Scrupulous care has been taken to introduce nothing of a fictional nature o write this book has been of primary importance to me, Tbecause it deals with the story of a momentous change in the social structure of our country. It is intended to give a simple statement of the facts; for the facts speak for themselves. It traces through William's life and work the origins and development which resulted in the Beveridge Report. The Report was the apotheosis of a long devotion of nearly forty years to the fulfIlment by one stage after another of the principles to which he first gave a tentative expression in his early leaders in the Morning Post written from his twenty-sixth to his twenty-ninth year, and in his book Unemployment, a Problem of Industry, published in I909, when he was just under thirty. Whether you like it or not, whether you are glad or sorry, the Beveridge Report was the inauguration of a new relation within the State of man to man, and of man to the State, not only in this country but throughout the world. The ethic of the universal brotherhood of man was here enshrined in a plan to be· carried out by every individual member of the community on his own behalf and on behalf of his fellows. The phrases William used, the imagery he invented, have passed into the common speech of the people in every language, just as the principles they illustrated have passed into their minds. As I moved from one episode to another, and from one chapter to the next, I have to admit that I found it harder and harder to remain dispassionate in a mounting sense of bewilderment. But here it was William himself who came to my rescue as oft an earlier occasion he had soothed his mother, as you will see as you read the book. JANET BEVERIDGE. Oxford. 7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS CONTENTS PAGB AMONG my acknowledgements I have to thank our PREFACE. secretary in :pdinburgh, Mrs. Winifred Law, who 7 n. CHAP. worked without c9mplaint or limits to her time on succes­ I. ORIGINS. 13 sive typescripts; Mrs. Jones, who intervened at a congested moment by typing in her off-time a much mutilated II. SCHOOL AND BEFORE 24 chapter; Mrs. Thompson at Newton Aycliffe, who typed III. OXFORD. 39 some of the early drafts; and Miss Anne Wood at Oxford, who worked indefatigably on the final form of the book, IV. TOYNBEE HALL AND AFTER 52 assisting in particular on the vital question of capitals and V. WAR AND AFTERMATH 66 commas; William himself provided the Index. For permission to quote Philip Snowden's Autobiography VI. A FORETASTE OF THE PLAN 75 on pp. 78, 79,81, we are indebted to Messrs. A. P. Watt on VII. GREEN STREET 90 behalf of the author's executrix and to Messrs. Ivor Nicholson and Watson, publishers. VIII. ON THE STOCKS 101 By permission of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery IX. LAUNCHED AMID CHEERS II4 Office, passages are reproduced from Hansard and from various Parliamentary and Non-Parliamentary Papers, namely: pp. 82, X. TORPEDOED 130 128-9, 133-4, 138, 140-5, 218-20,225, extracts from House of XI. R.M.S. "QUEEN MARY" 154 Commons Debates; pp. 150-1, extract from House of Lords XII. THE PLAN EXPLAINED: AMERICA EAST AND NORTH 164 Debates; p. 87, extract from Cmd. 4185 (Final Report of Royal Commission on Unemployment Insurance, 1932); XIII. THE PLAN EXPLAINED: AMERICA WEST AND SOUTH 180 pp. 3-4, extract from M.O'!. document dated March 18, 12 XIV. GOEBBELS AND THE RESISTANCE MOVEMENTS 193 1943; p. 214, extract from Cmd. 6550-1 (Social Insurance Pts. I or II. XV. SALVAGED WITH MIxED METAPHORS. 208 XVI. A LAST WORD 226 INDEX 230 8 9 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGB A toast to Power and Influence, the day it saw the light (Oxford, November 1953) . Frontispiece The infant Beveridge, December 1879 20 The boy Beveridge, 1884 20 Family with friends at Keavil, 1883; William at his mother's knee 26 Trio in exile at Woodlands, with Fraulein Vogel and Harry Winstanley, 1885 29 A solemn Puck at Darjeeling, 1886 32 A prize-winner in Unders Football 36 At Charterhouse, with crooked tie 36 Balliol Hockey Team, 1900 49 Balliol Lawn Tennis Team, 1900 49 Pitfold, Hindhead . 64 The young Civil Servant, 1909 74 Vice-Chancellor of University of London, 1928 74 At Green Street-William with the family 92 At Green Street-William and the Webbs 94 4t Green Street-Daltons and Lees-Smiths with Janet. 94 The Pool begun, with John Gwilt 97 II BEVERIDGE AND HIS PLAN PAGE The Pool ftnished under the Tumulus 97 CHAPTER I The Man-Power Expert, 1942 . 101 With Frank Pakenham in St. James' Park. 108 Origins "I didn't get far in" II2 The bee is little among such as fly; but her fruit is the chief of Master's Garden at Univ. This he gave up II6 sweet things. ECCLESIASTICUS 11.3 Autographs at Central Hall, January 1944. (After address on "Security and Adventure") 125 ILLIAM'S birth and early years followed a pattern which Wcan never now be repeated. It is out of circulation, for "Right Turn" (Low) 131 the mould is broken. "It came to pieces in me 'and, Mum!" (Vicky) 134 His father was a member of the Indian Civil Service, a district and Sessions Judge. He had gone to India in 1857, "O.K.! No Babies." (Zec) 142 having gained the ftrst place in the examination held by the "Hi! Who's the foreman around here?" (Low) 148 Civil Service Commissioners in that year. It was the third under the new regulations established by Gladstone's legisla­ "When the lights go on again ...." (Vicky) 153 tion for the reform of the Civil Service in India, which up to A Liberty Ship is launched at Portland, Oregon 181 1855 had been recruited through the East India Company. Henry was thus a pioneer of that line of civil servants Lunch after the Launching 188 chosen not by nepotism but on their academic merits, seeking Goebbels on the Report . 199 not wealth but to serve their country in the best interests of A medal from Ghent 204 India, who for nearly a hundred years won the laurels they deserved. He was close enough to the tradition which the new "My Goodness My Beveridge" (Vicky) 2IO regime had been created to abolish to be well aware of how "Quick! Beveridge!" (Low) 213 necessary the reform had been. For him and his contemporaries, William Hickey and his like were no heroes to immortalise. He had astonished the examiners of the Civil Service Com­ mission by his knowledge. The test to which he was subjected is laughable now, it was so clearly designed not to discover what the candidates knew which might serve them in their car~er if successful, but consisted of haphazard facts or refer­ ences which it was far more than probable that none of them could possibly have encountered in their academic pursuits or in their personal reading. The examination was intended to 12 13 BEVERIDGE AND HIS PLAN ORIGINS select able men just graduated at the ancient Universities, of inexhaustible vitality and decided ambitions in which favouring on the whole the classical discipline. That a Scottish marriage did not take the first place. She did not disdain the youth from a small country house in Fife, who owed his Uni­ conventional social life for a girl of her time. She went to versity training to Belfast and Glasgow, should have been dances and attracted young men. It was not an unsuccessful the first on the list in 1857 was a surprise indeed. There was no love affair that drove her to study Latin and Mathematics. personality test in those days, still less a scrutiny during a She just wanted irresistibly to do so, and did so very well. weekend in a country house by psychologists and others. I The respective fathers of Henry and Annette were a study have a shrewd suspicion that Henry might not have come out in themselves. Henry Beveridge, the elder, was a scholar by on top of such experiments. Yet even in such a company his nature and a country gentleman by ambition. As the Squire transparent rectitude, his complete absence of vanity, his of Inzievar, a small but pleasant property in Fife bought in earnestness and above all the superlative quality of his intellect the early days of his marriage with his wife Jemima's dowry, might have penetrated through their machinations.