Articles

13th issue of Voluntary Action - Volume 5 Number 1

 

Theorising charity: the bishops and the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act

John Lansley, Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Liverpool, UK

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Discussions of the history of British social policy often start with the new Poor Law of 1834, which is described as a triumph of laissez-faire political economy and as an instrument of repressive social policy. However, equivalent issues and dilemmas were taking place in nineteenth-century charity. There was not a sudden change, but a shift in dominant social discourse, with the growth of the new science of political economy; there were also important alterations in the church’s understanding of charity. This paper seeks to examine, in the writings and actions of two bishops who sat on the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws (RCPL), the nature and significance of these changes.

Freemasonry, industry and charity: the local community and the working man

David Harrison, Research Student, School of History, University of Liverpool, UK

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Focusing on the charitable aspects of Freemasonry at the local level in the north-west of England, this article discusses ways in which Freemasons became involved in local education and charitable organisations in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The Combination Acts of 1799, introduced by Pitt the Younger amid the fears created by the French Revolution, changed Freemasonry. In certain industrial areas, such as Warrington, the Craft became open to the working classes, as the upper classes began to distance themselves from Freemasonry because of the radical image it had gained. Working men found within the Craft a traditional benevolent club, which had aspects of a Friendly Society and enabled them to claim relief for themselves and their families.

The market of philanthropy

Solveig Hollari, Research Student, Department of Economic History, University of Stockholm, Sweden

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This article examines ways in which philanthropic activists raised money for charitable purposes. The focus is on four charitable organisations in Stockholm, Sweden, at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. The population of Stockholm was small at the time, and the large number of different charitable institutions, associations or funds that existed meant that the organised philanthropists in this market-like situation had to act in ways that were persuasive towards the providers of money. They had to count on the variable of the popularity or lack of popularity of the group they wished to help when they decided which methods to use in order to raise money for their work. Apart from this main focus, the article also contains a brief analysis of the possible differences between charities run by men and charities run by women.

The social construction of femininity: the initial phase of the education of Red Cross nurses in Sweden

Gun-Marie Frånberg, Centre for Values Education, Umeå, Sweden

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This article has three interrelated perspectives which are developed through an historical and socio-cultural analysis of the development of an opening for middle-class women into a new area of the labour market in the middle of the nineteenth-century: medical care. One theme consists of a gender perspective, which puts relations of power and subordination on the agenda. Another includes a structural perspective, which focuses on analysing the development from a contextual and societal point of view. The final theme focuses on the perspective of the actors. It is especially the processes of discipline, femininity and professionalism that constitute important tools of analysis.

Feminists, politics and children’s charity: the formation of the Save the Children Fund

Linda Mahood, Department of History, University of Guelph, Canada

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The connection between the First World War, feminist politics and women’s consciousness is currently of great interest to those working in the field of women’s history. The formation of the Save the Children Fund (SCF) in 1919 illustrates that focusing exclusively on women’s participation in party political processes overlooks the fact that there was also a renewed interest in voluntary action after the First World War. A sizeable number of women – including former suffragists – military doctors and nurses, social workers and politicians became active in the post-war peace movement and in relief work, and campaigned exclusively for voluntary children’s aid. By providing grants to relief projects sponsored by women, the SCF furthered newly enfranchised women’s careers in politics, relief agencies and peace work. For many feminists and humanitarians, it was impossible to distinguish between politics and voluntary action where women and children were concerned.

Poor law principles, sectarianism and the state: the work of Catholic Sisters in nineteenth-century New South Wales

Lesley Hughes, School of Social Work, University of New South Wales, Australia

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In nineteenth-century New South Wales, charity for the non-indigenous population was closely associated with religion. In the absence of state provision via a poor law, ‘voluntary’ charity played a major role in meeting social needs, although the principles of the British poor law amendment of 1834 were evident in the dominant stance towards the poor. As in Britain, religion was both a motivating force and part of the response of the ‘charitable’, who sought to address spiritual as well as material needs (Dickey, 1987; Swain, 1998). The sectarianism of a society of whose population between 25 and 35 per cent was of Irish Catholic origin impinged on charity. The work of Catholic Sisterhoods, shaped by their particular ethos as well as by their social context, contrasted with the prevailing approach to charity.

‘Even in this distant and obscure corner of the world, the British character does not degenerate’: philanthropy in the Australian Colonies

Shurlee Swain, Australian Catholic University and University of Melbourne, Australia

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From the earliest days of Australian colonisation the emergence of voluntary philanthropic organisations was cited as a measure of civility and indeed civilisation, a defence against degeneracy in a society where traditional markers of class and gentility were lacking and boundaries were permeable. In this article colonial philanthropy is understood as performance designed to establish divisions in the highly fluid society, simultaneously disciplining and denigrating the poor and validating the status of the emerging elites. Through such activities philanthropy, a major constituent of colonial society throughout the nineteenth century, became a major, if unsuccessful, contestant in the nation-building project, allied to conservative forces, at odds with the claims of the new nation to be a democratic exemplar and a social laboratory for the world.