Abbreviations:
SW: Helen Bosanquet, Social Work in London 1869 to 1912, London: 1914 [Extract].
M: Charles Loch Mowat, The Charity Organisation Society 1869-1913, London: 1961
L: Jane Lweis, The Voluntary Sector, the State and Social Work in Britain, Brookfield: 1995.[Extract]
| 1785 | The Strangers' Friend Society: |
| 1818 | The Society for the Supression of Mendicity |
| 1843 | The Metropolitan Visiting and Relief Association: |
| 1844 | The Society for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes: Lord Shaftesbury was chairman. |
| 1857 | SSA established: [...] the scientific associations afforded oppotunities for the discussion of social problems and suggestion of remedies.A glance at the list of the papers read shows to what a large extent its attention was directed to sanitary conditions and kindred matters affecting the welfare of the poor classes. It was for some time a question with the founders of the COS whether they should not amalgamate with this association rather than form a new society [SW: 16]. [SSA annotation; EUG] |
| 1860 | The Society for the Relief of Distress: |
| 1864 | Octavia Hill began her work: |
| 1868 | C.B.P.Bosanquet, London, its Growth, Charitable Agencies and Wants: See [SW 58]. |
| Rev.Martyn Hart's system of Free Mendicity Ticket:(Blackheath) Every householder was supplied with ticket with which ti refer beggers to a central office. Cases were enquiried by an experienced officer; if hungry they were fed, and if capable of being permanently assisted they were helped from funds raised in the district [SW:11]. Referred to as a model of the charity organisation after the conferrence of 11th February. | |
| Henry Solly, How to Deal with the Unemployed Poor of London, and with its 'Rough' and Criminal Classes: Read before the Society of Arts (Monday, June 22, 1868). It resulted in the formation of COS. Solly was a Unitarian Minister, and one of the most energetic pioneers in COS work. "Mr. Solly's paper gave the trumpet call which summoned the forces into the field". A series of prospectuses drawn up [SW:18]. | |
| Hawksley, The Charities of London etc.: See [SW: 21-22]. | |
| 1869 | COS formed: Its prehistory [M 14-15][Octavia Hill at SSA] |
| A conference of the representatives of the charities of London: 11 February. "the first definite and public action on the part of the society", but "it was not successful". "The result of the first conference created great discouragement amongst some of us, for not only had the meeting manifested such signs of impatience that Dr. Hawksley was obliged to cease speaking before he had nealy finished, but almost all the speakers were strongly opposed to his whole plan, and refused altogether to have their charities organised" [Mr. Wilkinson; SW 23]. HB on the reason. | |
| Willkinson's Prospectus: 11th March. "Prospectus and rough plan" [SW 25]. | |
| Willkinson's motion: 29 April. That the title of the society be changed to that of the Society for Organising Charitable Relief and Repressing Mendicity. This title proving to be too long for general use it was resolved on April 9, 1870, that Charity Organisation Society should be adopted as a short titile; and in April 1910 it was resolved that the words For Organising Charitable Effort and Improving the Condition of the Poor be substituted for Organising Charitable Relief and Repressing Mendicity [SW 26]. | |
| Formation of Districts Committees begun: 13 May (Marylebone: Octavia Hll and Lord Lichfield [opened in October]);13 December (St. Geroge's: Lord Grosvenor); and Paddington, Hanover Square, Mile End Old Town, Islington, Battersea, Lambeth, Clapham, Chelsea and Kensington added after the autumn. | |
| The condition of district committees: 1 November. (1)That the district of the committee should be defined and be, so far as possible, co-terminous with the Poor Law District; (2) That the committee should be represented by delegates at Council; (3) That the general principles of operation indicated by the published plans of the society be adopted. | |
| Goschen Minute: 20 November. The Poor Law itself was perhaps the arch offender in the matter of giving indiscriminate and inadequate relief. The Guardians and the charities were engaged in running after each other in a vicious circle. The Guardians made their relief inadequate because they were sure it was being supplemented by charity; the charities gave bacause the Guardians' relief was inadequate. The Minute pleaded for a wiser form of co-operation between charity and the Poor Law it was but coldly received in many Unions [SW: 8]. [Japanese Trans. of the Minute] | |
| 1870 | Relief by the district committees: 17 Janurary. That the principle be clearly recognised that the local committees are intended to be in the ultimate resort source of relief for cases that cannot be properly dealt with by any other agency. "This was to open the door to an extensive development of relief-work" [SW 40]. Relief activities; On Dole see [SW 40-42]; Loan was introduced by the example of the Jewish Board of Guardians [SW 43][L 49]; Migration: A.H.Hill opened his Employ Inquiry Office in April 1870,whence he issued Labour News, and carried on work on lines since developed by the Labour Exchange System [SW 44]. In January 1871 the Council appointed a sub-commitee on unemployment, which reported that the migration of unemployed labour to districts where it was required should be encouraged. The Third Annual Report speaks of numerous families which have been rendered independent by this means. |
| Poor Law: [25 March] A discussion at Lord Lichfield's house. Three distinct views: [1] the Poor Law should do practically all relirf work, the term "destitution" being made very elastic [Trevelyan]; [2] the Poor Law should do no relief work, but should confine itself to institutional treatment; [3] the Poor Law should deal with cases which called for the application of general rules, while charity confined itself to those which could be hopefully treated in detail. Finally the third view was adopted. Annual Report: "That all cases which belong properly to the Poor Law should be handed over to the Guardians, and that only cases in which temporary aid is likely to prove of permanent benefit to the recipient should be left to the operation of private charity" [SW 267]. Emphasis upon the responsibility of donors to make their help effective. | |
| Pension: Negative to pension relief. Council declareed: "the permanently dependent are not regarded as proper subjects for relief by DCs in any case, because, if they should be continuously relieved, the entire funds of the Committee would be exhausted in support of a permanent list, and the primary object of such Committee---the elevation of the moral and physical condition of the poor---be defeated" [SW 281]. | |
| The First Annual Report: Dated 30 March. By 8 June 1870, 17 district committees established. Housing ans Sanitation: the daily experience of their Committees in the various districts of the Metropolis shows that the great questions of Sanitary Improvement, Emigration, Education, Provident Societies, mproved Dwellings for the Poor and other collateral subjects must at an early date engage their most earnest attention [SW 159]. | |
| Lord Lichfield's motion: 5 December. "The best mode of raising funds for the relief of distress in districts where the means at the disposal of the existing charitable agencies are found tobe inadequate". A closer co-operation with the Society for Relief of Distress proposed. But the co-operation plan unsuccessfil. | |
| 1871 | The Second Annual Report: Difficulty to establish new committees, owing to the lack of voluntary workers in the poorer districts. "They hope that this difficulty will be overcome; in the mean time they have made arrangements for opening an office in Stepney, through which enquiries will be made at the instance of the Council and the Erst End Committees regarding cases from Stepney, Mile End, St.George's East, Whitechapel and Poplar". Falure to cary out the ideal of registration: It will be observed that nothing has been said in this report about the registration of relief given by different charities. |
| Poor Law: [13 November] Hawkskey's motion: "... the organisation and machinery of the Society should be amalgamated with that of the Poor Law, so that the relieving officers of the latter may become the charity agents of the former" [SW 268]. The motion rejected because Poor Law administration was still too lax and charity still too unorganised to make such a preceeding safe. | |
| Parochial Critic adopted by the Society: | |
| Medical Charity: Council appointed a Medical Sub-committee in consequence of a Paper lately read by Fairlie Clarke: "to keep the Council informed of any oppotunity which may offer for giving assistance to the Medical Charities [March]; and especially to promote the formation of Provident Dispensaries". "... more than a million persons annually were treated as out-patients by medical charities, more than 180,000 cases having been received in St. Bartholomew's in one year without any enquiry. Consequently the poor, and many who are not poor, had ceased to make any provision for sickness" [SW 205]. "... the beginning of a campaign against hasty diagnosis and a bottle, against the treatment of a patient without reference to his home surroundings..." [SW 206-7]. "... the policy of the Society was in the first instance to induce the free dispensaries to place themselves on a provident basis..." [SW 208]. | |
| 1872 | Charity Organisation Reporter isseud (weekly): |
| Poor Law: A direct co-operation with the Poor Law: "no fewer than six members of the St.Geroge's Committee were elected on their local Bord, five of whom would probably never have stood for the office, had they not been members of the Committee. Smaller numbers offered themselved and were elected in Marylebone, Kensington, and other districts" [Annual Report, SW 268]. | |
| Committee on Prosecutions appointed: Considered: legislative control of impostors and defects in the law relating to subscription charities. 19 January 1893 the Committee reported and submitted a Bill. Lord Shaftesbery spported the Bill, but defeated at the second reading [July 1873]. Salisbury against it, saying "fools and their money were soon parted". | |
| Voting Charities: Trevelyan moved the Council to take a stand against the system [SW 370-374; M 61-62; Beveridge 1948]. | |
| Assistance of Children: See [SW 230-232]. | |
| The Third Annual Report: The Metropolitan area was now fairly covered, and the first task which the Council had set itself was accomplished within four years of its undertaking. On HD's evaluation of the formation of district committees, see [SW 32]. | |
| William Booth: "Mr. Booth distributed a large amount of relief in the most indiscriminate manner, the major portion of it being in breakfast and suppers to which people are invited in order that they may be spiritually affacted and religiously instructed ... Relief is also given to persons without any invesitgation into their cases for paying nights' lodging and the like" [E.W. Hollond, SW 341-342]. | |
| 1874 | "Begging-Letter Impostors": See [SW 119]. |
| The physically and mentally defective: The secretary brought before Council a memorandum suggesting the formation of a special committee to consider what might be done to promote the welfare, and the industrial training, of the blind. The committee was formed, and COS was well represented. "... at present 70 per.cent of the blind are bodily infirmity incapable of work. ... therefore, there are in London between 800 and 900 blind adults capable employment, a large portion of whom may require some form of industrial assistance". Increased employment and the Blind for Sate Aid recommended [SW 191-192]. The intention was to enable the Poor Law authorities to pay the entire cost of educating at charitable institutions blind children and deaf and dumb children, without placing the parents in the status of paupers and so disenfranchising them [M 58-59] | |
| 1875 | "A critical year for the Society": Rapid increase in expenditure; "relief upon the old system has been given by our committees as freely as it was ever given by the most doleful of relief societies" [Lichfield, SW 48]. |
| A sub-committee appointed to survey and report upon the work of the district committees: February. Proposed strenghening the supervision of Council over the District Committees. "The real question at issue was whether the Society should continue on a democratic basis of local independence modified by grants and admonitions from the representative centre; whether the Council should become an autocratic body, maintaining and running local office"[SW 50]. | |
| The Aim of the Society: See [M 25-26]. | |
| Pension: DC of St.George's raised a special fund for chronic [i.e. pension] cases. Long residence was obligatory, and the allowances were in supplement of out-relief. 12s.6d.for a couple and 8s. for single. Octavia Hill reported that in Marylebone the COS committee had sropped giving anything to the single able-bodied and had thus been able to make regular allowances from a small fund to chronic cases [L 48]. | |
| Bosanquet resigned the General Secretaryship and C.S.Loch selected: | |
| Medical Charity: The Commitee of the Children's Hospital desiced to place some limit on the class of person eligible as out-patient. The Council asked whether District Committee would undertake to verify the statements made by applicants [SW 209-210]. | |
| Assistance of Children: Francis Peek, a member of the School Board, offered to give 1,000 pounds a year for three years to enable the Society to co-operate with the Board by investigating and relieving in accordance with its own principle cases referred to it by the Board visitors [SW 234][M 54]. COS's commitment to the process of public administration. But it was feared that to create a fund for a special class of cases would lead to a rush of such cases which might be dealt with less wisely than others,... there might be a large distribution of boots and shoes, with no sufficient attempt to raise the position of families receiving them [ibid]. "... the easy expedient of granting boots without consideration of the other needs of the family". See [cicular to DCs 1875]. | |
| Criticism against COS's accounts: See [SW 125]. | |
| 1876 | The Principle of Charity: See [M 26-27][Condiions of Charity][Classification of the Poor]. |
| Pension: See [SW 282-283]. | |
| The physically and mentally defective: See [SW 190,196-197; M 59]. | |
| Assistance of Children: Typical School Board case [Reporter October 1876, SW 235-236]. | |
| 1877 | Special Meeting on "Personal work among the Poor and How to Organise it": As early as 1870 Trevelyan raised the question for the "systematic visitation of poor" (Pamphlet; SW 53); At the meeting M.S.A.Walrond (Hon.Sec.of the Metropolitan Visiting and Relief Association) read a paper [SW 54-55]; the appointment of a Committee (Walrond, O.Hill, A.H.Hill, A.D.Graham, J.Cummins and A.N.Hoare) and its report [SW 56]; |
| Poor Law: Report and evidence of reduction in pauperism: by A.G.Crowder, St.Geroge's-in-the-East Union [Reporter 1877 109, SW 269-270]. | |
| Pension: See [SW 283-284]. | |
| The physically and mentally defective: See [SW 190-191]. | |
| Dr Barnardo's Home: | |
| 1878 | Pension: The resolution proposed at the Council by Trevelyan: See [SW 284-285; L 48] |
| [W.L.Blackley, National Insurance]: Appeared in Nineteenth Century: every male in the United Kingdom should required to contribute a fixed sum to a common fund prior to his attaining his 21 years old of age, which would entitle him to sicke allowance and old age pension. The payment suggested was 15 pound, the benefits 8s. a week sick pay up to 70, and 4s. a week pension after 70.The scheme was to be worked through the Post Office. Poor Law relief was to be abolished. | |
| Francis Peek urged to the Secretary the establishment of a Mansion House Fund [30 December]. | |
| 1879 | R.J.Simpson's motion on paid officer in the district committee: November. That every district committee should have a paid secretary unless peculiar conditions rendered the present arrangement preferable. By it "vehement opposition" was aroused, since "paid officers tend to kill voluntary work". A.H.Hill argued for the motion: the work against its definite functions would turned the society "into toy-shops where men of leisure might find amusement". |
| Medical Charity: C. Trevelyan's report on the Provident Dispensaries Extension Fund [March]. A Conference on 22 June: consisteing of many members of Friendly Societies, and including representatives of COS, and of the Hospital Saturday Fund; unanimous in favour of a Metropolitan Association. Metropolitan Provident Medical Association formed in April 1880 to be registered under the Friendly Societies Act. See [SW 212]. | |
| A series of lectures: "with a view to making widely known the principles involved in the work [...] spoken of as Charity Organisation" [SW 72]. | |
| Criticism against COS: See [SW 63] | |
| [R.P.Hookham, Outline of a Scheme for dealing with Pauperism ] Non-contributory old age pensions payable to all persons, regardless of means or savings, as a right rather than a favour [M 138; Japanese annotation of Charles Booth] | |
| 1880 | C.S.Loch, Report on the work of the district committee: [...] there is an extreme deficiency of organising power. The committees within their committee-rooms work at their cases, while around them are district visitors and other almoners distributing doles almost [...] as they did ten years ago.[...] the action of the Society has produced silent reforms, yet between the committees and the district visitors is a gulf fixed. [...] No measures are taken for combining the two system. |
| Assitance of Children: See [SW 273]. | |
| [Pension scheme by the National Provident League] On the line adovocated by Blackley. Proposed the universal compulsory insurance against sickness and old age of all persons reaching the age of wighteen after the date of enactment. Later the promoter omitted the provision for sick pay, and abandoned the idea of compulsion and adovocated Stae-aided old-age pension scheme. | |
| 1882 | The assistant secretaries and the district committee: Assistant secretaries of the Council should be temporarily attached to some of the weakest Committees. The Annual Report: the best way of assisting District Committees [...] is to place at their disposal for a time, officers well acquainted with the principles and methods of the Society, and able to form a centre for charitable workers and to ensure the thorough execution of all case-work. Its result: The more capable the Secretary was, the greater became the mass of work which he attracted to the office, and the more difficult it became for him to be withdrawn. "the burden of case-work is too heavy to permit him to organise". What is organisation? See the 1882 Report of Marylebone Committee. |
| Charities Register and Digest published: | |
| [Henry George, Progress and Poverty: Democratic Federation founded] | |
| 1883 | Report on Finace and Organisation: See [SW 69-70]. |
| Central Collection introduced: | |
| Barnett, "Practicable Socialism": Nineteenth Century for April 1883. See [M 117-118]. | |
| 1884 | Socialism: The Socialistic movement appears to be gaining a great hold upon the clergy owing to the fact that they, more than any other of the educated classes, are brought into close contact with the evils which Socialism desires to remove [Report, January 1884]; Books on the poor, poverty, social questions, slums and the like subjects, rush fast and furious from the press. The title of some of them sound like sentimental novels [Report, June 1884]. "Such an outbreak of sensationalism led inevitably to the disaster of the Mansion House Fund of 1886" [SW 75]. |
| University Settlement: See [SW 76]. | |
| [Henry Geroge's Lectures]: | |
| 1885 | Charity Organisation Report superseded by Charity Organisation Review: The change was primarily due to economise. "by converting it into a monthly periodical containing artivcles of more general interest it might be made self-supporting; indeed the Annual Report for that year condfidently announes that the Review is to be self-supporting from the first" [SW 76]. |
| Denison Club established: For 26 years it was a meeting place of workers. | |
| Pension: Annual Report for 1885-1886: "For pension cases even Committees in the wealthier parts of London find it difficult to raise what is required" [SW 288]. | |
| 1886 | "Undeserving" in the table of cases changed to "not likely to benefit": See [M 37]. In 1888 "not likely to benefit" changed to "not assited". The Webbs saw a contradiction of COS's scheme in this unstable terminology [See their Prevention of Destitution]. |
| 1887 | "Special Case System": By this time the original plan of "referring" cases to appropriate agencies has for the most part disappeared, for it seldom happened that any one agency by itself was prepared to do all that was needed in the assistance of a family. Hence the method was adopted of appealing on each case as it arose to as many agencies as might be necessary, to get the assistance, whether in money or in kind, which was required. In this way a Committee might concentrate a large amount of help upon the families in which they were interested without themselves maintaining any fund for relief purposes [SW 77-78]. |
| 1888 | Annual audit by professional accountants introduced: |
| Types of the applicants: Annual Report for 1891-1892: 'Help useless' really covers everything, for we never refuse where help would be of real benefit, We do not refuse necessarily because of bad character, but only when the help asked for would, without information, be both useless to the recipient and injurious, by example to others [SW 111] | |
| The physically and mentally defective: The investigation by Dr. Francis Warner. COS combined with BA to raise a fund to carry on an extensive inquiry into the mental and physical condition of the London Poor Law and Elementary School children. Covered 50,000 children [SW 198]. | |
| Medical Charity: Special Committee [for the investigation of the work and management of Medical Charities]: a petition for appointment of a Seect Committee of the House of Lords. Set out the main facts: the precarious financial position of the hospitals; the great annual deficit owing to which a large number of beds were unoccupied. "... there was now ample provision for the sick poor, but in administration there were certain very serious defects". In 1890 the Select Committee appointed, the Report submitted in 1892, but the result was in vain [SW 216-217]. | |
| Local Government: Meeting to consider the new Local Government Act: "seize oppotunity; elect the best men". A resolution: the selection of candidates on the ground of special qualifications for municipal work, apart from other "indirect consideration": "ordinary party politics should be excluded from the election" [SW 271-272]. | |
| Poor Law: A Committee of members was appointed to watch the inquiry being made by the House of Lord's Committee on Poor Relief and Distress, and to advise. HB in Poor Law Administration. | |
| Criticism against COS: See [SW 137]. | |
| Pubilic attension to social and industrial conditons: Annual Report: See [400-401]. | |
| 1889 | Assistance of Children: Special Committee on the school meal: a cereful study was undertaken of 101 families in poor districts, chosen on the ground of exceptional poverty; in 49 ceses no material assistence was needed, and out of those where there was real distress only five or six could be adequately helped by the temporary suupply of meals to the children; the want was found to be due to many different causes, and could only be removed by thorough treatment at the home. [COS and free school meals] |
| C.S.Loch, "Benevolent Trading": Appeared in the Times (21 January). The movement of Salvation Army regarded as "a new and popular form of indiscriminate relief" [SW 344]. | |
| Instruction and Citizenship: Annual Report: See [SW 402]. | |
| [First election of LCC, January] | |
| 1890 | The physically and mentally defective: See [SW 197]. |
| [William Booth, In Darkest England and the Way Out published]: Not unanimously about General Booth and Salvation Army in the Society. "Old and respected members of the Charity Organisation Society wrote urging the Society to bless and not to curse the "General's" scheme ..." [SW 346]. A letter from C.S.Loch appeared in the Times [1 December], in which he laid bare the exaggerations and pretensions of the book and its scheme. See also [SW 348]. | |
| 1891 | The physically and mentally defective: A great advance was made by the Elementary Education (Defective Children) Act [1898]: Provision for the education of defective children made by special classes, boarding out or establishing schools: and for the education of epileptic children by establishing schools for them. Annual Report for 1891-1892: "spreading throughout the country in favour of a truer recognition of public and private responsibility in regard to the well-being of the afflicted" [SW 201]. |
| Assistance of Children: Annual Meeting: "... I say I can imagine no course so sure to increase the number of underfed children in London as the wholesale feeding of them by charity. ... family after family where the diminution of distinct responsibility increased drunkenness and neglect, where steady work is neglected and lost, training for work abandoned, house duties omitted, all because of our miserable interference with duties we neither can nor should perform ... too many of the money gifts to the poor of London just now are doing more harm than good" [Octavia Hill, SW 255-256][Bernard Bosanquet on School Meals; L 63]. See also 1889. | |
| Pension: The sum spent on pensions was found to 9,574 pounds. An enquiry made: the system of payment was not yet fully developed; there was a general consensus of opinion in favour of paying allowances at the homes of pensioners, but some Committees still preferred to make the payment at the office. An article appeared in Charity Organisation Review. | |
| Social Education and Sociology: See [SW 403ff]. | |
| [Charles Booth's Pension Scheme]: See [SW 290]. | |
| [W.H. Dawson, Bismark and State Socialism]: Expounded Bismarckian schemes. The second edition issued in the same year. | |
| 1892 | Poor Law: Special Committee [COS] was appointed to consider and report to the Council upon proposals for the alteration of the Poor Law of for changes in the method of administrating it. Royal Commission appointed: to consider "whether any alterations in the system of Poor Law relief are desirable in the case of persons whose destitution is occasioned by incapacity for work resulting from old age" [SW 275]. COS was represented upon it by C.S.Loch. |
| Pension: See [COS's publications on Pension]. | |
| C.S.Loch, The Confusion of Medical Charities: Nineteenth Century for August 1892. Proposed the introduction of hospital almoners [M 77]. | |
| The physically and mentally defective: "... the Society organised a deputation to the President of the Local Government Board, to urge that Guardians should be allowed to pay for feeble-minded women and girls in special homes apart from the workhouse". | |
| [Chamberlain's Pension scheme]: Appeared in National Review. See [M 139]. | |
| 1893 | Pension: Royal Commission appointed: to cinsider whether any alterations in the system of Poor Law relief are desirable in the case of persons whose destitution is occasioned by incapacity for work resulting from old age; or whether assistance could otherwise be afforded in those cases". Lord Aberdare [Chairman]; Chamberlain and C.Booth [the pension advocates]; Loch and Albert Pell [COS]; and 12 other members. Its report[1895]: See [M 140-142][COS and Marshall] |
| "Helpable" and "Unhelpable": Helen Dendy [Bosanquet], "Thorough Charity" [Reporter]: The issue of classification addressed again. "... how many of us would have been more deserving under the circumstances?" She recommended that the Society confine itself to distinguishing between the "helpable" and the "unhelpable". However, she was careful to justify such a distinction in moreral terms, while the Society would no longer have to pay moral arbiter, separating the deserving sheep from the undeserving goats, nor would applicants be tempted to pretend to be something that they were not: "We will not use our charity as a reward of merit; if we do we shall only foster hypocrisy and deceit ..." [209][L 57-58]. See also Woollcombe 1893. | |
| 1894 | Poor Law and Local Government: See [SW 272ff]. |
| Pension: Annual Report for 1893-1894: On the State scheme of Old Age Pension [SW 295-296]. | |
| Training of Social Workers: See [M 107-113]. | |
| 1895 | Pension: Annual Report: against state pension [M 101]. |
| Canon Barnett: A controversy: See [SW 143; M 127ff]. | |
| 1896 | Systematic attack by The Councillor and Guardian begun: See [SW 143-144]. |
| Rothchild's Committee on Old Age Pension appointed]: "in regard to the so-called 'taint of pauperism' maintained that any discredit must depend not on the form in which the relief is received, but on the causes which have ked to it"[SW 293-294]. The report issued in 1898. | |
| 1898 | Assistance of Children: [November] A paper on the Industrial Training of Women read at a special meeting of Council: showed that there were in London many skilled industries in which women could earn good money, and wages and condition of work improved steadily as the amount and kind of training improved. Robert Giffen: there was no more false idea that the amount of useful work required to be done was limited. |
| 1899 | The condition of the work changed: Annual Report for 1899-1900: See [SW 87]. "The problem [...] was now twofold, that of guiding the social education of coming workers, and that of making good its own position amongst the agencies being called into existence". |
| Poor Law: Annual Report for 1898-1899: Co-operation with the Guardians, see [SW 279-280]. | |
| Assistance of Children: Appointed a small committee to obtain information about industries and to advise DCs. After its report work in connection with schools was also encouraged. | |
| 1900 | Pension: Committee on Old Age Pension formed. Bailward, William Chance, Loch, Bousfield, Fitch, Mackay were main members [M 158-159]. |
| 1901 | A new possibility of the Society: It comes after a winter of depression. There has been a reaction from the years of prosperity; the excitement of the war is over, and the depression dur to the vast unproductive expenditure has set in [SW 88]. |
| The physically and mentally defective: Mary Dendy attended a meeting at COS's office at Mr.Loch's request: the argument in favour of permanent care. | |
| 1902 | The physically and mentally defective: In 1901-2 the Council of COS was supporting a movement for the appointment of a Royal Commission to consider the requirements of the mantally defective, including idiots, imbeciles, the feeble-minded and epileptics. Annual Report for 1901-1902: "For these classes a co-ordination of institution s is greatly needed, and a larger provisionl, in part, at least, on the 'Colony' system, and so organised that they shall be, as a rule, under continuous and permanent supervision"[SW 202]. |
| 1903 | C.S.Loch, The development of Charity Organisation ("rebirth of our society"): See [SW 88ff]. |
| The physically and mentally defective: [February] the Council passed a resolution: "...it is deriable that a Royal Commission be appointed to consider the condition and needs of the mentally defective (excluding lunatics) and the epileptic, and to report". | |
| Assistance of Children: Skilled Employment and Apprenticeship. See [SW 261]. | |
| [1903 Bill of Pension]: A Bill was introduced to provide pensions for the aged deserving poor, through the existing machinery of the Poor Law, which neverthless should not convey the reproach of pauperism. | |
| 1904 | Growing activity of the district committee: Annual Report for 1904-5: "...while the society has thus maintained its own policy, and pointed out the dangers of departing from it, it has never held back from co-operation in public efforts when it seemed likely that its experience and advice could make those efforts more effective, or even less harmful. ... In fact, wherever experience in charitable administration is desired, there is a demand for Charity Organisation Society workers ... Everywhere one fundamental principle of the Society has been slowly gaining ground: that no good work can be done without a preliminary inquiry, and careful discrimination between the different classes of those applying for relief. ... The object of the inquiry was 'to classify the applicants as regards efficiency, character, and prospects, so that the Statutory Unemployment Committee shall be placed in a position to deal properly with them" [SW 90-91]. |
| Change in Poor Law: See [Industry 1904]. | |
| The physically and mentally defective: The Royal Commission appointed: COS was represented by C.S.Loch, who drafted the greater part of the Report. It appeared in July 1908. | |
| 1905 | Poor Law: Royal Commistion appointed: See [SW 276]. |
| Great impetus to emigration: Annual Report for 1905-6: "Here ... was a golden oppotunity such as had never occured before and might not occur again. Hundreds of workmen more or less destitute, some of them half-starved and on the verge of the workhouse ... in Canada, employers looking out for good workmen in practically unlimited numbers; in London, the Central Unemployment Body with money ... The only link mission in the chain was the machinery for selecting the right emigrants and sending them at the right times to the right places. The machinery our Joint Committee...had ready to hand and at work. ... The only thing to be done under the circumstances was to accede to the request of the Central Unemployment Committee, to take up their cases, and treat them as if they are our own" [SW 91]. | |
| The University of St. Andrews and The University of Oxford conferred the honorary degrees (LL.D, D.C.L respectively) to C.S.Loch: | |
| 1906 | Assistance of Children: A letter sent to the Time by COS: deprecates the extension of mere feeding; adovocates medical inspection, school care committees, assistance in the families, and an increased number of day industrial schools. |
| 1907 | C.S.Loch, The Future of Local Charity Organisation: Read before a special meeting of council and members of district committee. |
| Special Committee set up to investigate the organisation and method of the Society: It report issued in 1909. | |
| 1908 | Case-work, Public Policy and Public Opinion: See [SW 94-96]. |
| Pension: [Old Age Pension Act] At first Poor Law relief was to be a disqualification, but this provision was speedily abandoned. "there is no distinction between the pauper class and the pension class" [SW 294-295]. HB on Old Age Pension as State intervention. One of the DCs report after Old Age Pension [SW 299-300]. "In that year the number of persons receiving through the Society was 1,371. The numbers subsequently show only a slight falling off, being through the next three years, 1.220, 1,253, 1,234. The cost to the Society has natturally been somewhat more affected, inasmuch as the grant of 5s. a week to those over 70 has enabled them to raise less in other directions. In 1908-9 the amount was 20,687 pound; in the three subsequent years, 16,099 pound, 14,841 pound, 14,964 pound" [300]. | |
| 1909 | Poor Law: Annual Report for 1908-1909: See [SW 276-277]. After that "a resolution was adopted in favour of the establishment of a society for the reform of the Poor Law, at which one chief issue---insistence on the principle of unity of administration in all public relief---became the central point of associative action and a common propaganda". "a widespread agitation was being promoted by a Society formed for the promulgation of the views of the Minority" [277]. [December] Special Committee on the Voluntary Aid Coucils: See [SW 279].[Majority Report] |
| 1910 | The name changed to The Society for Organisation of Charitable Effort and the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor: "...the repression of mendicity plays a much smaller part in the Society's work than it did thirty years ago" [SW 97]. |
| The Client of COS: See Annual Report for 1909-1910 [SW 101-102]. | |
| The physically and mentally defective: Annual Report for 1910-1911: "A Committee consisting of some members of the Royal Commission ... has constituted itself in order to promote legislation. ... [It] has received very widespread support, and has issued a 'Mental Defect Bill'" [SW 203]. | |
| Assistance of Children: Juvenile Labour Exchange: "a whole network of agencies busy about children at and leaving school". Annual Report for 1910-1911: Free School Meal--- "The Council deplore the fact that public elementary schools are officially recognised as centres of relief, and have now come to be so regarded by the people generally"; School Clinic---"a better plan was feasible and more consistent with the functions of the education authorities, as bodies that should not provide the medical care but 'arrange' for it. ... well-regulated Medical School Centre, staffed by qualified local men approved by the London County Council, as a means of enabling the local education authority to arrange for attendance to the health and physical condition of the children"; Skilled Employment--- See [SW 261-262] | |
| 1911 | Attack by Fabian Society:
"It is surprising that the most strenuous opposition to almost every scheme for betterment comes from a body of people who are devoting their lives to that very purpose". [Prevention of Destitution on COS][Beatrice Webb on COS] |
| The physically and mentally defective: The Bill of the Committee: "... it was of considerable service in putting the issues raised in connection with this piece of legislation in a complete and practical form. The Government have now introduced a Mental Deficiency Bill which, in the amennded form in which it is to be presented to the House in the present session, should to a very large extent carry out the resolutions of the Commission". The Mentary Deficiency Bill became law in 1913. | |
| 1911 | National Insurance Act: |
| 1912 | [H.Beccol, The Servile State] Directed against those who thought they best know the interests and welfare of others. His reaction to Lloyd George's Insurance Act was the book which predicted the steady diminution of personal liberty among the mass of the people, who would exchange freedom for a measure of security (DNB). |