Saving Children During the Depression: Britain's Silent Emergency, 1919–1939

Saving Children During the Depression: Britain's Silent Emergency, 1919 - 1939

CHARLES WEBSTER

The health of a large section of the British population was more adversely afected by the in tenvar Depression than was acknowledged by official sources. Particular concern was aroused by the condition of women and children. Many new charitable bodies were formed in response to this problem, and these included Save the Children Fund. This paper gives an indication of the scale of the health problem, which was particularly severe in the areas of heavy industry and high unemployment. It then considers the role of charitable organisations in drawing attention to the severity of deprivation and campaigning for appropriate responses on the part of government. Although these pressure groups were energetic and professional in their campaigning, it is conceded that in the short term they exercised only limited influence. However, it is argued that they won the intellectual contest. Finally, it is pointed out that their policies came to be accepted during World War 11; thereby organisations like Save the Children Fund contributed to laying the foundations of the modern welfare state.

The example of Bosnia reminds us that disasters are not confined to the Third World. Disasters have been a significant feature of European history in the present century, which is not surprising in view of two world wars, and various other major and often long-drawn out episodes of social dislocation. Such problems reached pandemic proportions after World War I, and were naturally the cause of profound concern. Notable among the humanitarian responses was the establishment in 1919 of Save the Children Fund. Although Save the Children ultimately became best known for its work in the developing world, initially its main activities were concentrated in Europe, including Britain. Indeed, in approving the original constitu- tion in 1920, the Council of Save the

Children Fund adopted as the second of its two aims, the 'help of British children in time of need', a function which it sought to exercise mainly through cooperation with other agencies.

The British field of operation remained important for Save the Children throughout the interwar period, which reminds us of the seriousness of the social crisis experienced at that time. Britain was of course spared the horror of civil war, or other kinds of large-scale dislocation of the kind affecting most parts of Europe; and it enjoyed a reasonable degree of economic and social stability. Also, according to many accounts, Britain's welfare institu- tions protected vulnerable sections of the community from the worst effects of the Depression.

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This optimistic interpretation of events was conveyed by countless official reports, the limitations of which I have discussed elsewhere (Webster, 1982, 1983 and 1985). In government circles there was a disincli- nation to listen to any other construction of events. Thus, typically, when a delegation from the Welsh Free Churches met the Prime Minister in 1934 to complain about the state of health in the distressed areas, and present an emotionally-charged resolution headed 'The Crying Need of Wales', the cynical rejoinder in the official brief for this meeting insisted that 'the health of the people has, with the aid of the social services, stood up to the strain of unemployment remarkably well' and indeed 'these services have been wonder- fully well maintained and even expanded in South Wales' (Ministry of Health, 1934a). Behind the scenes in government circles, however, there was growing uncer- tainty about the veracity of the positive image propagated by the propaganda .machine. For instance, immediately after the visit of the Welsh delegation, the Minister of Health called for an urgent review on the key question of malnutrition, and candidly accepted that 'the reports as a whole, and especially that of South Wales, seemed to him to give cause for grave disquiet' (Ministry of Health, 193413).

Although there was a concerted effort by governments of the interwar period to understate the extent of social distress, any dispassionate enquiry reveals that the poorer sections of the community in Bri- tain experienced hardship on a scale which merits comparison with more generally recognised disasters. Indeed the resemb- lance with other disasters was not lost on contemporaries. For instance, G.F. Walker, the respected Newcastle doctor, pointed out that the incidence of rickets in his area was 'much worse than I saw in post-War Vienna' (Walker, 1934).

This conclusion will be illustrated in

the present short review by reference to the plight of children during the Depression. It will be seen that the extent of suffering and the failure of the government to implement effective remedial measures provoked major public concern and the emergence of a whole range of new pressure groups concerned with the problems of childhood. Largely as a result of the activities of these groups, child welfare assumed an altogether new level of importance, and there occurred an important shift in attitudes towards a more enlightened conception of childhood. It is not of course possible to consider all aspects of this subject. I will concentrate on malnutrition, which was one of the most urgent problems of the time; this emphasis helpfully reinforces the link with other major disasters, past and present.

MORTALITY AND MORBIDITY RATES

Aggregate indices conventionally used to monitor standards of health display a slow but perceptible improvement, even during the Depression. Once these indices are disaggregated, however, it becomes evident that improvement in prosperous areas of Britain was matched by a stagnant situation elsewhere. Scotland was consi- derably in arrears of England and Wales; and throughout Great Britain, the indus- trial areas were the black spots of mortality and morbidity. Accordingly, with respect to the most commonly cited statistic, the level of infant mortality in prosperous areas was about 35 in 1931 (a level similar to the white Dominions or Scandinavia); in Scotland it was 81. In towns such as Burnley, Manchester, Oldham and Stock- port, or Gateshead, Jarrow and Sunder- land in 1931, many wards recorded infant mortality rates of more than 140, and in some cases more than 170.

In his pioneer clinical study of a group of inner city children in Newcastle in 1931, Dr James Spence concluded that 56 per

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Saving Children During the Depression 215

cent were seriously unhealthy, a situation which he attributed to bad housing and inadequate diet. This investigation was repeated in 1938. Although there was a marginal improvement, the findings showed very similar defects among the children investigated (Miller, 1981).

The most detailed statement of the extent of excess mortality and morbidity associated with the depressed regions was undertaken by Richard Titmuss. His data related to 1936, after the worst effects of the Depression. He compared levels of disadvantage of the population of Durham and Northumberland with the South East of England. For the depressed area he discovered 65 per cent excess of infant mortality, 96 per cent excess of deaths from bronchitis, pneumonia and other respiratory diseases for the underSs, and 112 per cent excess deaths from tuberculosis for the under-15s (Titmuss, 1938, pp. 304-5). Titmuss calculated that some 9,000 children under 15 were dying unne- cessarily in the North and Wales during 1936 (Titmuss, 1938, p. 101). These deaths contributed to the general excess of mortality in these regions, which he assessed at about 50,000 men, women and children each year. Titmuss regarded this erosion of life as a major disaster for the nation attributable ’to the presence of intense poverty on a scale so considerable and so widespread, but at the same time so veiled and hidden by British stoicism and complacency, that public opinion has hitherto refused to recognise as conceptible the existence of such conditions in the heart of the British Empire in the twentieth century’ (Titmuss, 1938, p. 308).

Statistics give only the most imperfect impression of the misery endured by ordinary people during the Depression. It is of course not possible in the present short review to cite at length the social historical evidence amplifying the conclu- sions reached by Titmuss, but the follow- ing brief extract from an official report on

the operation of outdoor assistance in the Rhondda, dating from 1936, provides an insight into the resilience displayed by impoverished families in the face of extreme hardship:

Father unemployed 4 years, was a repairer in a colliery. Served during the War. Had a good home, all household goods paid for. Saved money, etc., now exhausted through unemployment. A very good family man, mends household goods and all shoes. The mother a splendid woman, house spotless. Mother is getting tired of struggle, sews and converts garments from elder children for the younger children. Recently has had an illness and the rent had to go into arrears, but is paying off at the rate of 2s.6d. weekly whenever she can afford to. Finds greatest difficulty in keeping up repairs of worn out household goods, utensils and bedclothes (Roberts, 1936).

The stoical couple described by Roberts supported six children on an income of f1.15.8 a week, of which 10s. was taken up by rent, and ls.6d. by the doctor’s bills. The residue available for food worked out at about 2s. per head, which was less than one-third the amount required to support the minimum diet defined by the BMA. The detail provided by Roberts indicates that, despite the ingenuity and frugality displayed by the mother, the diet of the family was inadequate, both in amount and quality.

As this sombre vignette demonstrates, premature death and suffering from infec- tious diseases was only part of the problem faced by children during the Depression. Arguably, their most serious disadvantage arose from malnutrition. Levels of malnutrition are, however, notoriously difficult to establish for the period antedating modern methods of investigation. Although still uncertain, the reliability of information improves in the 1930s. Using the BMA scales of minimum dietary requirement, various surveys pointed in a similar direction, suggesting

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216 Charles Webster

that at least 25 per cent of the nation’s children were in families where the amount of money available for the pur- chase of food was only half of the calculated minimum (British Association for Labour Legislation, 1938, pp. 42-3). These children were of course concentrated in the areas of long term unemployment. Among experts, the BMA standard was soon superseded by other scales, mainly imported from international health agencies. Although the BMA standard remained prevalent in British surveys, it was realised that by the standard of other scales, already serious levels of malnutrition would seem even higher.

The accumulation of evidence of the kind illustrated above suggests that a large section of the child population in Britain during the interwar period was exposed to hardship, preventible disease and premature death. The impact of this disaster on the health and physique of the population is difficult to estimate with precision, but it must have been long-lasting, and arguably its influence has still not finally been erased.

LIMITING SUPPLEMENTARY FEEDING

Given the prevalence of low wages, unemployment and high levels of dependency on sickness benefit, family income was tightly constrained and the greatest difficulty was experienced in providing for the basic necessities of life. Even before nutritional knowledge reached a sophisticated level, it was evident that the poor were unable to afford an adequate diet, and their children were likely to be malnourished. This concern brought school meals into being, and in 1906 the integral role of this supplementary feeding of school- children was recognised in legislation. After a promising start, however, the school meals initiative soon collapsed. The expansion of this service was cut short at the moment of greatest need. The public

expenditure economies introduced in 1922 effectively reduced school meals provision by 50 per cent, and precluded further expansion. Consequently, during the interwar period, at any one time, only between 2 and 3 per cent of the school population received free school meals, compared with perhaps some 30 per cent who needed meals on nutritional grounds. Many fewer children were receiving free school meals in 1936 (143,000) than in 1911 (230,000) (Rathbone, 1937). A further econ- omy was made by reducing the nutritional value of school meals. The average cost of meals just after World War I was 7d. This fell to only 3d. during the 1930s. Free meals were also notoriously poor in quality and they were provided in the dreary environment of Feeding Centres (Le Gros Clark, 1948, p. 14). This added to the stigma attached to free meals, with the result that eligible parents frequently refused to allow their children to take free meals.

Organisations such as the National Union of Teachers protested vigorously against the above cuts (NUT, 1938, p. 41). In a rather heartless attempt to keep down demand for free school meals, the Board of Education tried to remove the rights of teachers to nominate children for meals on grounds of poverty, and imposed an addi- tional requirement of medical inspection - leaving malnourished children at the mercy of entirely subjective impressions of medical officers, who were often ignorant of nutritional science and out of touch with the real needs of children (British Associa- tion for Labour Legislation, 1938,

The limited contribution of school meals is to some extent masked in the official statistics owing to conflation with data relating to the provision of milk, which also was counted as a ‘meal’. Milk had been provided to school children on a limited basis since the beginning of the century. Throughout the interwar period

pp. 51-3; NUT, 1938, pp. 79-86).



there was strong pressure to extend this form of nutritional supplementation. The Milk-in-Schools Scheme was not introduced, however, until October 1934. The scheme rapidly expanded and it reached about half of all elementary school children, although only about 10 per cent received milk free (National Union of Teachers, 1938, pp. 14-15). Once again, these half million children represented only a small fraction of the children in need of nutritional supplementation. The milk scheme was not indicative of sudden recognition by the government of the importance of malnutrition. Rather, it was instigated by the Minister of Agriculture as a means to subsidise dairy farmers and utilise milk surpluses. In fact, Walter Elliot, the Minister involved, wanted free milk for all school children. The scheme as realised therefore represented only a pale reflection of the original intention, and even this scheme was regarded as danger- ously extravagant by the Treasury (Trea- sury, 1934).

Some sporadic efforts were made to supplement the efforts of the school meals and milk system. For instance, the Lord Mayor’s Coalfields Distress Appeal Fund made funds available for school meals for a brief period between 1929 and 1930, with the result that the uptake increased from 9,000 to 23,000, but this made only the most limited impact on the problem. The Fund was then closed, just as the Depression was reaching its height (Le Gros Clark, 1948, pp. 12-13). The newspapers and official reports gave promi- nence to such little charitable initiatives but, reflecting the wish not to embarrass the government, The Times and other leading newspapers refused to publish a letter from Save the Children Fund calling for urgent assistance for children in the depressed areas (Wood, 1928).

It would be wrong to suggest that all government and local government bodies evaded their responsibilities. Some auth-

orities attempted to maximise their services, but these were often in the poorest areas, where the local authorities had the most limited capacity to raise revenue, and where they were handi- capped by substantial burdens of debt. Furthermore, their efforts were hindered by incessant government pressure to economise.

Rhondda provides an example of an active authority attempting to supplement the resources of its hard-pressed community. In 1935 Rhondda was able to provide free milk to more than 6,000 mothers and infants drawn from about 5,000 families in the area. In addition about 7,000 school children out of the 24,000 in the area were provided with milk, in some cases aug- mented by fresh fruit, biscuits or bread and butter. Children in need were also provided with this service during school holidays. The policy adopted for the selec- tion of children was relatively liberal. As Roberts observed:

On the ground that prevention is better than cure, the Council also provided mid-day meals in the form of milk or mixed dinners to necessitous children not suffering from malnutrition . . . The Medical Officer of Health for the Rhondda holds that this provision has had a beneficial effect in preventing the development of malnutrition amongst children belonging to families whose incomes were low (Roberts, 1936).

CAMPAIGNING AGAINST GOVERNMENT RETRENCHMENT

It is evident that the greatest difficulty was experienced in extracting from interwar governments a response proportional to the seriousness of the problem 0: deprivation among children. Although individual politicians of the right or their wives were involved in philanthropic activity, in office they rigidly followed the retrenchment philosophy, and conceded extension in social services to the minimum degree.


218 Charles Webster

Not only supplementary food, but all other educational and health services affecting mothers and children were affected by the same constraints. Thus the school health service and the maternity and child welfare service made only marginal advances during the interwar period (Webster, 1982 and 1983). The fiction was cultivated that philanthropic bodies were effectively making up for the deficit in state provision. The scale of the problem, however, exceeded the capaci- ties of even the best-endowed agencies of philanthropy. Few of the charities pre- tended that they were able to deal effectively with the massive social problems facing them during the Depression. Indeed, the Depression also adversely affected the charities themselves. The old charities, therefore, increasingly took on a campaigning role, and they were joined by new pressure groups more specifically devoted to research, coordination, plan- ning and policy-making (Prochaska, 1988). Save the Children Fund was an example of a new charity involved in direct interven- tion, but also in pressure group activity, and it maintained close links with many of the most active campaigning organisations formed during the interwar period.

The new organisations introduced a radically different perspective on childhood. In the late Victorian period the poor and their large families had been regarded as a menace to social stability. Social Darwinists and eugenists, who tended to dominate thinking on policy, therefore concentrated on measures for containing the population of the poor, especially birth control. By contrast, the new agencies like Save the Children Fund, regarded deprived children as accidental victims of catastrophes not of their making. Conse- quently, these children were presented as precious assets needed for building up the strength of Europe after the cruel losses of World War I and subsequent disasters, including the influenza pandemic which

followed in the wake of the war. Children were therefore portrayed as an essential investment for the future, and loss of the life of mothers and children was attacked as social waste, contributive to economic inefficiency and political decline. Fears about the implications of the loss of child life increased with the decline in fertility during the interwar period. By World War 11, anxiety had reached the level of hys- teria, fuelled by such books as The Twilight of Parenthood (1934) by Enid Charles. The first books by Richard Titmuss, published in 1938 and 1942, carried the ominous titles: Poverty and Population: A Factual Study of Contemporary Social Waste, and Parents Revolt: A Study of the Declining Birthrate in Acquisitive Society.

In view of the above shift in values, the ground was fertile for cultivating a more positive approach to childhood, and Save the Children Fund was among the first in a plethora of agencies devoted to this purpose. Among the new organisations, the saving of maternal and child life was an obvious first priority, and the greatest attention focused on securing an adequate subsistence. Typical of the new agencies was the Family Endowment Society, established in 1924, with the primary aim of securing cash allowances for families. The organisation soon extended its scope to campaigning for wider family support, with reference to improvements in welfare and provision of benefits in kind. The Family Endowment Society therefore embraced such objectives as the provision of nursery schools and the supplementary feeding of school children. The former would guarantee sound physical and mental development during early childhood, while the latter would ensure that children were able to benefit fully from education offered in schools. There was also a notable ‘open- air’ ethos to this programme, which con- nected with the rise of open air treatment for tuberculosis, the commonest cause of



death and disability of the time, which was being combated by sanatoria for adults and open air schools for children (Bryder, 1988).

Inevitably, the above broad spectrum of aims involved attention to even wider questions of child development and education. Therefore, the family endowment movement inescapably led to the construction of a comprehensive social programme. The decision of Save the Children Fund to concentrate on the pro- motion of open air schools in the depressed areas is understandable in the light of the above objectives.

Unlike many of the older charities, the Family Endowment Society (FES) was exclusively a campaigning organisation and, in attempting to expand its constitu- ency, the FES acted as a catalyst to the formation of other pressure groups with cognate objectives. In this way the group which instigated the FES was able to maximise its impact, expand its sphere of influence, and draw upon the services of activists with specialist expertise, or who might not be sympathetic with the objectives of some of the organisations in the network. Inevitably, leading figures in the FES, such as Eleanor Rathbone, Eva Hub- back, and Marjorie Green, found their way into many other related organisations (Macnicol, 1980). The groups concerned primarily with children’s welfare were themselves numerous; and they over- lapped with the complex of organisations concerned with maternity (Lewis, 1980) or social hygiene (Jones, 1986) and, more peripherally, with women’s organisations and groups with political and religious affiliations. Displaying obsessive zeal for their causes, the activists spawned a campaigning edifice of Byzantine complexity.

The problem of malnutrition and the supplementary feeding of mothers, infants and children remained at the centre of campaigning activity throughout the interwar period. Whereas family allowances

were not universally supported even in liberal circles, free food and milk for mothers, infants and growing children immediately attracted sympathy and com- manded the widest public support. The campaigning organisations tapitalised upon this opportunity and their position was strengthened by the research findings of nutritionists, called at the time the ’new knowledge’ of nutrition. The nutrition campaign reached its zenith in the mid- thirties. Scientists used the Committee against Malnutrition, formed in 1934, as a vehicle for disseminating the results of clinical research and survey findings. This organisation issued about thirty bulletins between 1934 and the outbreak of war. In order to coordinate the numerous bodies concerned with malnutrition, in 1934 the Children‘s Minimum Organising Com- mittee was established. This was renamed Children’s Minimum Council in 1936. The aim of this organisation was to ensure that ’no chJd by reason of the poverty of its parents be deprived of at least the minimum of food and other requirements necessary for full health and growth.’ Unsurprisingly, the chief figures within the Council were Eleanor Rathbone, Eva Hubback and Marjorie Green, while the President was the famous biochemist, Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, who was also President of the Royal Society. Hop- kins also provided a link with the Com- mittee against Malnutrition. The note- paper of the Council listed thirty affiliated organisations. The first name on this list was Save the Children Fund; the second was the Nursery School Association of Great Britain; while the fifth was the Family Endowment Society.

As evident from the earlier part of this review, despite their earnest and often ingenious endeavours, the combined efforts of the campaigning organisations concerned with child protection seemed to have little impact on government policy. The same dismal record was experienced


220 Charles Webster

by most of the other bodies concerned with the health of vulnerable groups. The apparent complacency and inertia of the government machinery was the cause of great frustration and anger. In retrospect, the activists regarded it as an affront that their 'demands for the abolition of malnutrition were apt to be regarded as a political stunt, and those scientists who were enthusiastic for the application of the new knowledge of nutrition, as food faddists and a nuisance in the political world' (Om, 1943, p. 24). The campaigners were having more impact, however, than was immediately apparent. By virtue of their super- ior intellectual insights and effectiveness in exposition at both the technical and popu- lar level, they established an invulnerable position, with the result that the despised radicals of the thirties became the trusted government advisers during World War 11, and thereby they became the architects of the welfare state.

References

British Association for Labour Legislation (1938) Report on Nutrition. BALL, London.

Bryder, L. (1988) Below the Magic Mountain. A Social History of Tuberculosis in Twentieth Century Britain. Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Jones, G. (1986) Social Hygiene in Twentieth Century Britain. Croom Helm, London.

Le Gros Clark, F. (1948) Social History of the School Meals Service. London Council for Social Service, London.

Lewis, J. (1980) The Politics of Motherhood. Croom Helm, London.

Macnicol, J. (1980) The Movement for Family Allowances, 1918-45. Heinemann, London.

Miller, F.J.W. (1981) Medicine and the

Depression. Update, 1 May 1981. Ministry of Health (1934a) Malnutrition and

unemployment in South Wales, PRO, MH79/336.

Ministry of Health (1934b) Consideration of Malnutrition Reports, PRO, MH79/337.

National Union of Teachers (1938) The School Health Services. NUT, London.

Orr, J. Boyd (1943) Food and the People. Macmil- lan, London.

Prochaska, F. (1988) The Voluntary Impulse. Philanthropy in Modem Britain. Faber, London.

Rathbone, E. (1937) Letter, The Times, 6 December 1937.

Roberts, D.J. (1936) Report on outdoor relief in Rhondda, PRO, MH79/312.

Titmuss, R. (1938) Poverty and Population: A Factual Study of Contemporary Social Waste. Macmillan, London.

Treasury (1934) Treasury to Board of Education, 1 March 1934, PRO, Ed. 50/81.

Walker, G.F. (1934) The Public Health. The Times, 11 December 1934.

Webster, C. (1982) Healthy or Hungry Thirties? History Workshop Journal, no. 13, 110-29.

Webster, C. (1983) The health of the school child during the Depression. In N. Parry and D. McNai~ (eds) The Fitness of the Nation. History of Education Society, Leicester,

Webster, C. (1985) Health, Welfare and Unem- ployment during the Depression. Past 6 Present 109, 204-30.

Wood, R.S. (1928) Memorandum, 13 January 1928, PRO, Ed. 50183.

70-85.

Charles Webster All Souls College University of Oxford Oxford OX1 4AL UK


Saving Children During the Depression: Britain's Silent Emergency, 1919–1939

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