The 1905 Royal Commission
By the start of the twentieth century, change was in the air. Two factors contributed to this. The first was the election of a significant number of women as Guardians - since the 1860s women had been active in improving workhouse conditions, particularly through bodies such as the Workhouse Visiting Society. The second, in 1892, was the lowering to £5 of the property rental value qualifying for Guardian election which enabled the election of working-class people as Board members.
In December 1905, a Royal Commission on the Poor Law and the Unemployed was appointed:
"To inquire: (1) Into the working of the laws relating to the relief of poor persons in the United Kingdom; (2) Into the various means which have been adopted outside of the Poor Laws for meeting distress arising from want of employment, particularly during periods of severe industrial depression; and to consider and report whether any, and if so what, modification of the Poor Laws or changes in their administration or fresh legislation for dealing with distress are advisable."
Over the next four years it carried out the most extensive investigation since the Royal Commission of 1832. Its 18 members included: C.S. Loch (Secretary of the London Charity Organization Society), William Smart (Professor of Political Economy at Glasgow University), Octavia Hill (campaigner for housing reform and co-founder of the National Trust), socialist reformers George Lansbury and Beatrice Webb (wife of Sidney Webb), former Guardians, Poor Law officials and clergymen.
The Commission was famously split and its recommendations were published as:
- A Majority Report, endorsed by fourteen of its members, which recommended the creation of a new Poor Law authority in each county or county borough, together with the replacement of workhouses by more specialized institutions catering for separate categories of inmate such as children, the old, the unemployed, and the mentally ill.
- A Minority Report, signed by four members (Beatrice Webb, George Lansbury, Mr F Chandler, and The Revd Russell Wakefield) was more radical and advocated the complete break-up of the Poor Laws and the transfer of its functions to other authorities to provide care for various groups. Its emphasis was on the prevention of destitution rather than its relief.
The Report was also published in a modestly priced Fabian edition and had a spectacular sale. A great propaganda campaign was organized by Sidney and Beatrice Webb in support of its recommendations for the prevention of destitution by the break-up of the Poor Law.
In 1911, George Lansbury, who in 1892 had become one of the first working-class Guardians in Poplar, wrote a pamphlet provocatively entitled Smash up the Workhouse. This argued that few, particularly able-bodied, people should need to be in workhouses. For those who had no alternative, there should be a softening of the workhouse regime.
Although no new legislation directly resulted from the Commission's work, a number of significant pieces of social legislation took place in its wake. Jan 1st 1909 saw the introduction of the old age pension for those over 70 (up to 5s. a week for a single person, 7s.6d. for a married couple) although until 1911, anyone who had received poor relief in the previous twelve months was denied a pension. In 1911 unemployment insurance and health insurance began in a limited form.

Some of the first receipients of the old age pension, 1909.
© Peter Higginbotham.
Bibliography
- Slack, Paul. The English Poor Law, 1531-1782, 1990, CUP.
- Webb, Sidney and Beatrice English Poor Law History, 1927, Longmans, Green & Co., London.
- Webb, Sidney and Beatrice English Poor Law Policy, 1910, Longmans, Green & Co., London.
Unless otherwise indicated, this page () is copyright Peter Higginbotham. Contents may not be reproduced without permission.