ABSTRACT
The hallmarks of the modern Welfare State-full employment, universal welfare benefits for the poor, an egalitarian system of free education, access to social housing, a free health service-are generally associated with the political consensus that lasted for about 30 years after the Second World War. But the comprehensive welfare system created after 1945 did not emerge from nowhere. Its roots lay much deeper. It could not be claimed that the Victorian era created the Welfare State, but it did provide the seeds from which it developed. The creation of the new, more powerful, local authorities in the late nineteenth century had a significant impact on education and public health. Although these new councils didn’t begin to solve the housing problem, the achievements of the LCC provided a model of what could be done for the degraded cities by enlightened public intervention.
