ABSTRACT
The outbreak of hostilities again in September 1939 brought a very different kind of war from that of World War I. World War II resembled the Great War in that it placed enormous strains on the British economy, and on the industrial system. Leisure activities were naturally curtailed during the war by the bombing, and by restrictions on travel by both rail and road. Raids were less intensive, attendances improved, nursery education was greatly expanded in order to free young mothers for war-work. William Beveridge had been a senior civil servant with a vast knowledge and experience of social problems dating back to the pre-war Liberal reforms; he had been the principal author of the Labour Exchanges Act, 1909, and was a committed Liberal. The government’s financial situation took a turn for the worse with the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950.
