ABSTRACT
Until recently, it was commonly assumed that Victorian and Edwardian businessmen were uninterested in welfare reforms. Unlike in America or Germany where it had been demonstrated since the 1960s that corporate leaders played a dynamic role in constructing a new social order, in Britain it was usually believed that business and welfare were mutually incompatible. 1 Moreover, when British employers were the subject of study, research was usually restricted to the paternalism of the industrial revolution’s early entrepreneurs or to those late-nineteenth century manufacturers such as George Cadbury or Seebohm Rowntree who ploughed back profits into social schemes. 2 Faced, it was said, with favourable market conditions, the latter were dismissed as Quaker enthusiasts, celebrated exceptions and objects of ridicule for more ‘typical’ hardheaded businessmen. 3 Eminent economic historians such as Peter Mathias concluded that Cadbury and similar employers, in contrast to those in basic heavy industries, catered for internal consumer demand and, being free from foreign competition, could afford paternalism. 4
