Risk, redistribution and social welfare in Britain from the poor law to Beveridge

This chapter considers how the nature of social protection in Britain changed between the later Victorian period and the Second World War. It is concerned, therefore, with the functions and outcomes of welfare systems rather than with the policy-making process or with the political pressures that lay behind this process. The contention of the chapter is that a concentration on welfare outcomes produces a less linear and less progressive view of welfare change in this period than is found in most historical accounts.