ABSTRACT
Over the course of the 1918-1948 period in Britain, the elderly emerged as a distinct, identifiable group that was beginning to attract the attention of social commentators. The late-Victorian and Edwardian debate on the elderly had primarily been about their poverty, and whether the Poor Law was the appropriate instrument for dealing with them. Although the elderly were increasing in numbers over the 19th century, and their plight becoming more visible, as a proportion of the population they showed little growth: between 1851 and 1911 the proportion of the United Kingdom population aged over 65 only rose from 4.7 per cent to 5.3 per cent. But after 1911 a massive rise took place, caused primarily by the post-1870s decline in the birth rate and consequent shift in the population age-structure: by 1951 there had been a 160 per cent rise in the number of over-65s, and as a proportion of the population they doubled, to 10.9 per cent. It is quite mistaken, therefore, to see – as some writers have done – the very recent rise in the proportion of elderly as unprecedented and alarming (Shegog, 1981). By the late 1940s, in fact, there was emerging a discussion of issues that have been on the ‘old age agenda’ ever since, such as low take-up of social security benefits or the urgent need for more sheltered housing (Nuffield Foundation, 1947, pp.15, 96). As will be shown in this paper, the development of the elderly’s separate status was a complex process, full of tensions and contradictions – a product of changes in the economic and social structure and expressed in an intriguing dialectic between ‘expert’ categorisations and popular perceptions of old age.
