ABSTRACT
The First World War brought unimaginable suffering. To improve the morale of munitions workers – largely female, often only girls - introduced a system of community based welfare for those young workers who were uprooted from their homes by the tens of thousands. After the war, idealism found further outlet in the formation of the Joint University Council for Social Science and in the formation of the British Federation of Social Work. But then, in the ultra-conservative 1920s social work took a very different turn from its pre-war aspiration to reform society. It began to focus on individual behaviour and the capacity of the individual to conform to social norms. Mental hygiene, psychiatric social work and child guidance offered new fields for social work under this broad concept of individualization. Poor law institutions were brought under the control of the local authorities – workhouses and relieving officers (ROs) included. This marked a major reform in one sense but not in another: institutions were rebranded, but poor law values remained. Nevertheless as the 1930s unfolded and a Second World War loomed, ROs were given greater discretion to assist those in poverty without reference to the workhouse and with more generous scales of relief.
