ABSTRACT
Frederick Engels’s famous book, The Condition of the Working Classes in England, provides an analysis as well as a vivid description of some of the worst, but nevertheless widespread, social conditions in Britain in 1844. Today available as a paperback (Hobsbawm, 1969), it was originally available only in German, and was not published in Britain until 1892. In the 1890s there developed an interest in understanding the causes of social problems and in facing up to the extent of social degradation in a supposedly prosperous society. At this time of mounting interest in social enquiry, the term social work came into being and signified participation in a social movement pledged to what was called social advance.
