GCSE- OCR History British Depth Study 1890-1918

1.

What were the working and living conditions for the poor like in the 1890s?

2.

How were social reformers reacting to the social problems of the 1890s?

3.

Why did the liberal government introduce reforms to help the young,old and unemployed?

4.

How effective were these reforms?

5.

What was the social,political and legal position of women in the 1890s?

6.

What were the arguments for and against female suffreage?

7.

How effective were the activities of the suffragists and the suffragettes?

8.

How did women contribute to the War effort?

9.

How effective was government propaganda during the war?

10.

Why were some women given the vote in 1918?

11.

What was the attitude of the British people at the end of the war towards Germany and the Paris peace conference?

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During this century Britain was transformed Due to the INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.=Factories + towns developed at an unprecedented rate, attracting more people who were eager to have a taste of the prosperity and richness Britain was accumulating through her empire.

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However,with prosperity comes problems...By more people coming to the towns like London and York;lead to appalling housing which had cramped conditions where diseases like cholera could spread.This contributed to the national problem with poverty and strengthened the factor of national efficiency which partly lead to the liberal reforms.

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The government interfered little and relied heavily on charities and the Poor law of 1834(Work house for poor people=key feature of this law) to help the poor.People in the government and many other British People thought poverty was due to idleness and spending money on non essential goods like alcohol.

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Women= economically dependent on men. Men could imprison his wife in their own home until 1891 and the main attitude was that women seemed to belong to men. Around 10% of women where in paid employment. However,attitudes saw some progress with middle class couples using contraception and the 1882 law allowed women to keep their own property and income once they were married

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Booth and Rowntree-Firstly, i would like to outline the importance of Booth and Rowntree which is illustrated in my second post on this thread;where they made the issue of poverty,public and caused national sympathy for those less fortunate.

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The German model- Otto Von Bismarck ( German chancellor) till 1890s, passed a series of measures to help the unfortunate in Germany, which inspired the liberals to introduce the reforms; along with Germany's military and economic strength.

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National efficiency and the Boer war- By 1899 Britian was at war with the boers in south Africa. When the men volunteered , about 40% (almost half) were unfit for service due to their poor physical condition, which was a result of extreme poverty.At this point Britian was starting to lose its crown as the leading world super power.This raised questions in the minds of politicians whether, Britian could be able to reassert it's self as the leading super power, when it had a population that is too weak to fight or work efficiently...Something had to be done.

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Labour(popular socialism)- at this point a new party came along- labour party. This party was winning popularity from the working classes which were entitled to the vote by by this stage .They attracted support through their promises of unemployment benefits and old age pensions.Also in the 1906 election labour won more seats in parliament. Inorder to retain votes from the working class, the liberals had to introduce measures, to help them.

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New liberalism-By 1906 there were new liberals like Herbert Asquith, David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, who argued that there were circumstances in which the state could intervene

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There is a little video that explains it better than me.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oD8nz_SnnE