BEVERIDGE WILLIAM HENRY 1879-1963BEVERIDGE AGRICULTURAL POLICY COMMITTEE

Scope and Content

One bound volume containing the papers of the Agricultural Policy Committee,a sub group of the Reconstruction Committee, including:

  • Item 2. Agricultural wages (memorandum) folios 19 - 40.
  • Item 3. Note on minimum wage regulation folios 41 - 46.
  • Item 4. Suggestions as to application of wage regulations to agriculturefolios 47 - 50.
  • Item 7. Draft memorandum on the employment of women in agriculture during thewar folios 65 - 71.

Administrative / Biographical History

William Beveridge 1879 - 1963

William Beveridge was educated at Charterhouse and Balliol College, Oxford.He was sub-warden of Toynbee Hall 1903 - 1905, and leader-writer on 'socialproblems' for the Morning Post 1906 - 1908. From 1905 to 1908 Beveridge wasa member of the Central (Unemployed) Body for London, and was also the firstChairman of the Employment Exchanges Committee. He was a member of the Boardof Trade 1908 - 1916 and Director of Labour Exchanges 1909 - 1916. During histime at the Board of Trade Beveridge worked with the Agricultural PolicySub-Committee. The committee was concerned with investigating the effects ofapplying wage regulations to the agricultural industry. Beveridge presentedevidence to the committee concerning the feasibility of this scheme.

In World War I, he was Assistant General Secretary of the Ministry ofMunitions (1915 - 1916) and Second Secretary in the Ministry of Food (1916 -1918). In 1919 Beveridge became Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Food.In the same year he was knighted. He then retired from the civil service andwas appointed director of the London School of Economics (1919 - 1937). Hethen moved on to be Master of University College, Oxford (1937 - 1944).

During World War II he was Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Labour (1940)and was Chairman of the Social Service Inquiry 1941 - 1942 he producedSocial Insurance and Allied Services, a report prepared for governmentwhich proposed a social system 'from the cradle to the grave' for Britishcitizens. This report became known as the 'Beveridge Report' and became theblueprint for the welfare-state legislation of 1944 - 1948.

Beveridge was Liberal MP for Berwick on Tweed 1944 - 1945 and was made 1stBaron Beveridge of Tuggal in 1946.

His publications include:

  • Unemployment: A problem of industry (1909)
  • Prices and Wages in England from the Twelfth to the Nineteenth Century(1939)
  • Social Insurance and Allied Services (1942) (Beveridge Report)
  • Full Employment in a Free Society (1944)
  • The Economics of Full Employment (1944)
  • Report on the Methods of Social Advance (1948)
  • Voluntary Action (1948)
  • A Defence of Free Learning (1959)

Arrangement

One volume

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Acquisition Information

Beveridge, Sir William, BaronBeveridge

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