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Medicine, Charity and Mutual Aid: The Consumption of Health and Welfare in Britain, c.1550–1950 book cover

1st Edition

Medicine, Charity and Mutual Aid The Consumption of Health and Welfare in Britain, c.1550–1950

Edited By Anne Borsay, Peter Shapely Copyright 2007
    284 Pages
    by Routledge

    284 Pages
    by Routledge

    284 Pages
    by Routledge
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    The history of the voluntary sector in British towns and cities has received increasing scholarly attention in recent years. Nevertheless, whilst there have been a number of valuable contributions looking at issues such as charity as a key welfare provider, charity and medicine, and charity and power in the community, there has been no book length exploration of the role and position of the recipient. By focusing on the recipients of charity, rather than the donors or institutions, this volume tackles searching questions of social control and cohesion, and the relationship between providers and recipients in a new and revealing manner. It is shown how these issues changed over the course of the nineteenth century, as the frontier between the state and the voluntary sector shifted away from charity towards greater reliance on public finance, workers' contributions, and mutual aid. In turn, these new sources of assistance enriched civil society, encouraging democratization, empowerment and social inclusion for previously marginalized members of the community. The book opens with an introduction that locates medicine, charity and mutual aid within their broad historiographical and urban contexts. Twelve archive-based, inter-related chapters follow. Their main chronological focus is the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which witnessed such momentous changes in the attitudes to, and allocation of, charity and poor relief. However, individual chapters on the early modern period, the eighteenth century and the aftermath of the Second World War provide illuminating context and help ensure that the volume provides a systematic overview of the subject that will be of interest to social, urban, and medical historians.

    Chapter 1 Introduction, Anne Borsay, Peter Shapely; Chapter 2 ‘Pressed down by want and afflicted with poverty, wounded and maimed in war or worn down with age?’ Cathedral almsmen in England 1538–1914, Ian Atherton, Eileen McGrath, Alannah Tomkins; Chapter 3 From common rights to cold charity: enclosure and poor allotments in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Sylvia Pinches; Chapter 4 Kinship and welfare in early modern England: sometimes charity begins at home, Sheila Cooper; Chapter 5 Deaf children and charitable education in Britain 1790–1944, Anne Borsay; Chapter 6 1An early version of this chapter was presented as a paper at the ‘British History in the Long 18th century’ seminar series at the Institute of Historical Research. I am indebted to the seminar, my intellectual home as a postgraduate, for their comments, which have been most helpful in developing my argument. Special thanks to Penny Corfield, one of the conveners, who was unable to attend the seminar but took the time to read and critique the paper., Stuart Hogarth; Chapter 7 Investigating the ‘deserving’ poor: charity and the voluntary hospitals in nineteenth-century Birmingham, Jonathan Reinarz; Chapter 8 Choice and the children’s hospital: Great Ormond Street Hospital patients and their families 1855–1900, Andrea Tanner; Chapter 9 Mental health care and charity for the middling sort: Holloway Sanatorium 1885–1900, Anne C. Shepherd; Chapter 10 Urban tuberculosis patients and sanatorium treatment in the early twentieth century, Flurin Condrau; Chapter 11 1The research for this paper was conducted with financial support from the Wellcome Trust Grant no. 060540. I am indebted to Robina Weeds for carrying out the research with such assiduousness, imagination and enthusiasm. I am also grateful to the editors for their helpful comments and patience., Barry Doyle; Chapter 12 The Co-operative Men’s Guild, citizenship and the limits of mutual aid 1911–1960, Peter Shapely; Chapter 13 Retelling the stories of clients of voluntary social work agencies in Britain after 1945, Pat Starkey;

    Biography

    Anne Borsay is Professor in the School of Health Science, University of Wales Swansea, UK. Dr Peter Shapely is a lecturer at the School of History, University of Wales Bangor, UK.

    ’The essays in this collection are all strong works of historical research.’ Journal of British Studies
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