Date of Award

1972

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

History

First Advisor

Dr. J. Martin. Ryle

Abstract

Concentrating on the Minority Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Law (1909), the National Insurance Act (1911), the Beveridge Report (1942), and the National Insurance and National Health Service Acts (1946), this thesis studies the various Fabian attitudes and philosophies toward British health services. No one "Fabian program" existed; the Society did not, as a single body, endorse specific programs or ideas, allowing its members freedom of thought and opinion. Inside Fabian publications this policy is enunciated:

This pamphlet, like all publications of the Fabian Society, represents not the collective view of the Society, but only the view of the individual who prepared it. The responsibility.of the Fabian Society is limited to approving the publications which it issues as embodying facts and opinions worthy of consideration within the Labour Movement. It is the aim of the Society to encourage among socialists a high standard of free and independent research.

Nevertheless, although the Society did not require its members to support a certain program, a general consensus can be found among Fabians--in tracts, research pamphlets and memoirs. It is primarily this general consensus that is expounded in this paper, although some attention is paid to divergent views.

Download

Included in

History Commons

Share

COinS