Philanthropy History

PHILANTHROPY HISTORY

Philanthropy began to formalise in Victorian England with the rise of industrialisation in the early 1800’s. Along with this came not only the change in the economy due to the shift from agrarian to capitalist production, but also a re-evaluation of what it was that constituted helping people.

Industrialisation caused a great increase in poverty as individuals struggled to keep up with the constant demand to change with the economy. Farmers were continually struggling to meet normal family financial demands, which resulted in a mass migration of these families to the cities to work in factories. Whether or not there were enough jobs to be acquired at this time was irrelevant as ‘cheap labour’ was being used in order to satisfy the needs of companies. People where therefore able to remain independent through merely staying in the labour force but still required financial help and support. Although people were employed, the low wages meant that food and other material supports needed to be supplemented.

Beginning in 1601, the Poor Law which was constituted through limited forms of government support and private charities with forms of Government support (such as charities and the public) that would relieve those considered poor, would soon become accustomed to continual debate causing amendments which aimed at improving upon the notion that, ‘what worked for one generation was not necessarily useful for the next’ (Drover 1998, 85). It was argued by The Royal Commission of Parliament that what defined a poor person in their attempt to reform the Poor Law was too generalised and in fact the very name, Poor Law, was a misnomer and should have been called a ‘pauper law’.

To classify pauper and poor together, is grouping those who are independent, self supporting labourers, despite having little money (the poo)r with those who depend on aid from public welfare or charity (the paupers). People in this time where also classified into categories of the impotent, those who were unable to work and the ‘able-bodied’ those who could work but chose to rely on ‘charity’. The ‘impotent’ were more worthy of charity.

Overtime, with the review of and change in those areas of philanthropy considered to be ‘wasteful’ (Camilleri 1996, 26), and ineffective in providing appropriate assistance, an effort was made to interview, assess and examine people and accommodate their needs in a number of ways. One of these being the provision of ‘material aid’ which included food, clothes, bedding and furniture. On a broader scale public health was also addressed, limiting through law enforcement the number of hours that women and children were made to work. In addition to this and with the recognition of the ‘appalling’ conditions