The provision of social services

Abstract

This chapter concentrates on the provision of urban social services concerning poverty and health, especially critical life situations associated with unemployment, low wages, life-cycle stages, illness and death. Britain as voluntarism became municipal and increasingly mutually interdependent with the local state of local government and the poor law. In the mid-nineteenth century the reliance on families for the provision of social welfare may have been even greater in urban industrial towns than rural areas and small towns. The chapter then focuses on the continuities and changes in the provision of social services with regard to poverty and health. It explores alternative sources of assistance and their interrelationships in the mixed economy of welfare. Finally, the chapter examines to what extent these changed during the period and paying particular attention to whether there were distinctive urban aspects and to variations among urban areas.