'This Injurious Measure': Scotland and the 1906 Education (Provision of Meals) Act

Abstract

There is a significant and growing historical literature on child welfare in twentieth-century Britain.1 In the Edwardian era, one of the most important legislative enactments in this field was the 1906 Education (Provision of Meals) Act, a measure that laid the foundations of the school meals service. This allowed, but did not compel, local authorities to provide needy children with school meals, chargeable to the rates sub ject to an upper limit. It was followed by the 1907 Education (Administrative Provisions) Act, which introduced school medical inspection. Scotland was excluded from these two acts. This exclusion was, however, soon rectified by the 1908 Education (Scotland) Act, which introduced both school meals and school medical inspection. Like its English precursors, the 1908 act's welfare services were to be delivered without any poor law stigma. Regarding school meals, the Scottish legisla tion was, in fact, more comprehensive than that for England. In Scotland, there was a requirement that school boards investigate any cases of 'neglected' children, provide for the supply of clothing as well as food, and set no upper limit on expenditure. Thus within a remarkably short time Scotland moved from a situation of exclusion to one of being 'in advance' of the rest of the United Kingdom. This article will explore these events within the context of the tensions between the imperatives of 'national' - that is British - legislation and of social reform tailored to Scotland's particular needs and traditions. The legislation of the 1900s also illuminates the controversial nature of child welfare policy. For some, measures such as the state feeding of children threatened to undermine the institution of the family. Philan thropic bodies had an important part to play here because of their crucial role in welfare provision. As F. K. Prochaska has observed, the nine teenth-century philanthropist held an 'individualist and familial ethic', sceptical of state intervention and attributing 'the source of social prob lems to individual failings'.2 The local, personal, and voluntarist approach to welfare was seen as morally and economically superior to the national, impersonal, and statist approach. Parents should have their For an overview, see H. Hendrick, Children, Childhood and English Society, 1880-1990 (Cambridge, 1997), ch. 4. F. K. Prochaska, 'Philanthropy', in F. M. L. Thompson (ed.), The Cambridge Social History of Britain, vol. 3 (Cambridge, 1990), 388.