William Beveridge

British economist and social reformer (1879-1963)

William Henry Beveridge, 1st Baron Beveridge, KCB (5 March 1879 – 16 March 1963) was a British economist and Liberal politician. He was a progressive and social reformer. He played a central role in designing the British welfare state. His 1942 report Social Insurance and Allied Services (known as the Beveridge Report) was the basis for the welfare state put in place by the Labour government elected in 1945.[1]


The Lord Beveridge

William Beveridge in the 1940s
Member of Parliament
for Berwick-upon-Tweed
In office
17 October 1944 – 15 June 1945
Preceded byGeorge Charles Grey
Succeeded byRobert Thorp
Majority7,523 (74.8%)
Personal details
Born(1879-03-05)5 March 1879
Rangpur City, Bengal, India (now Bangladesh)
Died16 March 1963(1963-03-16) (aged 84)
Oxford, England
NationalityBritish
Political partyLiberal
Spouse(s)
(m. 1942; died 1959)
Parents
EducationCharterhouse School
Alma materBalliol College, Oxford
Occupation
  • Economist
  • politician
Known forWork towards founding the welfare state in the United Kingdom

He built his career as an expert on unemployment insurance. He served on the Board of Trade as Director of the newly created labour exchanges. Later he was Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Food. He was Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science from 1919 until 1937, when he was elected Master of University College, Oxford.

Beveridge published widely on unemployment and social security. He was elected in a 1944 by-election as a Liberal MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed. When he lost in the 1945 general election, he was elevated to the House of Lords. He was the leader of the Liberal peers.

  • Unemployment: A problem of industry, 1909. online (Archive.org)
  • 'Wages in the Winchester Manors', Economic History Review, Vol. VII, 1936–37.
  • Prices and Wages in England from the Twelfth to the Nineteenth Century, 1939.
  • Social Insurance and Allied Services, 1942. (The Beveridge Report)[2]
  • The Pillars of Security and Other War-Time Essays and Addresses, 1943, republished 2014.[3]
  • Full Employment in a Free Society, 1944.
  • The Economics of Full Employment, 1944.
  • Why I am a Liberal, 1945.
  • The Price of Peace, 1945.
  • Power and Influence, 1953.
  • "India Called Them," George Allen & Unwin, 1947
  • Plan for Britain: A Collection of Essays prepared for the Fabian Society by G. D. H. Cole, Aneurin Bevan, Jim Griffiths, L. F. Easterbrook, Sir William Beveridge, and Harold J. Laski (Not illustrated with 127 text pages).[4]
  • 'Westminster Wages in the Manorial Era', Economic History Review, 2nd Series, Vol. VIII, 1955.

References

change
  1. James Midgley, "Beveridge, Lord William", Encyclopedia of Social Work (19th ed. NASW Press:Washington DC. 1995) Vol. 3. p. 2574.
  2. "Beveridge Report". Socialist Health Association. 1942. Retrieved 2024-03-29.
  3. William H. Beveridge (2014) [1943]. The Pillars of Security (Works of William H. Beveridge). Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-317-57304-3.
  4. Detail taken from Plan for Britain published by George Routledge with a date of 1943 and no ISBN