BEVERIDGE WILLIAM HENRY 1879-1963 BEVERIDGE AGRICULTURAL POLICY COMMITTEE

This material is held atLSE Library Archives and Special Collections

Reference
- GB 97 COLL MISC 0015
Dates of Creation
- 1915-1916
Language of Material
- English.
Physical Description
- One volume

Scope and Content

One bound volume containing the papers of the Agricultural Policy Committee, a sub group of the Reconstruction Committee, including:

Item 2. Agricultural wages (memorandum) folios 19 - 40.
Item 3. Note on minimum wage regulation folios 41 - 46.
Item 4. Suggestions as to application of wage regulations to agriculture folios 47 - 50.
Item 7. Draft memorandum on the employment of women in agriculture during the war folios 65 - 71.

Administrative / Biographical History

William Beveridge 1879 - 1963

William Beveridge was educated at Charterhouse and Balliol College, Oxford. He was sub-warden of Toynbee Hall 1903 - 1905, and leader-writer on 'social problems' for the Morning Post 1906 - 1908. From 1905 to 1908 Beveridge was a member of the Central (Unemployed) Body for London, and was also the first Chairman of the Employment Exchanges Committee. He was a member of the Board of Trade 1908 - 1916 and Director of Labour Exchanges 1909 - 1916. During his time at the Board of Trade Beveridge worked with the Agricultural Policy Sub-Committee. The committee was concerned with investigating the effects of applying wage regulations to the agricultural industry. Beveridge presented evidence to the committee concerning the feasibility of this scheme.

In World War I, he was Assistant General Secretary of the Ministry of Munitions (1915 - 1916) and Second Secretary in the Ministry of Food (1916 - 1918). In 1919 Beveridge became Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Food. In the same year he was knighted. He then retired from the civil service and was appointed director of the London School of Economics (1919 - 1937). He then moved on to be Master of University College, Oxford (1937 - 1944).

During World War II he was Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Labour (1940) and was Chairman of the Social Service Inquiry 1941 - 1942 he produced Social Insurance and Allied Services, a report prepared for government which proposed a social system 'from the cradle to the grave' for British citizens. This report became known as the 'Beveridge Report' and became the blueprint for the welfare-state legislation of 1944 - 1948.

Beveridge was Liberal MP for Berwick on Tweed 1944 - 1945 and was made 1st Baron Beveridge of Tuggal in 1946.

His publications include: