GCSE History OCR - Britain

1902 Queen Victoria died - huge British empire, clear class differences, aristocracy - lords & ladies --> dukes & earls --> lawyers, doctors etc --> poor working class

Life for many getting better - new department stores, cheaper rail travel

Poor - grim life, no pension/unemployment benefits, seen as their own fault

Charities - gave food/clothes/accommodation; nearly 1000 in London; Dr Barnados - helped 0.5 million children

Poor Law - work places, deliberately grim, payments, goods & services; labelled you a pauper, shameful

Men & women expected to save their low wages; if lost job/had an accident savings would help, virtually every penny went to simple survival; many lived on brink of poverty; dreaded becoming old - no income, hard to survive

Salvation Army - helped very poor; run by William & Catherine Booth; uniforms; helped poor find jobs & avoid crime

Seebolm Rowntree - believed falling into poverty was easy; saw illness/death in a family could push them into poverty; wrote Poverty: A Study of Town Life - read by thousands

Both rich & well known - listened to & publicised poor

1899 Boer War in South Africa - 2/3 men rejected, unfit & undernourished; worried government - how would they fight Germany?

Up to 1900 two main parties - Conservatives & Liberals, no great interest in the poor; 1900 Labour - helped ordinary people, pressured other parties to help poor

How Liberal Reforms helped poor - 1906 came to power, influenced by Rowntree, Salvation Army & Labour; improved sewage systems, clean water & lighting; 1906-12 passed many measures to help childen, old & unemployed

1906 - Free School Meals - by 1914 160,00 children on them

1907 - School Medical Inspectors - compulsory, treatment not free

1908 - Children's Act - cruelty illegal, U14 banned from pubs; U16 not to be sold cigarettes; juvenile courts & prisons

1908 - Pensions Act - over 70s got weekly payment from government

1909 - Labour Exchanges Act -unemployed could go there to find work

1911 - National Insurance Act - for poor if they got sick & couldn't work, employers & government contributed; Part 2 -benefits for unemployed

1912 - School Clinics - free school treatment

Lloyd George - Budget 1909, taxed rich; House of Lords didn't pass it, held an election so had to pass it; seen as a robber/Robin Hood hero; knew the poor would damage Britain & Labour gain more support

• First time government recognised poor

• Didn't help all poor - quite limited

• Only 1/2 mil elderly got pensions - died before 70 

• National Insurance sickness - only for low incomes, didn't cover dependents

• Many people thankful for Liberal reforms

• Debated if this was start of Britain becoming a 'welfare state', looked after you from 'cradle to grave' - 1945 NHS

1906 - started to campaign for the vote; seen as wives & mothers; taught housewifery, laundry work, cookery etc

Not meant to continue education, expected to help family income; domestic services etc; end of 19C - new jobs in department stores, typists, nurses etc

Lower wages; independent women wanted to go to uni, couldn't get degrees

Marriage - became property of husband; allowed to beat/**** wife; 1900 allowed to hold prosecutions & divorce, but men still allowed to beat/****, no rights to children; angered women

Arguments against vote - greeted with horror/ridicule; thought women were mentally/biologically incapable; policitics too rough; emotional, should be wives & mothers

Arguments for vote - capable of politics - reformed prisons, hospitals, local politics; capable of difficult jobs - doctors; Britain is being an embarrassment; illiterate poor men get vote but not educated women; Britain calls itself a democracy - 1/2 population can't vote; can pressure MPs to change laws, get equal pay & rights in marriage

Violent methods - attacking property - arson, chemicals in letterboxes, art pieces slashed, telegraph wires cut; attacking people - policemen, doctors, heckling MPs; suicide - Emily Davison Derby 1913; Hunger Strikes - 1909 many suffragettes in prison, 'Cat & Mouse Act'

Reaction of newspapers & public opinion - The Times - against them; Daily Mirror - more supportive

Did Violence help the suffragettes?

• Yes - attention, talked about, harsh treatment would've happened anyway
• No - excuse to ignore them, turned supporting men against them, too emotional & neurotic

• Husbands vote for them 
• Brains think of family & not politics
• Can't fight to defend country so shouldn't vote
• Britain most powerful country in the world - why change system
• Only very few women want the vote
• Good at local affairs - don't need to get involved in national politics

'Separate Spheres' argument - women have sensitve natures - delicate, too trusting, gullibe, emotional

Suffragettes - violence, WSPU, Emmeline Pankhurst

Suffragists - peaceful, Millicent Fawsett, NUWSS

Peaceful methods - propaganda - newspapers, colour schemes etc; Meetings & demonstrations - public halls, unladylike, successful for NUWSS; political & civil disobedience - MPs targeted, refused to pay taxes & answer 2011 census

Supported war effort - demande conscription, gave out white feather to service age men not in army, couldn't selfishly campaign, proved invaluable to the war effort

Transformed role of women in society - tram drivers, munitions workers, plumbers etc

Worked mostly in metal based industries & munitions

Did these jobs alongside being mothers - set up national kitchens selling cheap, pre-cooked meals

Developed greater independence - went to pubs, smoked, shorter skirts, fear of sexually transmitted diseases; if a soldier got STD the women was imprisoned

Why women got vote in 1918 - NUWSS & WSPU brought issues to attention; changed views of women; feared violent suffragettes would start again; all parties agreed to it

Over 30 could vote - more responsible; still 5 millions women without vote

Total war - affected everyone

Recruitment - 250,000 in army 1914, needed 1 mil more; recruitment offices set up; posters; patriotic speeches; Pals Battalions; 1916 over 2.5 mil in 'Kitchener's Army'

Conscription - Jan 16th compulsory for single men 18-41, extended to married, applied to all classes, exempted vital workers like coal miners 

Conscientious Objectors - objected military services for religious, political & humanitarian grounds; tribunal agree/disagree; if agree, sent to front to be cooks etc; disagree sent to front, if refused orders could be court martialled & shot

Why were so many men eager to join? - Pals regiment, unemployment, live in bad conditions in Britain, adventure, want to beat the Hun

First war civilians at risk, new technology - attack from air, civilians considered a legitimate target, battleships on east coast - 119 civilians killed; zeppelins - Woolwich Arsenal Munitions Factory - 2,000 killed/injured; bomber planes - killed/injured 3,000

Needed whole country to pull together - keep economy going, government needed more power

DORA:

• improving & increasing munitions output
• railways taken over by government
• Ministry of Shipping - convoy system
• Ministry of Food - compulsory rationing
• diluted beer & restricted open hours of pubs - stop faulty munitions
• binoculars, church bells, feeding bread to horses etc banned
• any land/business considered useful taken over
• mining vital - government made fixed salaries, exempt from conscription

Way of getting people to do what government wanted - control of information, censorship to stop damage of morale

Newspapers - most people got news this way, needed controlling, encouraged to write in a herioic way e.g. loss of soldiers - 'bastism of fire'; soldiers letters censored

Posters, postcards & cartoons - visual stimuli; early posters aimed at recruitment; later posters aimed at morale & hatred on enemy

Women & propaganda - encouraged men to join up, emotions of duty, chivalry, honour & desire to protect the family; government believed it would be hard for men to resist these appeals

How effective? - government considered it vital for recruitment & morale; historians believe war was won by other factors e.g. unemployment, adventure, pals regiments, rationing

Photographers given officer status, but must carefully censor photos, not allowed to show dead or dying

Official war artists assigned in 1916, carefully controlled

Offical films - powerful propaganda; Battle of the Some - most people saw it, mix of real scene & staged scenes, designed to raise morale but caused shock; showed deaths; eventually withdrawn