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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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welfare state
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The concept is most closely associated in Britain with the legislation introduced by the Labour government of 1945–50, including the *National Health Service and an extension of the existing *national insurance. But its origins are much earlier. In 1888 the American author Edward Bellamy published a widely read Utopian novel (Looking Backward: 2000–1887) in which he foresaw the community in the year 2000 guaranteeing 'the nurture, education, and comfortable maintenance of every citizen from the cradle to the grave'. In Germany, also in the 1880s, Bismarck introduced sickness and old-age insurance for wage earners.
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In Britain the Liberals brought in unemployment insurance in 1911, and laid the foundations for sickness benefit and old-age pensions. But the most comprehensive programme was laid out in the *Beveridge Report of 1942, which picked up the cradle-to-grave theme. The concept that all should have a right to free welfare on a broad front remained a consensus in Britain until the 1980s, when the *Thatcher government tended to ridicule the welfare state as the 'nanny' state. However improvement of welfare provision, particularly in relation to health and pensions, remains a central concern of most of the electorate.
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