International Journal of Epidemiology 2002;31:505-506
© International Epidemiological Association 2002
Book Review |
Poverty: A Study of Town Life. Centennial edition.
B Seebohm Rowntree (ed.). Bristol: The Policy Press, 2000, pp.436. £16.99, ISBN: 1 86134 202 0.
‘The dark shadow of the Malthusian philosophy has passed away, and no view of the ultimate scheme of things would now be accepted under which multitudes of men and women are doomed by inevitable law to struggle for existence so severe as necessarily to cripple or destroy the higher parts of their nature.’ (p.305).
The first publication of Seebohm Rowntree's study of poverty in York in 1901 concluded with this single sentence written to slam shut the door on 19th century acceptance of abject poverty and simultaneously throw the reader into the light of what was possible in a new century—if (according to Rowntree) only we counted and cared enough. The reprint, one hundred years on, is testimony to the power of this book to incrementally change the world, not just in York or Britain but much further afield. The centennial reprint is, however, mostly testimony to the absolute failure of social policy worldwide to have achieved Rowntree's goals and the relative failure of social policy within the country in which Seebohm wrote, to have rid this rich place of the effects of poverty on human nature.
The book is in essence a story of a survey. Evidence based social policy was all the rage at the end of the 19th century and ‘the survey’ was the most impressive measure in the evolving toolbox of the committed young rich men who sought to shake up sleepy Victorian sympathies. Seebohm was the son of Joseph, the York chocolate factory owner who encouraged and funded his offspring's exposure to the poverty that prevailed in the city at that time. A little less than a century later the sale of that chocolate factory to the multinational company Nestlé allowed the rapid expansion of the Foundation named after his father—which has funded so many recent social surveys of Britain. At the turn of the century it is worth looking back to see just how much is borrowed from the past and to question again how much was achieved. The irony that it was the son of a major York capitalist who wrote this book is worth bearing in mind when reading its pages.
This is the first edition of Rowntree's study to have been published since 1922. It contains all that was included in the best of the original editions. The attention to detail is impressive, down to the final two pages of adverts for other (competing) books available at the time and the all important maps of the first edition. The one major addition to this edition is a 64-page preface by Johnathan Bradshaw which provides an entertaining introduction to the book, dismissing the main rival to Rowntree, survey taker extraordinaire Charles Booth, as ‘over-prolific, descriptive, judgmental and imprecise’ (p.xxiv). Bradshaw is clearly in the Rowntree camp and describes the mild mannered liberal Quaker's influence in sympathetic tones. In particular he highlights the innovations in social study for which this book is probably most often now referenced: innovations in survey design including imputation; analysis of the causes of poverty; the cycle of poverty; and the definition of poverty lines. Most of all Bradshaw credits Rowntree with having had a direct and highly beneficial impact on the public, policy and politicians of his day.
In 1901, the year this book was first published, as Victoria lay dying, there were choices to be made. If there is one good reason why you should buy this book, it is to have a copy of a very rare item: a study which actually may have made a difference. The study was not written, of course, for the people of York as much as it was not written to be read by you one hundred years later. This was a book written (and at the time, of course, priced) for the chattering classes of its day and that was a very small tightly knit group of people. In the ‘blurb’ on the back of this edition it is claimed that this is the book that converted the young Winston Churchill (temporarily) to Liberalism while Lloyd George is supposed to have waved the book in the air during his public speeches in 1909 and 1910 (p.xliv). If books change the world, then this is one that did. If the world was changing anyway—this was a useful book for those who wished to change it in particular directions.
One particular direction that this book was not interested in turning in, however, was towards revolution. A sceptical reading of Poverty: A Study of Town Life is that it presents a recipe for just how far it is necessary to go to alleviate poverty to prevent dissent. The minimum standards presented in this edition were just what they purported to be—just enough to get by on and only the bare minimum of very minor luxuries. The teetotaller Rowntree was obsessed with the wasteful consumption of alcohol by men and (in good Quaker tradition) did not agree with the too profligate spending on dresses by women. A little of life's luxuries perhaps—but only just a little—and no mention anywhere in the 400 odd pages of the need to reduce inequalities or redistribute wealth. There is something (at least for British readers) very New Labour about the study of town life presented here. Responsibilities as well as rights—a fairer share of future wealth rather than of present monies. A concern for the children, the widows, the sick and the elderly. A little less concern for the able bodied adults who wanted more than to simply labour away responsibly in their place, keeping their homes tidy and ‘respectable’. Rowntree was more radical than most of the norms of his time, but much less radical than some new thinking. The publication of this book coincided not only with the end of Victoria but also with the creation of a trade union committee that was to become a large part of the Labour party in future years. I doubt Rowntree‘s study told them much they did not already know. It would have told aspiring communists even less.
Poverty: A Study of Town Life did much to help those who went on to build the foundations of the welfare state in Britain. It may also have helped, through its argument for slow incremental and patient change, to have helped to prolong certain values that allowed poverty to continue to this day to ‘destroy the higher parts’ of the nature of many people living in Britain. In a cynical sense this book was chocolate for the well-meaning well-healed classes of the time—it tasted sweet and its recommendations did not cost too much in terms of upsetting the social order. The survey it was based on, remember, was paid for by profits from the sale of chocolate and cocoa to a working class who were progressively winning the right to have a little more money to live on. At the dawn of the last century chocolate was often sold for its supposed medicinal purposes. It made you feel better.
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