An Edwardian Mixed Doubles

This book examines social policy in the Edwardian age in relation to poverty and unemployment - issues which remain at the heart of our social concerns. These are presented through the conflict of ideas between two husband-and-wife teams of social theorists: the fabian socialists, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, and the spokesmen of the Charity Organization Society, the philosopher Bernard Bosanquet and his wife Helen. Their polemics, which began in the early 1890s, culminated at the lengthy inquiries of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws of 1905-1909, in which Beatrice Webb played a major part and Helen Bosanquet a so-far unrecognized but equally important role on the other side. Their argument is pursued at many levels, from that of practical social work to philosophical speculation.
Based on official sources, personal papers, and primary published material, the book gives a full account of a splendid Edwardian tournament, and challenges some earlier historical commentaries upon it.

"McBriar has successfully elaborated and clarified the positions of the Fabian socialists and the COS on poor relief and unemployment. The book makes a major contribution to the existing literature on British social policy as well as on the more specific issues of Fabian socialism and the Keynesian critique of laissez-faire industrialization."--Journal of Economic History
"McBriar's analysis of the Poor Law Commission's gestation, operation and outcome has been long awaited by historians....Scholarly, elegantly arranged and informed by a quiet, rather dry humour, his new book at last puts into context a Royal Commission which conducted a classic debate on the causes and cure of poverty between 1905 and 1909."--London Review of Books
With wit, humor, and a compassionate understanding of the human condition, McBriar has brightly illuminated an important segment of late Victorian-Edwardian English society and the dialectics of British social policies."--Social Science Quarterly