The document outlines key events and reforms in Britain from 1890-1918, including increasing liberal reforms addressing working conditions and poverty, the growth of the labor movement, women's suffrage movement, and Britain's experience on the home front during World War 1. Major events included Booth and Rowntree's studies revealing high poverty rates, the establishment of old age pensions and national insurance, an increase in women's rights, and Britain's total mobilization for war through conscription and the involvement of women in war industries.

1. The Big British Social History Timeline 1890-1918:
Liberal Reforms
1889 – First volume of Charles Booth’s research is released. It showed that the idle, criminal or undeserving poor only numbered
1% of London’s population. However, he also showed that 30% of London’s population lived below the poverty line.
1890s – working conditions in England were very poor, especially in the ‘Sweated Trades’ eg. Match making.
1890s – Victorian attitudes to poverty were based on the belief that if you were poor then you deserved to be. Either you were
not working hard enough, or wanted to be lazy/a criminal etc.
1890s – the Poor Law, the workhouse and charities eg. Barnardo’s were the only options for poor people at the time.
1900 – Life expectancy for a poor man or woman was 45.
By 1900 – Both Germany and the USA had overtaken Britain in industrial output.
1900 – Foundation of the Labour Party to fight for the rights of the working class.
1899-1902 – The Boer War. 69% of potential recruits in some poor areas of Britain were unfit to fight. This worried the
government who needed to call up fit men to fight. It resulted in the creation of the ‘Committee on Physical Deterioration’ to
investigate the issue.
1901 – Seebohm Rowntree published a book called ‘Poverty: A study of town life’. This book was based on his research in York.
He discovered that 27% of the population of York lived below the poverty line. The main cause of this was regular work but low
wages (52%) which went against the Victorian beliefs of why people were poor. This level of poverty was really unexpected in
York. Rowntree also created the ‘Poverty Line’ (which tracked the life of an average person and showed they went below the
poverty line at key points eg. When children were born.
1900s – John Galt took photographs of the poverty that he found around the country and presented them in ‘shows’ to mainly
middle class people.
1905 – Conservatives introduced the ‘Unemployed Workmen’s Act’ to try and win the votes of the working class.
1906 – General Election. Result = Liberal Landslide, they had promised to introduce reforms if they were elected. The Liberals
won 400 out of 650 seats. The Labour Party only won 29 seats.
1906 – Free School Meals Act. Not compulsory. By 1914 14 million meals were served up. However, only half of Local Authorities
provided them.
1907 – School Medical Inspections
1908 – The Children’s Act – made children protected people eg. Not allowed to buy cigarettes.
1908 – Old Age Pensions Act. Over 70s would get 5s per week, married couples 7s 6d. In the first year 650,000 people collected
their pension.
1909 – The People’s Budget is passed by the House of Commons. It introduces the taxation needed to pay for the reforms eg.
Direct Taxation to pay for the Old Age Pensions. It is very unpopular with the wealthy and blocked by the House of Lords.
Nevertheless it becomes law in 1910.
1909 – Labour Exchanges, but 1913 they are putting 3,000 people into jobs every working day
1911 – National Insurance Part I (Sick Pay). Compulsory for anyone earning under £160 a year. Individual pays 4d a week,
employer 3d and government 2d (9d for 4d!). In return the worker received 26 weeks of sick pay at 10s a week. 14 million
people were covered by this act.
1912 – School Clinics
1913 – National Insurance Act Part II (unemployment). Aimed at seasonal workers eg. Shipbuilding 21/2d per week from the
worker, 21/2d from the employer and 13/4d from the government. 7s a week for 15 weeks – just enough to get by.

2. The Big British Social History Timeline 1890-1918:
Women and the Vote
1884 – Women are recognised as individuals by the law, rather than being property of their husbands.
1894 – Parish Councils Act allows women who own property to serve on urban and parish district councils
1897 – NUWSS founded under Milicent Fawcett, it had over 500 local branches. Had 100,000 members.
By 1900 – Women could vote in local elections, and most men could vote in General Elections.
1900s – Arguments against women getting the vote included: they have different responsibilities (separate spheres), they don’t
fight in the army therefore they shouldn’t send men to war, they are too emotional, they need to be protected, not all women
want the vote.
1900s – Arguments for women getting the vote included: women pay taxes like men, women have proved they can be trusted in
local election voting, many single women have the same responsibilities as men, many uneducated men can vote, but educated
women can’t.
By 1900 many backbench Liberal MPs were in favour of the idea of women voting, but the Liberal leaders (including Asquith)
opposed it. In the Conservative Party, the leadership quite liked the idea, but the MPs opposed it.
1903 – WSPU founded under Emmeline Pankhurst – she believed in a more radical and militant approach to campaigning.
1906 – General Election – Liberal Landslide, with many Liberal MPs in favour of votes for women (including the leader of the
time, Henry Campbell-Bannerman)
1908 – Women’s suffrage bill is dropped in parliament. This triggers the start of ‘Direct Action’ from the WSPU (Suffragettes).
This included chaining themselves to railings near 10 Downing Street, interrupting political meetings etc.
1909 – Suffragette prisoners start hunger striking in an effort to get recognised as political prisoners rather than criminals.
1909 – Government introduces force feeding in of hunger strikers
1910 (June) – A ‘Conciliation Bill’ is drafted by all the political parties to give women the vote. It is dropped after the PM
(Asquith) called another election (November).
1911 (May) – Conciliation Bill is reintroduced. By November however Asquith changes his mind and proposes a bill to give more
men the vote, but with no mention of women.
1912 (March) – Conciliation Bill is defeated in parliament and dropped.
1911 – Further increase in Suffragette violence in response to the dropping of the Conciliation Bill.
1913 – Cat and Mouse Act introduced to allow hunger strikers to be released and rearrested when they’d recovered.
1913 (June) – Death of Emily Davison – turned into a great publicity stunt by the WSPU, but causes many more moderate people
to leave the organisation. The WSPU had only had 2,000 members at its peak.
1914 – Votes for Women (WSPU magazine) had a circulation of 40,000.
1914 – Outbreak of WWI sees the WSPU and NUWSS suspend their campaigning to support the war effort.
1917 – Representation of the People passed may a massive majority of 7 to 1. Gave 9 million women the vote (over 30 who
were householders). It also gave all man over the age of 21 the vote.
1918 (14th
December) – First General Election in which some women could vote.
1919 – Nancy Astor became the first woman MP to take her seat in the House of Commons.
1928 – Women gained full voting rights

3. The Big British Social History Timeline 1890-1918:
The Home Front
1914 (2nd
August) – Britain declares war on Germany. Lord Kitchener (the Secretary of State for War) wants to increase the size
of the British Army from 250,000 men to 1 million men. 500,000 men sign up in the first month. By July 1916 2.5 million men
have signed up.
1914 (8th
August) – The Defence of the Realm Act is introduced
1914 (October) – sinking of HMS Audacious was not reported in the British press.
1914 – Daily Mail circulation was 295,000 – it was 579,000 by 1918. John Bull (patriotic magazine) was selling 2 million copies in
1918.
1915 – First raids by German Zeppelin airship.
1915 (July) – Munitions Crisis exposed by the Daily Mail.
1915-1918 – 240 War films were produced (very few actually commissioned by the War Department).
1916 (January) – Conscription Act introduced.
1916 (early) – Britain needed 2 million more workers (due to all the men who had joined the army)
1916 – Daily Mail owner Lord Beaverbrook was appointed to the Cabinet.
1916 (1st
July) – Start of the Battle of the Somme. It lasted until November and saw over 500,000 British causalities).
1916 (November) – British journalists allowed to the front line.
1916 (December) – Lloyd George replaces Asquith as Prime Minister. He sets up the Ministry of Labour and Ministry of Food.
By the end of 1916 – 9 million people had seen the propaganda film ‘For the Empire’. The propaganda film ‘The Battle of the
Somme’ was also a great success mixing real and fake footage (13% of running time showed dead or wounded soldiers) – within
2 months of its release in August 1916 it has been shown at over 2000 of the 4500 cinemas in the country.
1916 – 235,000 workers went on strike (2.5 million working days were lost).
1917 (February) – Unrestricted submarine warfare from the Germans against the British merchant ships (carrying food mainly).
1917 (April) – Food supplies running low in Britain. Government takes over 2.5 million acres of new farmland to grow food. 6
weeks’ supply of wheat left in Britain. 1 in 4 British merchant ships were being sunk.
1917 – Women’s Land Army set up, 260,000 members by the end of the war.
1917 (November) – Voluntary rationing introduced – it fails.
1917 (December) – Parliament agreed to a law to give all women over the age of 30 who were householders the right to vote in
General Elections (Representation of the People Act).
1918 – 900,000 workers went on strike (over 6 million working days were lost).
1918 (April) – Compulsory rationing extended across the country (meat, butter and cheese)
1918 (11th
November) – Armistice.
1918 – By the end of the war 800,000 women had taken up work in engineering industries. Women in work had risen to over 6
million by the end of the war.
1918 (14th
December) – First General Election in which some women could vote.
1919 – Nancy Astor became the first woman MP to take her seat in the House of Commons.
1928 – Women gained full voting rights