Philanthropy and Voluntary Action in the First World War: Mobilizing Charity
This book challenges scholarship which presents charity and voluntary activity during World War I as marking a downturn from the high point of the late Victorian period.
Charitable donations rose to an all-time peak, and the scope and nature of charitable work shifted decisively. Far more working class activists, especially women, became involved, although there were significant differences between the suburban south and industrial north of England and Scotland.
The book also corrects the idea that charitably-minded civilians’ efforts alienated the men at the front, in contrast to the degree of negativity that surrounds much previous work on voluntary action in this period.
Far from there being an unbridgeable gap in understanding or empathy between soldiers and civilians, the links were strong, and charitable contributions were enormously important in maintaining troop morale. This bond significantly contributed to the development and maintenance of social capital in Britain, which, in turn, strongly supported the war effort.
This work draws on previously unused primary sources, notably those regarding the developing role of the UK’s Director General of Voluntary Organizations and the regulatory legislation of the period.
Published in the Routledge Studies in Modern British History series.
About Peter Grant
Peter Grant is Senior Fellow in Grantmaking Management, Philanthropy and Social Investment at the Cass Business School [now Bayes Business School], City University, London.
Reviews
“Despite the plethora of books about Britain and the First World War there are still relatively few studies of the British Home Front and none which look specifically at non-uniformed volunteering and charitable / philanthropic activity.
“Where charities are mentioned in more general studies they are superficially covered, mentioning a few high profile organisations such as the Red Cross. Their impact is considered to be slight, declining as the war continued, and they are depicted as often being run by middle-class ‘Lady Bountifuls’.
“The reality was very different. The numbers of people involved on a regular basis in charities (one-and-a-half to two million) were comparable to the numbers who volunteered to fight. The sums they raised were huge (at least £100 million, worth around £5 billion today) and their impact on Britain’s war effort considerable. In addition a very large number of Britain’s approximately 20,000 war charities were run by ordinary working class people for the benefit of local troops or local causes.”
Cass Business School
