# Philanthropy and Voluntary Action in the First World War: Mobilizing Charity

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/books/philanthropy-and-voluntary-action-in-the-first-world-war-mobilizing-charity/
- Published: 2014-04-17T12:02:40+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

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**