1. From Cradle to the Grave
S5/6 Intermediate History

2. Student Introduction In Britain today we live in the Welfare State.
That means we live in a country where the government takes responsibility for ensuring that all people have a minimum standard of living.
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3. …Continued
The sorts of things we would consider essential to our lives (our minimum standard of living) would be:
A roof over our heads
Money for clothes and food
A free education
Medical care as and when we need it

4. ….Continued
In fact, this means we receive care from the cradle to the grave.
Our mothers receive medical treatment before we are born and if it is necessary our relatives can get help towards paying our funeral expenses
Nowadays, people accept these things as part of our rights as citizens and when we vote in elections to choose our government we often keep these things in mind to help us decide which party we wish in power.

5. ….Continued
Governments also need to keep the welfare of the people in mind when choosing policies and deciding how to spend our tax money.
At election times they tell us how they will help education, the unemployed or the national health service

6. ….Continued However, Britain has not always been like this.
In this unit you will find out how we won these rights
By studying this unit you will also learn
What the problem of poverty was like around 1900
Why people’s attitudes were changing to this problem
What the Liberal government of did to tackle the problem
The way the Labour government of set
up the Welfare State

7. ….Continued
As we go through the unit you should also think about how the Welfare State works today. By reading newspapers and reading/listening to the news, you can see what changes the government plan for it in the future.

8. The Problem of Poverty around 1900
By the end of this section you should know and be able to describe and explain:
what is meant by poverty
what are the main causes of poverty
what is meant by self-help
what is meant by the voluntary system
the ways in which people’s ideas were
changing about poverty and its causes
what the work of Booth and Rowntree
showed about the lives of the poor

9. Poverty around 1900
What is meant by poverty today in comparison to 100 years ago?
Poverty is being poor and it means different things to different people in different countries at different times!

11. Poverty
In terms of what were are looking at, there are two different types of poverty.
Primary Poverty
Secondary Poverty
..is when people do not have the basic necessities of life – things like food, housing and clothes because they do not earn enough money for them. People who do not have these things are often referred to as living ‘below the poverty line’.
..is when people earn enough so they could have the basic necessities. However, because they spend some of their money unwisely they do not actually have those basic things.
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12. Poverty It is difficult to give exact definitions of poverty.
What people think is necessary for a minimum standard of civilised life can vary greatly from country to country and from century to century

14. Examples
Someone considered to be poor in Britain today may well have a more comfortable life than someone who was considered well-off in the 19th C.
Similarly, a poor person in Britain may have a much higher standard of living than millions of people around the world who regularly face starvation.
We often see pictures of starving children in parts of Africa on our TV’s. Many people also give to charities such as OXFAM who help those who are often living in poverty.

15. Task Lets think about these points in a little more detail
In group of two, collect a ‘What it means to be poor worksheet’.
In your group complete the first two columns (leave the third column blank – this will be done at a later stage)
An extra section has been left blank at the bottom if you feel something important has been missed out
When you have done that, each two will report back to the whole class to see how we agree on what it means to be poor

16. What causes poverty? Poverty is caused by a variety of factors.
Often it is caused by a combination of them.
These factors include:
Low wages
Irregular earnings (when a person does not get the same amount each week or cannot get work all the time, may be just at certain times of the year)
Unemployment
Sickness
Infirmity (having a disease or disability which makes it difficult to work)
Old age
Family Size
Death of the wage earner

17. Causes?
Some people also believe three other factors were also important causes of poverty.
Laziness: where the person did not want to work
Drunkenness: where the person waster money on alcohol
Gambling: where money was wasted on betting

18. Task What causes Poverty?
Draw a mind map/spider diagram/list of all the factors which cause poverty.
Start with a large bubble in the middle/top….
What causes Poverty?

19. Questions!
Why is it difficult to give exact definitions of Primary Poverty and Secondary Poverty?
Looking at what you wrote in column 2 of ‘What it means to be poor’, do you think poverty in Britain around the year 2000 is more primary or secondary?

20. Extension Collect ‘The Causes of Poverty’ help sheet.
In your pairs, look at the list/diagram of the 11 causes of poverty. Show whose fault it is by putting a tick in the columns; for eg. Old age must be ‘no-one’ because we all grow old at some point – this is no-one’s fault.
*NB. Some of the causes might be the fault of more than one group