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References is based on the work done.
2. Consider the extract from Round About A Pound A Week, written by Maud Pember Reeves, recording the lives of working class families in Lambeth, London, published in 1913. Introduce Reeves and the Fabian Women’s Group and their work on social reform and change. Comment on some of the points made, examining their meaning and considering how they relate to the lives of working class men and women in early twentieth century Britain. What does this extract tell us about a) the state’s role and responsibilities towards its citizens and b) state and society’s attitudes towards motherhood?
A mother, the breadwinner for three young children, earned 12s a week for work which took her from home in the early morning and again in the evening. During two daily absences, which cost her 2s weekly in fares, she was obliged to leave her baby lying in its perambulator. The illness of an elder child brought an education officer to investigate his absence from school. The officer discovered the boy in bed with rheumatic fever, and the baby unattended. Meeting the hurrying mother as she came back from her morning’s work, he indignantly informed her that it was against the law to leave a baby as hers had been left. She must in future pay a neighbour to care for it in her daily absences, or the police would interfere. She pleaded with him; in her ignorance of the ideals and methods of our English law, she explained her circumstances. He was, of course, sorry about it, but the upshot of their conversation was that by the direct action of Public Authority the mother was forced to pay a neighbour to care for the baby, and the 10s a week on which four persons were living was further diminished. Such a woman may be potentially a good parent had she any means by which she could make her good parenthood effective. But her experience of State guardianship of her children may be that Public Authority, without troubling as to whether or not fulfilment be in her power, forces further duties and responsibilities on to her shoulders in respect of those children – through the threatened medium of the police, with all the horrors of prison in the background.
(From Maud Pember Reeves (1913) Round About a Pound a Week, produced by the Fabian Women’s Group)
