Philanthropy

doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521257909.008

7 - Philanthropy

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008

F. K. Prochaska

Edited by

F. M. L. Thompson

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F. M. L. Thompson: Affiliation:
University of London

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Summary

No country on earth can lay claim to a greater philanthropic tradition than Great Britain. Until the twentieth century philanthropy was widely believed to be the most wholesome and reliable remedy for the nation's ills, a view that is not without adherents today. For every affliction, individual or social, physical or spiritual, the charitable pharmacopoeia has a prescription or at least a palliative. Disease, old age and immorality are perennial problems. Others come and go with the elements or the trade cycle. Others still fall out of fashion or disappear because of medical or technological advance. Little is heard nowadays of cholera victims, chimney sweeps or thirsty horses in the metropolis, yet they all aroused public concern in the nineteenth century. Such causes have given way to those in tune with changed conditions, some of which would amaze, indeed alarm, past philanthropists. What would William Wilberforce or Lord Shaftesbury make of modern voluntary societies in aid of gay rights or family planning? Would they join the National Trust (1895), a charity in receipt of government grants, one of whose purposes is the preservation of country houses emptied of a paternalist aristocracy and gentry? Few subjects bring out so well the differences between ourselves and our ancestors.

As befits a nation in which philanthropists are ubiquitous, enormous sums have been contributed, representing a massive redistribution of wealth. But while financial records exist for many charities, it is impossible to measure the overall sums contributed to philanthropy in a single year or to compare the percentage of national income redistributed at different periods.

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Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Social History of Britain, 1750–1950 , pp. 357 - 394

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521257909.008 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 1990

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