William Beveridge (1879-1963)

William Henry Beveridge (1879-1963), 1st Baron Beveridge, KCB, was a distinguished British economist, civil servant, and social reformer. He briefly served as a Liberal MP and is best remembered for his landmark 1942 Beveridge Report, which laid the foundations of Britain’s Welfare State by proposing bold plans to defeat the “Five Giant Evils” - Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor, and Idleness.

 

William Beveridge was born in Rangpur, Bengal (then part of British India) in 1879, where his Scottish father served as a judge in the Indian Civil Service. His early years were marked by emotional isolation, including a difficult stint at a boarding school in Southport before going on to be educated at Charterhouse and Oxford.

 

Beveridge seemed destined for a career in academia or law. But in 1902, defying strong parental opposition, he took an unexpected turn, joining Toynbee Hall to tackle the urgent problems of poverty and unemployment. That decision set him on the path to becoming widely known as the father of Britain’s Welfare State.

 

 "An intellectual giant." Harold Wilson once worked as Beveridge's research assistant.

 

 

Beveridge was 63 years old when his groundbreaking report was published. He had been a senior civil servant before and during the First World War, and was one of the main architects of labour exchanges and wartime rationing. In the 1920s and 1930s, he served as Director of the London School of Economics. When the Second World War broke out, he was eager to return to the Civil Service to work on manpower issues. Instead, in 1941, the coalition government appointed Beveridge chair of an obscure Interdepartmental Committee on Social Insurance and Allied Services.

 

In 1942, eighteen months later, and within weeks of victory at El Alamein, the Social Insurance and Allied Services Report was published. It quickly became known as the Beveridge Report. His ideas, and the language he used to express them, provided a much-needed morale boost during the dark days of war. It captivated the nation and became an instant best-seller.

 

William Beveridge was made a Life Peer in 1946, and later became Leader of the Liberals in the House of Lords. He retired from public life in 1954 and moved, with his wife, Janet (Jessy) Mair, to Oxford. He died at his home on 16 March 1963 and was buried in Throckington churchyard, on the Northumbrian moors. His barony became extinct upon his death. His last words were: “I have a thousand things to do.”

 

What a legacy. Today, his report continues to be referenced by politicians, journalists, economists, and historians across the world.