Skip to main content

Early Years

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
100 Years of NCVO and Voluntary Action
  • 114 Accesses

Abstract

In this chapter Davis Smith examines the struggle of the newly formed National Council of Social Service (NCSS) to establish itself in the difficult economic conditions after the First World War. Voluntary action was identified as having an important contribution to make to post-war reconstruction, but funds were tight and impacted severely on the Council’s work. There were some successes, particularly the development of village halls and community centres on the new estates, but the pace of development was slow. The chapter examines the philosophical basis to the Council’s work, such as Idealism and Constructive Leisure, and the role of voluntary action in contributing to citizenship and democracy, both at home and abroad.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 29.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Brasnett, 1969, p. 56.

  2. 2.

    Taylor, 1965, p. 175.

  3. 3.

    Finlayson, 1994, pp. 231–2; Owen, 1964, p. 527.

  4. 4.

    Braithwaite, 1938, pp. 110 and 131.

  5. 5.

    McCarthy and Thane, 2011, pp. 217–29. See also, Thane and Evans, 2012.

  6. 6.

    McCarthy, 2011, p. 48. See also McCarthy, 2008.

  7. 7.

    See, for example, McCarthy, 2011, p. 54, and Kent, 1992.

  8. 8.

    On democratic engagement in tenants groups, see Shapely, 2011.

  9. 9.

    On the dominance of the rural community councils by the rural aristocracy, see Burchardt, 2012, p. 91.

  10. 10.

    McKibbin, 1988.

  11. 11.

    McCarthy, 2011, p. 49.

  12. 12.

    For a discussion of these issues, see McCarthy, 2011, p. 55.

  13. 13.

    NCSS Annual Report 1937–38, p. 16.

  14. 14.

    McCarthy and Thane, 2011, pp. 228–9. See also McCarthy, 2007.

  15. 15.

    Macadam, 1934.

  16. 16.

    For a contrary view that the degree of collaboration between the state and the voluntary movement at this time has been overstated, see Prochaska, 1988, p. 80.

  17. 17.

    McCarthy, 2007, p. 908.

  18. 18.

    Marwick, 1964, pp. 285–98.

  19. 19.

    Prochaska, 1988, p. 80; Finlayson, 1994, pp. 250–1.

  20. 20.

    NCSS Annual Report 1919–20, p. 7.

  21. 21.

    The role of voluntary action during times of austerity is explored further in Chap. 10.

  22. 22.

    NCSS, March 1919a.

  23. 23.

    NCSS, December 1919b, p. 3.

  24. 24.

    Ibid., p. 3. Social capital became the buzz phrase during the 1990s and early years of the twenty-first century, popularised by the writings of Robert Putnam, 1993 and 2000, and adopted by politicians of the Left and Right as providing an ‘intellectual’ underpinning to the call for an expansion of voluntary action.

  25. 25.

    First Annual Report from the British Institute and National Council of Social Service 1919–20, p. 4.

  26. 26.

    A memorandum from the Council, dated April 1920, gives the address as 8A New Cavendish Street, London; Uncatalogued papers; London Metropolitan Archives (LMA).

  27. 27.

    Brasnett, 1969, p. 27.

  28. 28.

    Sir Richard Stapley was a businessman, philanthropist, and Liberal politician, who unsuccessfully contested the general elections of 1892 and 1910. He died in 1920, leaving his fortune to the Educational Trust, also based at 33 Bloomsbury Square, London. See The Times, 21 May 1920, p. 18.

  29. 29.

    A tradition had been established from its founding that the Speaker of the House of Commons would occupy the position of president of the Council. This continued until 1932 when the then Speaker Captain FitzRoy resigned his position on the grounds that his impartiality as Speaker could be compromised with the government grants being paid to the Council for its unemployment work.

  30. 30.

    Brasnett, 1969, p. 28.

  31. 31.

    NCSS Annual Report 1919–20.

  32. 32.

    Members of the Executive Committee were ‘relieved’ of this responsibility in April 1925. Minutes of Executive Committee, 2 April 1925; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/028.

  33. 33.

    NCSS Annual Report 1919–20, p. 7.

  34. 34.

    NCSS Annual Report 1923, p. 8. The appeal was launched by the Council’s president, the Speaker of the House of Commons, the Rt. Hon. James Lowther, in a letter to The Times, 23 November 1920, p. 8.

  35. 35.

    NCSS Annual Report, 1923. The Council had been told in 1925 that it was not regarded as a charity and therefore could not claim relief against income tax. It appealed against the ruling but was unsuccessful. Minutes of Executive Committee, 8 May 1925 and 14 January 1926; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/028.

  36. 36.

    NCSS Annual Report 1919–20, p. 4.

  37. 37.

    On Ellis, see Brasnett, 1969, p. 17, and Clements, 1971.

  38. 38.

    See Snape, 2015a, p. 62.

  39. 39.

    NCSS, 1920.

  40. 40.

    For a good discussion of this conference, see Adderley, 2015, pp. 67–68.

  41. 41.

    Ibid., p. 79.

  42. 42.

    Ibid., pp. 10–11.

  43. 43.

    On the development of Idealism in Britain, see Offer, 1999 and 2003.

  44. 44.

    On Green and other British Idealists, see Den Otter, 1996; Vincent and Plant, 1984; and Harris, 1992. On the importance of active citizenship to Idealist thought, see Beaven and Griffiths, 2008.

  45. 45.

    The contribution of Barker and Lindsay to the Council and wider movement is discussed in this and the following chapter. J.L Stocks played a smaller, but still important, role in the Council’s development, chairing its housing committee between the wars. Like Lindsay, he drew his civic inspiration from Greek philosophy and Labour politics. He was professor of philosophy at the University of Manchester and vice-chancellor of the University of Liverpool. He was active in the settlement movement and WEA and fought Oxford for Labour unsuccessfully at the 1935 general election. The Times said ‘he combined the precepts of a teacher of philosophy with the active practice of civic virtue’. He died in 1937. See The Times, 14 June 1937, p. 9.

  46. 46.

    Den Otter, 1996, p. 208.

  47. 47.

    On the influence of Green and other Idealists on Adams, especially in relation to rural policy, see Burchardt, 2011.

  48. 48.

    Campbell, 1970, pp. 2–3.

  49. 49.

    On the influence of Plunkett on Adams, see Burchardt, 2011.

  50. 50.

    On Adams, see Brasnett, 1969, pp. 33–35 and his obituary in The Times, 1 February 1966, p. 12.

  51. 51.

    On Adams’ time heading up Lloyd George’s secretariat, see Turner, 1980.

  52. 52.

    NCSS Annual Report 1930–31.

  53. 53.

    See Snape, 2015a, pp. 51–83.

  54. 54.

    Snape, 2015b.

  55. 55.

    Coles, 1993, p. 6.

  56. 56.

    Snape, 2015a, p. 65.

  57. 57.

    Quoted in Jones, 1986, p. 167.

  58. 58.

    NCSS Annual Report 1929–30, p. 14.

  59. 59.

    Snape, 2015a, p. 62.

  60. 60.

    Harris, 1992, p. 126.

  61. 61.

    In July 1923 the Council published a memorandum setting out the objects and structure of a local council of social service and throughout this period it sought ways to strengthen the movement NCSS, 1923.

  62. 62.

    Minutes of Executive Committee, 24 June 1926; LMA/4016/IS/A/1/028.

  63. 63.

    NCSS Annual Report 1922; Finlayson, 1994, p. 265.

  64. 64.

    NCSS had given evidence to the inter-departmental committee of inquiry on Public Assistance. The recommendation to establish councils of social service to help with the coordination was supported by the Association of Municipal Corporations, Brasnett, 1969, p. 38.

  65. 65.

    Deedes had a distinguished career in the army, fighting in the Gallipoli campaign and serving as chief secretary of the Palestine government. In addition to his work with the Council, he was active locally in Bethnal Green in London and chaired the London Council of Social Service for ten years from 1936. See Mitchell, 1957, pp. 127–128.

  66. 66.

    Brasnett, 1969, p. 62.

  67. 67.

    Laybourn, 1994, p. 31.

  68. 68.

    A Central Churches group was established in May 1938. See Chap. 5 for a fuller discussion.

  69. 69.

    NCSS Annual Report 1926, p. 7.

  70. 70.

    NCSS Annual Report 1926, p. 7.

  71. 71.

    It is not entirely the case that the Council had no tradition of rural engagement to draw on. A rural department had been established before the First World War by Horace Plunkett and W.G.S. Adams and was instrumental in the setting up of the Development Commission by Lloyd George in 1909 to support rural affairs. In 1919 the rural department transferred its assets to the new Council to continue its work. Interview with David Clark, 15 August 2017.

  72. 72.

    Stevenson, 2003; Burchardt, 1999, p. 197.

  73. 73.

    NCSS Annual Report 1930–31, p. 10.

  74. 74.

    NCSS Annual Report 1936–37, p. 33.

  75. 75.

    Burchardt, 2012.

  76. 76.

    On the life and work of Grace Hadow, see Deneke, 1946, and Smith, 2004.

  77. 77.

    The Women’s Institute was established in 1915 by suffragists as part of an international movement to improve the status of rural women. See, for example, Andrews, 1997.

  78. 78.

    On the history of the Oxfordshire Rural Community Council, see Campbell, 1970.

  79. 79.

    Burchardt, 2012, p. 90.

  80. 80.

    On the history of the Development Commission, see Rogers, 1999. See also Cripps, 1985.

  81. 81.

    Burchardt, 2012, p. 83.

  82. 82.

    Sir Henry Rew was a civil servant and agricultural economist and statistician, assistant secretary to the Board of Agriculture and secretary to the Ministry of Food. In addition to chairing the Village Clubs Association, he was chair of the farmers’ club and president of the Royal Statistical Society. He unsuccessfully contested South Oxfordshire as a Liberal at the general elections of 1922 and 1923. He died in 1929. See The Times, 9 April 1929, p. 18.

  83. 83.

    See Morgan, 1947, p. 90.

  84. 84.

    Burchardt, 2012, p. 100.

  85. 85.

    Ibid., p. 94.

  86. 86.

    Burchardt, 1999, p. 208.

  87. 87.

    Brasnett, 1969, p. 51.

  88. 88.

    NCSS Annual Report 1936–37, p. 35.

  89. 89.

    NCSS Annual Report 1938–39, p. 33.

  90. 90.

    NCSS Annual Report 1922.

  91. 91.

    Burchardt, 2012, p. 98.

  92. 92.

    NCSS Annual Report 1938–39.

  93. 93.

    Coles, 1993, pp. 3–4.

  94. 94.

    Burchardt, 2012, p. 96. See also Jeans, 1990, p. 250.

  95. 95.

    Brasnett, 1969, p. 65.

  96. 96.

    Snape, 2015a, p. 66.

  97. 97.

    Mess and King, 1947, p. 70.

  98. 98.

    Snape, 2015a, p. 67.

  99. 99.

    See Stapleton, 1994.

  100. 100.

    Barker, 1953, p. 176.

  101. 101.

    On Becontree and Dagenham, see Young, 1934.

  102. 102.

    Mess and King, 1947, p. 71.

  103. 103.

    NCSS Annual Report 1936–37, pp. 20–21.

  104. 104.

    NCSS Annual Report 1936–37, p. 22.

  105. 105.

    Brasnett, 1969, p. 64.

  106. 106.

    NCSS Annual Report 1938–39, p. 47.

  107. 107.

    Snape, 2015a, p. 68.

  108. 108.

    See, for example, Olechnowicz, 1997.

  109. 109.

    Garside, 2004, p. 262. See also Garside, 2000.

  110. 110.

    NCSS Annual Report 1938–39, p. 47.

  111. 111.

    Snape, 2015a, p. 68.

  112. 112.

    NCSS Annual Report 1930–31, p. 14.

  113. 113.

    Brasnett, 1969, p. 26; NCSS Annual Report 1927–28.

  114. 114.

    NCSS Annual Report 1923, p. 7.

  115. 115.

    NCSS Annual Report 1937–38, p. 19.

  116. 116.

    NCSS Annual Report 1937–38, p. 16.

  117. 117.

    Political and Economic Planning, 1937, p. 174; NCSS Annual Report 1937–38.

  118. 118.

    NCSS Annual Report 1927–28, p. 32.

  119. 119.

    NCSS Annual Report 1927–28, p. 32.

  120. 120.

    NCSS Annual Report 1937–38, p. 21.

  121. 121.

    Political and Economic Planning, 1937, p. 174.

  122. 122.

    Minutes of Executive Committee, 14 January 1926; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/028.

  123. 123.

    Minutes of Executive Committee, 10 December 1931; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/029.

  124. 124.

    NCSS Annual Report 1927–28, p. 8. In 2013 a new charity, Step Up to Serve, was established with the support of the three main political parties in the UK to promote youth social action. It too had a focus on action and ‘character’. See www.iwill.org.uk

  125. 125.

    NCSS Annual Report 1926, p. 32.

  126. 126.

    NCSS Annual Report 1936–37.

  127. 127.

    Davies, 2015, p. 109.

  128. 128.

    Finlayson, 1994, p. 236.

  129. 129.

    Brasnett, 1969, p. 55.

  130. 130.

    See, for example, Benn, 1925, p. 227.

  131. 131.

    Owen, 1964, p. 337.

  132. 132.

    Minutes of Executive Committee, 16 June 1927; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/028.

  133. 133.

    NCSS Annual Report 1926, p. 50.

  134. 134.

    NCSS Annual Report 1937–38, p. 78. See also Mess and Braithwaite, 1947, p. 189.

  135. 135.

    The establishment of CAF is discussed further in Chap. 7.

  136. 136.

    The Prince of Wales became patron in 1927. He continued in this role during his short-lived tenure as King and was replaced as patron by his successor George VI, with the Duke of Kent becoming vice-patron.

  137. 137.

    The Times, 9 June 1928, p. 11.

  138. 138.

    NCSS Annual Report 1927–28.

  139. 139.

    Minutes of Executive Committee, 23 April 1931, LMA/4016/IS/A/01/029.

  140. 140.

    Brasnett, 1969, p. 84.

  141. 141.

    Ellis wrote well-received military histories of the Welsh Guards, 1946 and the war in France and Flanders, 1953.

  142. 142.

    Owens, J. 1970, ‘Major L. Ellis’, The Times, 26 October 1970, p. 10.

  143. 143.

    Clements, 1971.

  144. 144.

    NCSS Annual Report 1936–37.

  145. 145.

    Minutes of Executive Committee, 25 February 1937, LMA/4016/IS/A/01/030(2).

  146. 146.

    Smeal, 1969, p. 10.

  147. 147.

    NCSS Annual Report 1937–38, p. 81.

  148. 148.

    Minutes of Executive Committee, 10 April 1930; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/029.

  149. 149.

    Minutes of Executive Committee, 16 July 1936; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/030(1).

  150. 150.

    NCSS Annual Report 1937–38; Minutes of Executive Committee, 29 April 1937; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/030(2).

  151. 151.

    On the link between Idealism and the documentary movement, see Aitken, 1989.

  152. 152.

    Ffrancon, 2004, p. 107.

  153. 153.

    Ibid., p. 115.

  154. 154.

    Minutes of Public Relations Committee, 21 December 1937; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/030(4).

  155. 155.

    The Council finally changed its name to the National Council for Voluntary Organisations in April 1980. See Chap. 8 for a fuller discussion.

  156. 156.

    Memorandum on NCSS constitution from L. Ellis, 12 October 1932; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/029.

  157. 157.

    NCSS Annual Report 1928–29, p. 18.

  158. 158.

    Macadam, 1934, p. 71.

  159. 159.

    Harrison, 1988, p. 7.

References

  • Adderley, S. (2015). Bureaucratic conceptions of citizenship in the voluntary sector (1919–1939): The case of the National Council of Social Service. Unpublished PhD thesis, Bangor University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Aitken, I. (1989). John Grierson, Idealism and the inter-war period. Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 9(3), 247–258.

    Google Scholar 

  • Andrews, M. (1997). The acceptable face of feminism: The Women’s Institute as a social movement. London: Lawrence & Wishart.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barker, E. (1953). Age and youth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beaven, B., & Griffiths, J. (2008). Creating the exemplary citizen: The changing notion of citizenship in Britain, 1870–1939. Contemporary British History, 22(2), 203–225.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benn, E. (1925). The confessions of a capitalist. London: Hutchinson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Braithwaite, C. (1938). The voluntary citizen: An enquiry into the place of philanthropy in the community. London: Methuen.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brasnett, M. (1969). Voluntary social action. London: NCSS.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burchardt, J. (1999). Reconstructing the rural community: Village halls and the National Council of Social Service, 1919 to 1939. Rural History, 10(2), 193–216.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burchardt, J. (2011). Rethinking the rural idyll: The English rural community movement, 1913–26. Cultural and Social History, 8(1), 73–94.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burchardt, J. (2012). State and society in the English countryside: The rural community movement, 1918–39. Rural History, 23(1), 81–106.

    Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, M. (1970). The Oxfordshire Rural Community Council: A history of the first fifty years, 1920–1970. Oxford: Hadow House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clements, R. (1971). Lionel Ellis. Social Service Quarterly, 44(3), 100–102.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coles, K. (1993). National Council for Voluntary Organisations from 1919 to 1993: A selective summary of NCVO’s work and origins. London: NCVO.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cripps, J. (1985). Christmas coals to community care: The countryside – Past, present and future. The Sir John Haynes memorial lecture 1984. London: NCVO.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davies, R. (2015). Public good by private means: How philanthropy shapes Britain. London: Alliance Publishing Trust.

    Google Scholar 

  • Den Otter, S. (1996). British idealism and social explanation: A study in late Victorian thought. Oxford: Clarendon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deneke, H. (1946). Grace Hadow. London: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ellis, L. (1946). Welsh Guards at war. Aldershot: Gale and Polden.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ellis, L. (1953). The war in France and Flanders, 1939–40. London: Imperial War Museum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ffrancon, G. (2004). Documenting the depression in South Wales: Today we live and Eastern Valley. Welsh History Review, 22(1), 103–125.

    Google Scholar 

  • Finlayson, G. (1994). Citizen, state, and social welfare in Britain 1830–1990. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garside, P. (2000). The conduct of philanthropy: William Sutton Trust, 1900–2000. London: The Athlone Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garside, P. (2004). Citizenship, civil society and quality of life: Sutton model dwellings estates, 1919–39. In R. Colls & R. Rodger (Eds.), Cities of ideas: Civil society and urban governance in Britain, 1800–2000 (pp. 258–282). Aldershot: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris, J. (1992). Political thought and the welfare state, 1870–1940: An intellectual framework for British social policy. Past and Present, 135, 116–141.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harrison, B. (1988). Historical perspectives. In B. Harrison & N. Deakin (Eds.), Voluntary organisations and democracy: Sir George Haynes lecture, 1987. London: NCVO.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jeans, D. (1990). Planning and the myth of the English countryside in the interwar period. Rural History, 1(2), 249–264.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones, S. (1986). Workers at play: A social and economic history of leisure, 1918–1939. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kent, J. (1992). William Temple: Church, state and society in Britain, 1880–1950. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laybourn, K. (1994). The Guild of Help and the changing face of Edwardian philanthropy: The Guild of Help, voluntary work and the state, 1904–1919. Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Macadam, E. (1934). The new philanthropy: A study of the relations between the statutory and voluntary social services. London: Allen and Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marwick, A. (1964). Middle opinion in the thirties: Planning, progress and political “agreement”. English Historical Review, 79, 285–298.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCarthy, H. (2007). Parties, voluntary associations, and democratic politics in interwar Britain. The Historical Journal, 50(4), 891–912.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCarthy, H. (2008). Service clubs, citizenship and equality: Gender relations and middle-class associations in Britain between the wars. Historical Research, 81(213), 531–552.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCarthy, H. (2011). Associational voluntarism in interwar Britain. In M. Hilton & J. McKay (Eds.), The ages of voluntarism: How we got to the big society (pp. 47–68). Oxford: Oxford University Press for British Academy.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCarthy, H., & Thane, P. (2011). The politics of association in industrial society. Twentieth Century British History, 22(2), 217–229.

    Google Scholar 

  • McKibbin, R. (1988). Classes and cultures: England, 1918–1951. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mess, H., & Braithwaite, C. (1947). The finance of voluntary social services. In H. Mess (Ed.), Voluntary social services since 1918 (pp. 188–203). London: Kegan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mess, H., & King, H. (1947). Community centres and community associations. In H. Mess (Ed.), Voluntary social services since 1918 (pp. 69–79). London: Kegan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mitchell, G. (1957). Sir Wyndham Deedes – A tribute. Social Service Quarterly, 30(3), 127–128.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morgan, J. (1947). The National Council of Social Service. In H. Mess (Ed.), Voluntary social services since 1918 (pp. 80–105). London: Kegan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • NCSS (1919a, March). Memorandum. London: NCSS.

    Google Scholar 

  • NCSS (1919b, December). Memorandum on the relation of voluntary social service to the work of the public authorities: With special reference to the proposed reconstitution of the public assistance authority. London: NCSS.

    Google Scholar 

  • NCSS. (1920). Reconstruction and social service: Being the report of a conference called by the National Council of Social Service. London: NCSS.

    Google Scholar 

  • NCSS. (1923). Social service in towns: A programme. London: NCSS.

    Google Scholar 

  • Offer, J. (1999). Idealist thought, social policy and the rediscovery of informal care. British Journal of Sociology, 50(3), 467–488.

    Google Scholar 

  • Offer, J. (2003). Idealism versus non-idealism: New light on social policy and voluntary action in Britain since 1880. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 14(2), 227–240.

    Google Scholar 

  • Olechnowicz, A. (1997). Working-class housing in England between the wars. The Becontree Estate. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Owen, D. (1964). English philanthropy, 1660–1960. London: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Political and Economic Planning. (1937). Report on the British social services: A survey of the existing public social services in Great Britain with proposals for future development. London: PEP.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prochaska, F. (1988). The voluntary impulse: Philanthropy in modern Britain. London: Faber and Faber.

    Google Scholar 

  • Putnam, R. (1993). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rogers, A. (1999). The most revolutionary measure: A history of the Rural Development Commission, 1909–1999. Salisbury: Rural Development Commission.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shapely, P. (2011). Civil society, class and locality: Tenant groups in post-war Britain. In M. Hilton & J. McKay (Eds.), The ages of voluntarism: How we got to the big society (pp. 94–113). Oxford: Oxford University Press for British Academy.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smeal, J. (1969). Leonard Shoeten Sack. Social Service Quarterly, 43(1), 7–10.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, T. (2004). Grace Eleanor Hadow. In Oxford dictionary of national biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Snape, R. (2015a). The new leisure, voluntarism and social reconstruction in inter-war Britain. Contemporary British History, 29(1), 51–83.

    Google Scholar 

  • Snape, R. (2015b). Voluntary action and leisure: An historical perspective, 1830–1939. Voluntary Sector Review, 6(1), 153–171.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stapleton, J. (1994). Englishness and the study of politics: The social and political thought of Ernest Barker. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stevenson, J. (2003). The countryside, planning and civil society in Britain, 1926–1947. In J. Harris (Ed.), Civil society in British history: Ideas, identities, institutions (pp. 191–211). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, A. J. P. (1965). English history, 1914–1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thane, P., & Evans, T. (2012). Sinners? Scroungers? Saints? Unmarried motherhood in twentieth-century England. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turner, J. (1980). Lloyd George’s secretariat. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vincent, A., & Plant, R. (1984). Philosophy, politics and citizenship: The life and thought of the British idealists. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Young, T. (1934). Becontree and Dagenham: A report made for the pilgrim trust. London: Pilgrim Trust.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Justin Davis Smith .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Davis Smith, J. (2019). Early Years. In: 100 Years of NCVO and Voluntary Action. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02774-2_3

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02774-2_3

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-02773-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-02774-2

  • eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics