Marking Time

Davis Smith, Justin

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-02774-2_6

Justin Davis Smith²

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Abstract

In this chapter Davis Smith examines the work of the National Council of Social Service (NCSS) in helping identify a new role for the voluntary movement in the rapidly expanding post-war welfare state. It concludes that, far from disappearing as some commentators feared, the movement grew. The Council expanded its international work and strengthened its policy and information services. But there was none of the creativity that had been evident during the war and, as with the voluntary movement as a whole, it can be held to have marked time before the explosion of new forms of voluntary action in the 1960s.

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Notes

1.
For a contemporary account of the challenges facing voluntary organisations, see Carter, 1949, and Marshall, 1949.
2.
Thane, 2012. See also Harris, 2010, p. 35.
3.
Committee on Voluntary Organisations, 1978. See also Brenton, 1985, and Taylor and Kendall, 1996, pp. 51–52.
4.
NCSS Annual Report 1945–46, p. 5.
5.
NCSS Annual Report 1948–49, p. 8.
6.
Beveridge and Wells, 1949, p. 39.
7.
NCSS Annual Report 1945–46, p. 5.
8.
NCSS Annual Report 1945–46, p. 6.
9.
Carter, 1949.
10.
NCSS Annual Report 1946–47, p. 6.
11.
NCSS Annual Report 1953–54, p. 9.
12.
For a discussion of these themes, see Deakin and Davis Smith, 2011.
13.
See, for example, Bew, 2016, pp. 50–53.
14.
Burchardt, 2012. Attlee, 1920, pp. 75–8.
15.
At a speech to the London Council of Social Service in August 1948, Morrison spoke about how ‘we sometimes fail to realise how fundamental to the health of a democratic society is the volunteer’. Quoted in Carter, 1949, p. 175.
16.
NCSS Annual Report 1945–46, p. 16.
17.
See Thane, 2011, and Weinbren, 2011.
18.
Olechnowicz, 2005; Thane, 2012, p. 424.
19.
House of Commons Debates, Series 5, Vol. 450, col. 2136, 12 May 1948.
20.
NCSS Annual Report 1949–50, p. 16.
21.
Minutes of Executive Committee, 20 January 1949; London Metropolitan Archives (LMA): LMA/4016/IS/A/01/032(2).
22.
On tensions between voluntary organisations and local authorities in the 1950s, see Younghusband, 1978, pp. 256–7. For later support for voluntary organisations from metropolitan councils, such as the GLC, see Chap. 8.
23.
NCSS Annual Report 1948–49, p. 8.
24.
Beveridge, 1948. Hebert, First Viscount Samuel, was leader of the parliamentary Liberal Party, 1931–35, and of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords, 1944–55. He died in 1963. See The Times, 6 February 1963, p. 15.
25.
House of Lords Debates, Series 5, Vol. 163, col. 119, 22 June 1949. Frank Pakenham, Seventh Earl of Longford, was appointed first lord of the admiralty by Attlee in 1951. He worked with Beveridge on the preparation of his two famous wartime reports, Social Insurance and Allied Services, 1942, and the 1944 Full Employment in a Free Society. He died in 2001.
26.
NCSS Annual Report 1948–49, p. 8.
27.
Oppenheimer and Deakin, 2011, p. 1.
28.
Beveridge, 1942a and 1944.
29.
Speech on ‘New Britain’, given in Oxford on 6 December 1942 in Beveridge, 1942b, p. 93.
30.
Harris, 1997, p. 452.
31.
Thane, 2012, p. 424. See also Oppenheimer and Deakin, 2011.
32.
Beveridge, 1948, pp. 316–317.
33.
Oppenheimer and Deakin, 2011, p. 3.
34.
Harris, 2011, p. 11.
35.
Harris, 1997, p. 460.
36.
NCSS Annual Report 1947–48.
37.
Minutes of Executive Committee, 20 January 1949; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/032(2).
38.
NCSS Annual Report 1946–47, p. 7.
39.
House of Lords Debates, Series 5, Vol. 163, cols. 80–81, 22 June 1949.
40.
Minutes of Executive Committee, 13 October 1949; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/032(2).
41.
See Chaps. 7 and 8 for a fuller discussion of this issue.
42.
NCSS Annual Report 1948–49, p. 10.
43.
Nathan was a Liberal MP from 1929 to 1933 but crossed the floor in 1933 and served as a Labour MP from 1937 to 1940, before being made a peer. He was minister for civil aviation, 1946–48, in the post-war Labour government. He died in 1963. See The Times, 25 October 1963, p. 15.
44.
NCSS Annual Report 1948–49, p. 4.
45.
Nathan Committee, 1952.
46.
Quoted in Davies, 2015, p. 68.
47.
Quoted in Owen, 1964, p. 585.
48.
Minutes of Executive Committee 8 January 1953; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/032 (5).
49.
Finlayson, 1994, p. 290.
50.
NCSS Annual Report 1959–60, pp. 5–6.
51.
Quoted in Owen, 1964, p. 526.
52.
NCSS Annual Reports 1945–46 and 1946–47.
53.
Minutes of the Finance and General Purposes Sub-Committee, 28 May 1946; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/048(2).
54.
Minutes of Executive Committee, 19 February 1949; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/032(1).
55.
NCSS Annual Report 1948–49, p. 42.
56.
Minutes of Executive Committee, 12 October 1950; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/032(3).
57.
Minutes of Executive Committee, 11 October 1951; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/032(4).
58.
Minutes of Executive Committee, 16 April 1952; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/032(4).
59.
NCSS Annual Report 1956–57.
60.
NCSS Annual Report 1957–58, p. 24.
61.
NCSS Annual Reports 1950–51, 1954–55, and 1956–57.
62.
Various annual reports from 1945 to 1960.
63.
Trevelyan, 1952. For a discussion of the report, see Prochaska, 1992, pp. 170–171.
64.
NCSS Annual Report 1951–52, p. 13.
65.
Minutes of Executive Committee, 3 October 1946; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/032(1).
66.
NCSS Annual Report 1946–47.
67.
King, 1979.
68.
NCSS Annual Report 1948–49, p. 39.
69.
NCSS Annual Report 1948–49, p. 40.
70.
NCSS Annual Report 1950–51, p. 34.
71.
NCSS Annual Report 1949–50, p. 31.
72.
Brasnett, 1969, p. 180.
73.
NCSS Annual Report 1958–59.
74.
NCSS Annual Report 1947–48.
75.
NCSS Annual Report 1945–46.
76.
Minutes of Executive Committee, 26 July 1948; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/032(2).
77.
Minutes of Finance and General Purposes Sub-Committee, 24 June 1947; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/048(3).
78.
NCSS Annual Report 1946–47.
79.
Adams, 1928, p. 6.
80.
Haynes, 1966. For a tribute to Adams, see also Harrison, 2004.
81.
NCSS Annual Report 1948–49. Murray chaired the University Grants Council for ten years. He was director of the Leverhulme Trust, 1964–72, and chair of an inquiry into the governance of the University of London, which led to the merger of several colleges. He was created a life peer in 1964 as Baron Murray of Newhaven, and died in 1993. See, The Times, 12 October 1993, p. 21.
82.
Wolfenden, like Murray, chaired the University Grants Council, from 1963 to 1968, but is best known for chairing the committee that recommended the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1957. His 1978 report, The Future of Voluntary Organisations, is discussed in Chap. 7. He was knighted in 1956 and made a life peer in 1974. He died in 1985. See The Times, 19 January 1985, p. 8.
83.
The work of the review committee is discussed below. Farrer-Brown died in 1994. See Independent, 3 May 1994.
84.
Interview with Sara Morrison, 2 August 2017.
85.
Interview with Ian Bruce, 13 September 2017.
86.
The Times, 6 May 1994, p. 21.
87.
NCSS Annual Report 1950–51, pp. 7–9.
88.
NCSS Annual Report 1946–47.
89.
NCSS Annual Report 1947–48, p. 17.
90.
NCSS Annual Report 1957–58, p. 6.
91.
NCSS Annual Report 1948–49. For a good discussion of the post-war work of the CAB movement, see Blaiklock, 2012.
92.
NCSS Annual Report 1950–51.
93.
Minutes of Executive Committee, 13 July 1950; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/032(3).
94.
Brasnett, 1969, p. 193.
95.
The Economist, 30 August 1952.
96.
In January 2018 the government announced the appointment of the first minister for loneliness.
97.
NCSS Annual Report 1948–49, p. 17.
98.
Women’s Group on Public Welfare, 1957.
99.
NCSS Annual Report 1957–58, pp. 18–19.
100.
Various NCSS annual reports through the 1950s.
101.
Brasnett, 1969, pp. 145 and 194.
102.
Various NCSS annual reports through the 1950s.
103.
Brasnett, 1969, p. 146.
104.
Coles, 1993, p. 16.
105.
Brasnett, 1969, p. 200.
106.
Ibid., p. 158.
107.
NCSS Annual Report 1949–50.
108.
NCSS Annual Report 1957–58.
109.
Brasnett, 1969, p. 211.
110.
NCSS Annual Report 1947–48.
111.
Brasnett, 1969, p. 181.
112.
Quoted in The Guardian, ‘From the Archive, 18 January 1947: Call for country holidays growing in Britain’, The Guardian, 18 January 2014.
113.
NCSS Annual Report 1956–57.
114.
NCSS Annual Report 1959–60.
115.
NCSS Annual Report 1960–61, p. 20.
116.
NCSS Annual Report 1950–51.
117.
NCSS Annual Report 1949–50.
118.
Brasnett, 1969, pp. 142–43.
119.
NCSS Annual Report 1946–47, p. 8.
120.
NCSS Annual Report 1949–50.
121.
Minutes of Executive Committee, 9 October 1958; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/034(1).
122.
NCSS Annual Report 1957–58.
123.
NCSS Annual Report 1958–59.
124.
NCSS Annual Report 1948–49, p. 34.
125.
NCSS Annual Report 1946–47, p. 15.
126.
NCSS Annual Report 1949–50.
127.
NCSS Annual Report 1957–58, p. 18.
128.
NCSS Annual Report 1958–59, p. 16.
129.
Beaumont, 2013.
130.
NCSS Annual Report 1953–54.
131.
NCSS Annual Report 1953–54.
132.
NCSS Annual Report 1945–46, p. 26.
133.
Minutes of Executive Committee, 12 January 1950; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/032(3).
134.
Minutes of Executive Committee, 12 January 1950; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/032(3).
135.
Minutes of Executive Committee, 13 April 1950; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/032(3).
136.
Minutes of Executive Committee, 19 February 1948; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/032(1).
137.
House of Commons Debates, Series 5, Vol. 436, Cols. 133–134, 24 April 1947.
138.
Quoted in Hinton, 2002, p. 218.
139.
Minutes of Special Executive Committee, 8 July 1948; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/032(1).
140.
Hinton, 1998, p. 301.
141.
Minutes of Finance and General Purposes Sub-Committee, 27 July 1954; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/050(2).
142.
Minutes of Executive Committee, 12 January 1956; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/033(2).
143.
NCSS Annual Report 1956–57, p. 12.
144.
NCSS Annual Report 1957–58, p. 27.
145.
Williams, 1947.
146.
Minutes of Executive Committee, 14 July 1949; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/032(2).
147.
NCSS Annual Report 1945–46.
148.
Simey, an academic and public servant, worked for the Ministry of Labour during the Second World War and sat on numerous official inquiries, including the Fulton Committee on the Civil Service. He was Charles Booth professor of social science at the University of Liverpool for over 30 years and wrote widely on social welfare and social policy. He was made a life peer in 1965 and took the Labour Whip. He died in 1969. See The Times, 30 December 1969, p. 8.
149.
NCSS Annual Report 1946–47, p. 7.
150.
NCSS Annual Report 1954–55, pp. 7–8.
151.
NCSS Annual Report 1959–60.
152.
Minutes of Executive Committee, 3 October 1946; LMA/4016/IS/A/01/032(1).
153.
Brasnett, 1969, p. 224. The fund later changed its name to the Pensions Trust for Charities and Voluntary Organisations and in 2016 to TPT Retirement Solutions. In 2018 it was managing assets of £9 billion.
154.
These issues are discussed fully in Chap. 11.
155.
NCSS Annual Reports 1945–46 and 1946–47.
156.
NCSS Annual Report 1948–49.
157.
NCSS Annual Report 1948–49.
158.
See Chaps. 3 and 5 for a discussion of the Council’s early international ambitions.
159.
NCSS Annual Report 1946–47. On early links with the United Nations, see Seary, 1995.
160.
On the early history of the international conference, see Haynes, 1948.
161.
Brasnett, 1969, p. 215.
162.
Ibid., p. 163.
163.
Ibid., p. 215.
164.
NCSS Annual Report 1949–50.
165.
NCSS Annual Report 1956–57.
166.
NCSS Annual Report 1956–57.
167.
NCSS Annual Report 1960–61.
168.
Nathan committee, 1952, paragraph 54.
169.
Owen, 1964, p. 597.

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Davis Smith, J. (2019). Marking Time. In: 100 Years of NCVO and Voluntary Action. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02774-2_6

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