BOOK REVIEWS
| Date | 01 March 1956 |
| Published date | 01 March 1956 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1956.tb01182.x |
BOOK
REVIEWS
Studies in the
Sociul
Services
By
SHEILA FERGUSON
and
HILDA
FITZGERALD.
H.M
S.0.
ad Lo;igma:is Green, 1954.
Pp.
ix+367.
22s.
6d.
THIS
book is a successor to
Problems
of
Social
Policy, by Professor R. M. Titmus,
and is part of the United Kingdom Civil
Series
in
the
History
of
the
Second
World
Wur.
The value of the book not only lies
in
the record it gives
of
the growth of
government action in the development
of the social services; it also shows how
some of the services which are thought to
be such an essential part of our Welfare
State today sprung from war-time needs
and improvisations.
In an introductory chapter it is explained
how the fall in the size of the family
between the two wars had many implica-
tions and particularly the lessening of the
possibilities of inter-family help. The
dispersal of families and cvcn ncighbour-
hoods during the war removed many of
the possible sources
of
self-help among
families and friends. The fidmily became
increasingly unable
to
deal with such
normal emergencies of life as childbirth,
rhe illness
of
a mothr of young children,
and thc sickness
of
elderly relations.
What the family and ncighbourhood could
no longer du for themselves the State had
to
help thcm to do.
So
the social serviccs
were expanded.
It
was soon found that
one obvious way
of
helping old people
or
families in distress was to supply them
with domestic help which had previously
been given
to
a limited extent as part of
the maternity and child welfare scrvice.
Thus was started the domestic help
scrvice, first to a large extent
on
a voluntary
basis, which was the forerunner of what
is
perhaps the most valuable single part
of the
local
health service today.
After describing the operation of the
maternity service and its transformation
from
the evacuation scheme into a supple-
mentary source of maternity beds, the
authors go
011
to discuss the whole problem
of illegitimacy and war. Hetwcen
1940
and
1945
alniost
300,000
illegitimate
babies were born in England, Scotland
.ind
Wales, or over
100,000
more than in
the six years preceding the war. But, for
almost four years after the beginning
of
the war, illegitimacy as a social problem
was not regarded as a responsibility of
government. The position of unmarried
mothers and their babies became more
serious as their numbers increased, and it
became necessary for welfare authorities
to supplement the help originally given
only by voluntary agencies. Arising out
of
this consideration of illegitimacy came
the question of legal adoption and
as
to
whether unmarried mothers should be
encouraged or discouraged from giving
up their babies.
To
enable the mother
to keep her child the need for hostels
or
residential clubs arose, and it is suggested
that even after the war these may prove
to be an answer
to
the question which
faces every unmarried mother without a
home.
To
ensure that children did not suffer
from food shortages, services far
in
advance of those available in peace-time
were gradually built up. Such was the
success of this policy that in the middle
war years it was possible to say that many
young children wcre morc secure nutri-
tionally than they had ever been. This
was the start of the provision of milk and
vitamins on a national scale for all young
children. Children also benefited by an
intensification of the campaign for diph-
theria immunisation, which has since
contributed with very great success
to
saving child life. lhe last chapter
in
the section on the welfare of children
refers to the residential nurseries, which
were started as part of the evacuation
scheme. There
was,
however, much
confusion for some time because sonic
children in the nurseries were the rcs-
ponsibility of the government under the
evacuation scheme and others were the
responsibility of the public assistance
authority under the poor law. 'I'he
authors are critical uf the nurseries run
by the public assistance authorities, and
on this
I
may add a personal note because
later as a member of rhc Curtis Committee
100
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