1880 - 1885
William Ewart Gladstone, Liberal.
1880
Burial Laws Amendment Act gives individuals the right to be buried without any religious service or with a non-Anglican Christian service.
1880
Education becomes compulsory for children under 10 years of age.
1882
Married Women’s Property Act allows married women to own and control property in their own right.
1884
Third Reform Act, or the Representation of the People Act, extends the vote to rural workers. All men paying an annual rental of £10 and all those holding land valued at £10 now have the vote.
1884
Toynbee Hall is created by Samuel Barnett, starting England’s settlement movement.
1884
Oxford House in Bethnal Green is established.
1885 - 1886
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, Conservative.
1885
Parliamentary Reform Act redraws constituency boundaries, increasing the number of MPs representing urban and working-class voters in the House of Commons.
1885
Medical Relief Disqualification Removal Act is passed, ensuring those in receipt of poor relief would no longer loose their right to vote.
1885
Criminal Law Amendment Act raises the age of consent and delineates the penalties for sexual offences against women and minors. It also strengthens existing legislation against prostitution and recriminalises homosexuality.
1886
William Ewart Gladstone, Liberal.
1886 - 1892
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, Conservative.
1886
Robert Louis Stevenson publishes The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
1886
Contagious Diseases Act is repealed.
1887
Women’s University Settlement is founded by women from Girton and Newnham Colleges (Cambridge), Lady Margaret and Somerville Colleges (Oxford) and Bedford and Royal Holloway Universities. It is intended to provide opportunities and schemes for advancement to the women and children of poorer London districts in order to promote their welfare.
1887
Arthur Conan Doyle publishes A Study in Scarlet, which marks the first appearance of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson.
1888
The Jack the Ripper murders take place in the Whitechapel area, London.
1888
Scottish Labour Party is formed by Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham, the first socialist MP.
1888
Local Government Act establishes county councils and country borough councils in England and Wales. A similar Act is passed for Scotland the following year.
1889
London dock strike breaks out in the Port of London and the subsequent victory of the dock workers helps establish strong trade unions amongst London dockers.
1889
National Union of Gas Workers and General Labourers and Miners Federation of Great Britain is formed.
1889
Prevention of Cruelty to, and Protection of, Children Act 1889, commonly known as the Children's Charter, is the first Act to impose criminal penalties to deter mistreatment of children. It also includes guidelines for employing children and outlaws begging.
1889
NSPCC is founded following the Children’s Charter, consolidating many regional branches.
1889
Trinity Court, later known as Cambridge House from 1896, is founded in Southwark. It offers a free legal advice service from 1898.
1890
Lunacy Act places an obligation on local authorities to maintain institutions for the mentally ill.
1890
Oscar Wilde publishes The Picture of Dorian Gray. It is criticised for obscenity by early reviewers and Wilde’s writings would be used later as evidence in his trials for gross indecency in 1895.
1890
Housing of the Working Classes Act allows local authorities to regulate standards of slums and council houses. It marks the beginning of social housing provision through giving London County Council the power to purchase land and construct housing.
1890
Mansfield House is established. One of several Nonconformist university settlements which were established on the model of Toynbee Hall, the Mansfield Settlement was named after the Mansfield College (Oxford) students who drove its foundation. The students had already been spending parts of their university vacations in Canning Town, which was becoming increasingly congested through massive population growth.
1891
Thomas Hardy publishes Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented.
1892 - 1894
William Ewart Gladstone, Liberal.
1892
Durham Miners’ Strike against a proposed cut to wages. A prolonged strike, it ends when negotiations settle on a 10% cut.
1892
Bermondsey Settlement is established by the Rev. John Scott Lidgett. Designed by Elijah Hoole, the architect of Toynbee Hall, Bermondsey settlement was supported by the University of Cambridge and the Wesleyan University Society and aimed to span the gap between rich and poor through evangelism and social action.
1893
Independent Labour Party is established by trade unionist and politician Keir Hardie. The party was affiliated with the Labour Party between 1906 and 1932.
1894 - 1895
Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, Liberal.
1894
Charles Booth publishes The Aged Poor in England and Wales, which identifies pauperism as a major social problem among the elderly. The work aimed to better understand the demographics of the people who received Poor Law assistance.
1894
Local Government Act reforms local government in England and Wales. Introducing elected councils at both district and parish level, the Act reforms Boards of Guardians and entitles women who own property to vote in local elections.
1894
Local Government Board for Scotland is established, responsible for the administration of both poor law and public health functions.
1895 - 1902
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury.
1895
Manchester University Settlement is established as the first UK University settlement outside of London. Situated in the Ancoats area of Manchester, it provided a residence for academics who would organise lectures, concerts and other activities for local people.
1896
A Child of the Jago by Arthur Morrison is published. It fictionalises the Old Nichol, a slum in East London and follows the life of a child growing up there.
1897
Lady Margaret Hall Settlement is established in North Lambeth by members of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, in order to facilitate their work developing opportunities for the poor.
1898
Local Government Board (Ireland) Act of 1898 establishes county councils and district councils in Ireland.
1900
Labour Representation Committee is founded. The LRC is a pressure group formed of socialist organisations and trade unions which aimed to promote the interests of labour in Parliament.
1900
Housing of the Working Classes Act is extended beyond London.
1901
Queen Victoria dies and Edward VII becomes King.
1901
British Psychological Society is founded at University College London. Its aim is to advance research and increase cooperation between those studying the different branches of psychology.
1902 - 1905
Arthur James Balfour, Conservative.
1902
Education Act (also known as the Balfour Act). Representing a radical reorganisation of the education system, the act abolishes school boards in England and Wales and replaces them with Local Education Authorities.
1905 - 1908
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Liberal.
1906
Thomas Edmund Harvey takes over as Toynbee Hall Warden.
1906
Liverpool University Settlement is established.
1906
Education (Provision of Meals) Act gives local education authorities in England and Wales the power to cooperate with local charities to provide school meals, and also empowers them to provide free meals to children deemed to be unable, by reason of lack of food, to profit from the education provided to them.
1907
Education (Administrative Provisions) Act. The act requires local authorities to establish medical inspection units where school children would be examined at least three times over the course of their schooling. Certain schools are required to provide free places and the act states that from 1912 medical treatment in schools would be free.
1908 - 1916
Herbert Henry Asquith, Liberal.
1908
Education (Scotland) Act introduces school meals and school medical inspection to elementary schools in Scotland.
1908
Old Age Pensions Act provides the first UK state pensions, which are means-tested and funded through taxation.
1911
Bristol University Settlement (now Barton Hill Settlement) is established. Its first warden is Hilda Cashmore, who was especially interested in reducing infant mortality rates and the Settlement ran an “Open Air School” to aid children who suffered often with chest infections like tuberculosis.
1911
National Insurance Act is passed, representing the foundation of the welfare state. It is intended to create a system of insurance for workers against illness and unemployment. Wage-earners, employers and the state contributed and in return workers received a level of free medical care and “dole” in the case of unemployment.
1914 - 1918
First World War.
1916 - 1922
David Lloyd George, Liberal.
1916
Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (War Restrictions) Act introduces first rent controls, reducing the incentive for private landlords to rent housing and forcing the state to consider alternative strategies for addressing the shortfall. Similar measures were introduced in 1919, 1923, 1933 and 1938.
1919
Ministry of Health Act means that the new Ministry of Health takes over the functions of the Local Government Board in England and Wales, including the administration of the Poor Law, and National Health Insurance administration.
1919
Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act requires all local authorities to survey the housing needs of their areas and draw up plans for the construction of new housing. It also empowers the Treasury to use central government funds to support local housing initiatives. The Act is also known as the “Addison Act” after Dr Christopher Addison, the Minister of Health, and it was significant for making housing a national responsibility. In the same year, the Housing (Additional Powers) Act is passed to enable the government to offer subsidies to private builders. Later acts enable more subsidised housing and replacement housing for those who would have been rendered homeless under slum clearance schemes.
1919
Local Government Board for Scotland is abolished and replaced by the Scottish Board of Health.
1919 - 1921
Irish War of Independence.
1920 - 1921
Part II of the National Insurance Act providing unemployment insurance for a limited number of workers undergoes extensions and changes. First, the number of workers covered by the scheme increases from around 4,000,000 to more than 12,000,000; the length of time for which unemployment insurance benefits can be paid is increased; and the level of benefit is increased to account for not only inflation, but also the needs of dependents.
1921
Signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty and creation of the Irish Free State. This marks the end of the Local Government Board for Ireland.
1922 - 1923
Andrew Bonar Law, Conservative.
1923 - 1924
Stanley Baldwin, Conservative.
1924
James Ramsay MacDonald, Labour.
1924 - 1929
Stanley Baldwin, Conservative.
1925
Widows', Orphans' and Old Age Contributory Pensions Act is introduced alongside the Old Age Pensions Act 1908.
1926
General Strike. A nine day strike of some 1.7 million workers across the nation is called by the General Council of Trades Union Congress in response to an unsuccessful attempt to force the government to stop wage reduction and deteriorating conditions for 1.2 million locked-out coal miners.
1929 - 1935
James Ramsay MacDonald, Labour.
1929
Local Government Board (Scotland) Act passed.
1930
Workhouse system is abolished in the UK by the Local Government Act of 1929. Many workhouses were renamed Public Assistance Institutions, however, and continued to operate.
1934
Unemployment Act establishes the Unemployment Assistance Board, in response to high levels of interwar poverty. The Board paid means-tested assistance.
1935 - 1937
Stanley Baldwin, Conservative.
1937 - 1940
Neville Chamberlain, Conservative.
1939 - 1945
Second World War.
1940 - 1945
Sir Winston Churchill, Conservative.
1942
Beveridge Report on Social Insurance and Allied Services is published.
1945
Family Allowances Act is passed and becomes the first law to provide child benefit in the United Kingdom.
1945 - 1951
Clement Attlee, Labour.
1946
National Insurance Act establishes the structure of the welfare state.
1946
National Health Service Act provides for the establishment of a comprehensive health service for England and Wales. Legislation for Scotland and Northern Ireland follows in 1947 and 1948 respectively.
1948
National Assistance Act abolishes the last vestiges of the Poor Laws and, therefore, the remainder of workhouses in the UK.