BEVERIDGE, William Henry, 1879-1963, 1st Baron Beveridge of Tuggal, economist: Personal and Business papers
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LSE Library Archives and Special Collections
GB 97 BEVERIDGE
Beveridge, William Henry, 1879-1963, 1st Baron Beveridge of Tuggal, economist
c 500 boxes
Personal papers of William Henry Beveridge, 1st Baron Beveridge of Tuggal, and his family, [1880]-1963, comprising the following.
Family and personal papers, 1869-1963, including genealogical material; correspondence, books and royalty statements relating to the work of Beveridge's parents, Annette Susannah and Henry Beveridge, 1901-1959; papers concerning Beveridge's education, 1891-1903; personal ephemera including birthday cards, programmes, academic notes, and invitations, [1884]-1961; personal diaries, 1903-1905, 1929-1934, 1949-1952, 1959 and 1961; engagement diaries, 1933-1961; material relating to grants and degrees, 1916-1961, notably honorary degrees, the KCB and his barony; papers concerning household affairs, 1906-1963; personal financial papers, such as personal account ledger, 1907-1920, income tax papers, 1907-1961, correspondence, bills, receipts and insurance papers, 1903-1962; photographs of family and friends, 1884-1958.
Correspondence, 1883-1963, including Beveridge family letters and letters to and from friends and colleagues.
Papers relating to unemployment and Labour Exchanges, 1902-1960, notably material of the Mansion House Unemployed Fund, 1904-1905, the London Unemployed Fund, 1904-1905, and the Central (Unemployed) Body for London, 1905-1908; correspondence, notes and statistics concerning unemployment insurance and labour exchanges in Germany, 1907, and Britain, 1908; notice and syllabus of lectures by Beveridge on 'The economics of unemployment', 1908; material relating to the publication of Unemployment: a problem of industry (Longmans and Co, London 1909), 1907-1934, notably correspondence with Longmans, royalty payments, reviews, and notes and drafts relating to later editions; papers relating to his work at the Board of Trade, 1908-1960, including correspondence and memoranda concerning juvenile employment, 1910-1911, reports and speeches concerning labour exchanges in Ireland, 1910-1919, and Ghant, Belgium, 1913-1914, and various memoranda on the working of labour exchanges, 1915-1916; material concerning the unemployment insurance scheme, 1907-1944, including memoranda and drafts, reports, statistics, committee minutes, press cuttings and Beveridge's notes about unemployment insurance by industries and casual labour; working notes and correspondence for Insurance for all and everything (Daily News, London, 1924); Ministry of Labour reports, notes and memoranda on unemployment insurance, 1910-1929; Government Acts, reports and publications on unemployment, 1902-1930.
Papers relating to Beveridge's work during World War One, 1914-1921, including material relating to the Ministry of Munitions, 1915-1916, such as correspondence, memoranda and reports on manpower problems, and memoranda concerning the history and activities of the Ministry; papers of the Manpower Distribution Board, 1916; material relating to post-war reconstruction, including schemes for demobilisation, and papers relating to the post-war prospects of trades and industries; correspondence, minutes, memoranda and reports created by the Ministry of Food, 1916-1921, on subjects including food rationing, family budgets, and the staffing of the Ministry.
Material collated during Beveridge's time as Director of the London School of Economics, 1895-1958, notably correspondence with Sir Arthur Herbert Drummond Ramsay Steel-Maitland, Chairman of Governors, 1924-1925; memoranda and correspondence mainly relating to LSE prizes and scholarships, 1924-1952; Director's reports, 1924-1937; lecture notes and texts of speeches, 1920-1937; programmes, 1920-1937; correspondence relating to his resignation from LSE, 1936-1937; correspondence and papers concerning his role as a member of the Senate of the University of London, 1923-1958, notably papers relating to the purchase of the Bloomsbury site, 1923-1933.
Papers relating to Beveridge's post as Master of University College, Oxford University, 1937-1962, including correspondence and reports concerning the National Institute of Economic and Social research, the Institute of Statistics, and Nuffield College.
Material relating to politics, 1943-1963, including correspondence, speeches, press cuttings, and reports created whilst MP for Berwick on Tweed, 1944-1945; papers concerning the General Election of 1945, mainly comprising pamphlets, election addresses, press cuttings and correspondence from candidates, constituents, and the Berwick Division Liberal Association; Beveridge's speech notes and Hansard extracts from parliamentary debates in the House of Lords, 1946-1963, on subjects mainly related to welfare, unemployment, and economics; papers concerning the Liberal Party Organisation, 1945-1962, including correspondence with the LPO and other Liberal organisations. Material concerning other interests and activities of Beveridge, 1920-1962, notably papers relating to the health services, pensions, and old age; New Towns, including material on the Peterlee Development Corporation and the Newton Aycliffe Development Corporation; traffic and preservation problems in Oxford; population and fertility, including articles, pamphlets and correspondence; weather periodicity; World Government and peace aims, 1944-1962, including minutes and correspondence of the Crusade for World Government, Britain in Europe Ltd, the European-Atlantic Group, the Federal Educational and Research Trust, the Federal Union, One World Trust, the Parliamentary Group for World Government, the World Parliament Association, and the United Nations; correspondence and other papers relating to broadcasting and television.
Papers created during the writing of reports, 1925-1950, including the report of the Royal Commission on the Coal Industry, 1925-1930; the report of the Unemployment Insurance Statutory Committee, 1934-1944; the report of the Sub-Committee of Committee of Imperial Defence on Food Rationing, 1936-1937; report of the Manpower Survey, 1940, and Committee on Skilled Men in the Services, 1941; report of the Fuel Rationing Enquiry, 1942; report of the Interdepartmental Committee on Social Insurance and Allied Services (Beveridge Report), 1941-1945; report on Social Insurance, 1924, 1941-1951; report of the Broadcasting Committee, 1951.
Material relating to publications, 1901-1963, including manuscripts of books, pamphlets and articles, correspondence with publishers, royalty statements, working notes, research papers and memoranda; reviews, letters to the press and obituaries, 1909-1962; texts of lectures, speeches and broadcasts, 1901-1963.
Papers concerning working visits abroad, 1918-1961, to Austria (the Inter-Allied Commission on Relief of German Austria), Canada, the USA, Germany, France, India, Spain, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy, mainly comprising correspondence, diaries, lecture notes, press cuttings and photographs.
Press cuttings, 1870-1963, including Morning Post leaders written by Beveridge, 1905-1908, and cuttings concerning his death.
Miscellaneous material, including inventories of papers in the Beveridge collection.
Administrative / Biographical History
Born in Rangpur, Bengal, 1879; educated at Charterhouse, and Balliol College, Oxford University; Stowell Civil Law Fellow, University College, Oxford University, 1902-1909; Sub-Warden, Toynbee Hall, 1903-1905; leader writer for the Morning Post , 1906-1908; Member of the Central (Unemployed) Body for London and first Chairman of the Employment Exchanges Committee, 1905-1908; employed at Board of Trade, 1908-1916, as Director of Labour Exchanges and Assistant Secretary in charge of the Employment Department; Assistant General Secretary, Ministry of Munitions, 1915-1916; CB, 1916; 2nd Secretary, 1916-1918, and Permanent Secretary, 1919, Ministry of Food; Director of the London School of Economics, 1919-1937; Senator of the University of London, 1919-1937 and 1944-1948; KCB, 1919; Member of the Royal Commission on the Coal Industry, 1925; Vice-Chancellor of the University of London, 1926-1928; Chairman, Unemployment Insurance Statutory Committee, 1934-1944; Chairman, Sub-Committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence on Food Rationing, 1936; Master of University College, Oxford University, 1937-1945; Chairman, Committee on Skilled Men in Services, 1941-1942; Fuel Rationing Enquiry for the President of the Board of Trade, 1942; Chairman, Inter-Departmental Committee on Social Insurance and Allied Services, 1941-1942; Liberal MP for Berwick-on-Tweed, 1944-1945; President of the Royal Economic Society, 1940-1944, and the Royal Statistical Society, 1941-1948; Chairman of the Aycliffe Development Corporation, 1947-1953, and the Peterlee Development Corporation, 1949-1951; Chairman, Broadcasting Committee, 1949-1950; died 1963.
Publications: Insurance for all and everything (Daily News, London, 1924); John and Irene: an anthology of thoughts on wome n (Longmans and Co, London, 1912); New Towns and the case for them (University of London Press, London, 1952); Planning under socialism and other addresses (Longmans and Co, London, 1936); Power and influence: an autobiography (Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1953); A defence of free learning (Oxford University Press, London, 1959); An urgent message from Germany (Pilot Press, London, 1946); Blockade and the civilian population (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1939); British food control (Oxford University Press, London, 1928); Causes and cures of unemployment (Longmans and Co, London, 1931); Changes in family life (Allen and Unwin, London, 1932); Contributions for social insurance: a reconsideration of rates (Reprinted from The Times , 1945); Full employment in a free society (Liberal Publication Department, London, 1944); India called them (George Allen and Unwin, London, 1947); Peace by federation? (London, 1940); Security and adventure (Council for Education in World Citizenship, London, 1946); Tariffs: the case examined. By a committee of economists under the chairmanship of Sir William Beveridge (Longmans and Co, London, 1932); The conditions of peace; The London School of Economics and its problems, 1919-1937 (George Allen and Unwin, London, 1960); The past and present of unemployment insurance (Oxford University press, London, 1930); The pillars of security and other war-time essays and addresses (G Allen and Unwin, London, 1943); The price of peace (Pilot Press, London, 1945); The problem of the unemployed (1907); The public service in war and peace (Constable and Co, London, 1920); Unemployment: a problem of industry (Longmans and Co, London, 1909); Voluntary action: a report on methods of social advance (George Allen and Unwin, London, 1948); Why I am a Liberal (Herbert Jenkins, London, 1945).
A research grant from the Social Science Research Council in 1972-1973 allowed the sorting and cataloguing of all the Beveridge material. The papers from University College, Oxford University, were amalgamated with the material already deposited at LSE by Beveridge (mainly relating to the writing of Power and Influence ). A new classification scheme, based as far as possible on that imposed on the University College papers by Beveridge and his secretary, was drawn up, and the papers resorted accordingly. The papers are divided into sections as follows: personal and family, letters, unemployment and labour exchanges, World War One, Universities, politics, other interests and activities, reports, published works, other works, pamphlets and offprints, press cuttings, and miscellaneous. There is a general index and a letter index. The addenda are listed separately.
Other Finding Aids
Printed handlist and on-line catalogue available.
Alternative Form Available
State provision for social needs Series 2: the Beveridge papers from the BLPES Parts 1 and 2 (Adam Matthew) is a microfilm of Beveridge Sections III-IV.
Archivist's Note
Sources: British Library of Political and Economic Science catalogue; Who's Who 1897-1996 (A & C Black, 1996); British Library On-Line Public Access Catalogue 97; Historical Manuscripts Commission National Register of Archives. Compiled by Sarah Aitchison as part of the RSLP AIM25 project.
Separated Material
The Oriental and India Office Collections, British Library, hold correspondence with his parents (MSS Eur C 176); the Bodleian Library, Oxford University, has correspondence with Lionel George Curtis, 1938-1949 (Ref: MSS Curtis; Eng hist b224, c776-877), and correspondence relating to the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning, 1933-1963 (Ref: Index); the Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge University, contains correspondence with Archibald Vivian Hill, 1934-1961 (Ref: AVFH); the House of Lords Record Office, London, holds correspondence with David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd George of Dwyfor, 1930-1943 (Ref: Lloyd George papers), and correspondence with Herbert Louis Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel (Ref: Samuel papers); the National Archives of Scotland, Edinburgh, have letters to Philip Henry Kerr, 11th Marquess of Lothian, 1934 (Ref: GD40); the John Rylands University Library of Manchester contains letters to the Manchester Guardian , 1925-1956 (Ref: Guardian Archives); Welwyn Garden City Central Library holds correspondence with Sir Frederic James Osborn, 1947-19611 (Ref: B21); the Joseph Rowntree Foundation Library, York, has correspondence with Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree, 1941-1944; the Robinson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, contains correspondence with Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman, 1914-1939 (Ref: WR); the Commonwealth War Graves Commission holds miscellaneous correspondence and papers relating to his autobiography, 1953-1954 (Ref: 1163).
Copyright held by British Library of Political and Economic Science. Most documents may be photocopied.
Biographical material was given by Beveridge in 1959. Further papers relating to the life and work of Beveridge were transferred from University College, Oxford University, and deposited in the British Library of Political and Economic Science by his heirs in 1965. Further deposits of related papers were made by the family in 1974 and 1978. The Beveridge Addenda comprises a number of files which were neither added to the London School of Economics filing system or taken by Beveridge when he moved to University College and were abandoned in the Library and in the Old Dead Registry.
The BLPES holds Beveridge papers relating to the Coal Commission (Ref: Beveridge Coal Commission), Price History (Ref: Beveridge Price History), Unemployment (Ref: Beveridge Unemployment), the Reconstruction Committee (Ref: Beveridge Reconstruction), the coal crisis (Ref: Coll Misc 0006), the Alcohol Enquiry Commission (Ref: Coll Misc 0007), a visit to the USA (Ref: Coll Misc 0008), Family Allowance (Ref: Coll Misc 0009), the civil service (Ref: Coll Misc 0010), tariffs (Ref: Coll Misc 0011), tithes (Ref: Coll Misc 0012), the Capital and Labour Committee (Coll Misc 0013), the Unemployment Insurance Commission (Ref: Coll Misc 0014), the Agricultural Policy Commission (Ref: Coll Misc 0015), food control (Ref: Coll Misc 0092), munitions labour (Ref: Coll Misc 0144), and various articles (Coll Misc 02337). Material relating to Beveridge may also be found in the papers of Edward Mayow Hastings Lloyd (Ref: Lloyd), and Sidney and Beatrice Webb (Ref: Passfield).
Jose Harris, William Beveridge, a biography (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1977).
Wars (events)
International conflicts
World War One (1914-1918)
World wars (events)
Beveridge, Annette Susannah, d 1929, teacher and oriental scholar
Beveridge, Henry, d 1929, judge and oriental scholar
Beveridge William Henry 1879-1963 1st Baron Beveridge of Tuggall, economist
Maitland, Sir, Arthur Herbert Drummond Ramsay, Steel-, 1876-1935, 1st Baronet, politician and economist
Berwick Division Liberal Association
Board of Trade
Britain in Europe Ltd
Broadcasting Committee
Central (Unemployed) Body for London
Committee on Skilled Men in the Services
Crusade for World Government
European-Atlantic Group
Federal Educational and Research Trust
Federal Union
Fuel Rationing Enquiry
Institute of Statistics
Inter-Allied Commission on Relief of German Austria
Interdepartmental Committee on Social Insurance and Allied Services (Beveridge Report)
Liberal Party Organisation
London Unemployed Fund
LSE, London School of Economics and Political Science
Manpower Distribution Board
Manpower Survey
Mansion House Unemployed Fund
Ministry of Munitions
Morning Post, newspaper
National Institute of Economic and Social Research
Newton Aycliffe Development Group
One World Trust
Parliamentary Group for World Government
Peterlee Development Corporation
Royal Commission on the Coal Industry
Sub-Committee of Committee of Imperial Defence on Food Rationing
Unemployment Insurance Statutory Committee
University of Oxford, Nuffield College
University of Oxford, University College
UN, United Nations
World Parliament Association
Geographical Names
Berwick-upon-Tweed Northumberland England
India South Asia
New Zealand Oceania
Oxford Oxfordshire England
Scandinavia Northern Europe
USA North America