Labour, charity and voluntary action

This chapter overturns the simplistic characterisation of the twentieth-century Labour party as antagonistic to voluntarism. As it sets out, while opposition to voluntarism has indeed been a theme throughout Labour's history, particularly on the hard left, the notion of a broad and consistent antagonism is largely a myth, based upon a confusion of charity and philanthropy with other forms of co-operation, mutual aid and active citizenship. Instead, what Attlee called ‘the associative instinct’ has been an overlooked, but nevertheless important, constant in Labour's social thought, from Attlee's experiences as a young man at Toynbee Hall, through the promotion of active and local democracy in the 1940s and the revisionist turn away from macro-economics, and towards quality-of-life issues in the 1950s and 1960s, to the ‘rainbow coalition’ partnerships between local Labour administrations and voluntary groups in the 1980s.

Voluntarism and the impact of the First World War

This chapter considers the experience of the First World War to demonstrate that state mobilisation does not necessarily crowd out voluntary endeavour. While the scale of volunteering to fight in that conflict has long been appreciated, the equivalent voluntary effort on the home front has been neglected by historians. This chapter charts the scale, coordination and regulation of this voluntary activity, from the establishment of the National Relief Fund, to the appointment of a Director General of Voluntary Organisations in 1915 and the 1916 War Charities Act. It is argued that the War encouraged professionalisation and innovation within the charity sector, while also embedding a notion of voluntarism working hand in hand with the state.

Civil society, class and locality

This chapter returns working-class agency to the analysis of voluntarism. As it demonstrates with reference to tenants' associations, the voluntary sector was shaped as much by working-class as middle-class culture, even at the height of the welfare state, with the provision of services generating engagement rather than apathy. Tenants' associations provided a vehicle for the assertion of working-class interests in the face of an often unresponsive bureaucracy. In doing so they ‘helped to create a new decision-making arena, making a contribution to expanded notions of democracy’. That they managed to do so while engaging tenants from across the political spectrum demonstrates ‘the essential flexibility and robustness of the voluntary organization as a form which continued to provide an effective platform for the development of civil society’.

Professionalisation, new social movements and voluntary action in the 1960s and 1970s

This chapter explores the heightened professionalism of the voluntary sector as it adapted to the emergence of a new form of activist, as a way of analysing the utility of different methodological approaches. Using the case-study of voluntary action around smoking and illegal drugs, it demonstrates that the distinctions between old and new politics, between insider and outsider groups, simply ‘melt away’ when closely examined. Instead, the chapter pays attention on the ‘in between spaces’ of the oppositional models, where organisations merged counter-cultural presentation and thought with more traditional pressure-group and service-provision activity, and combined policy challenge with partnership-working, a balancing act enabled by a surprisingly permissive statutory funding regime.

Voluntary action, New Labour and the ‘third sector’1

This chapter charts the relationships between the state and the voluntary sector under the 1997–2010 Labour governments. The period inaugurated a new stage in the social welfare role of voluntary action, which has developed since the nineteenth century from leading provision, through complementarity and supplementarity with regards to state welfare programmes in the twentieth century, and into the partnership seen at the start of the twenty-first century. Charting the various initiatives and institutional innovations of these years, the chapter makes the case for a ‘strategic unity’ amongst all the key agents and agencies, who had a collective interest in maintaining and developing the third sector as a space for policy intervention and forward planning. Overall, it demonstrates the significance of adaptation and renewal within the sector, rather than decline or co-option.

Faith, charity and citizenship

This chapter explores the oppositional role of the voluntary sector in a period of hardship and social unrest, considering the Anglican Church's response to Thatcherism. Despite secularisation and declining denominational identity, the Church was still a central part of the charitable and welfare sector in the 1980s, when the Thatcher governments championed the role of voluntarism in retraining and work schemes, in an era of mass unemployment. However, its response to Thatcherism was complex and internally divided. Church Action with the Unemployed (CAWTU) was framed in a ‘non-political’, paternalistic way, whereas 1985's Faith in the City report provided a critique of the underlying causes of poverty, articulating an opposition to reactionary social thought that can be traced back to nineteenth-century Christian Socialism.

Associational voluntarism in interwar Britain

This chapter examines the interwar voluntary sector to demonstrate that associational life did not come to be dominated by the ideologies of class and mass political parties, but rather continued to develop an independent voice, oriented towards support for liberal democracy more generally. Considering organisations such as the League of Nations Union, the National Council of Women, the Club and Institute Union, and the British Legion, it outlines the ‘ideological work’ performed by voluntary associations: educating and socialising the new mass electorate into the workings of the liberal democratic system; and assisting in the democratisation of social relations. While class, gender and religious stratification continued to exist, significant ecumenism and gender- and class-mixing meant there was ‘a democratising logic at work’.

The ages of voluntarism

This introductory chapter provides the historical background to the rise of the Big Society, surveying the history of voluntarism over the last century. Politicians and commentators have long bemoaned the supposed decline of civic life, fretting about its health and its future. In fact, the real story of voluntarism over the last hundred years has not been decline, but constant evolution and change. Whether the terms charity, philanthropy, civil society, non-governmental organisations, the third sector or the Big Society are used, voluntary endeavour is one of the most vibrant and dynamic areas of British public life. Voluntarism not only continues to thrive, but is also far larger than any political agenda that may be imposed upon it.