William Beveridge - Eugenics

Eugenics

Beveridge was a member of the Eugenics Society, which promoted the study of methods to 'improve' the human race by controlling reproduction. In 1909, he proposed that men who could not work should be supported by the state "but with complete and permanent loss of all citizen rights — including not only the franchise but civil freedom and fatherhood." Whilst director of the London School of Economics, Beveridge attempted to create a Department of Social Biology. Though never fully established, Lancelot Hogben, a fierce anti-eugenicist, was named its Chair. Former LSE Director John Ashworth speculated that discord between those in favour and those against the serious study of eugenics led to Beveridge's departure from the school in 1937.

In the 1940s, Beveridge credited the Eugenics Society with promoting the children's allowance, which was incorporated into his 1942 report. However, whilst he held views in support of eugenics, he did not believe the report had any overall "eugenic value". Professor Danny Dorling of the University of Sheffield says "there is not even the faintest hint" of eugenic thought in the report.

Dennis Sewell states that "On the day the House of Commons met to debate the Beveridge Report in 1943, its author slipped out of the gallery early in the evening to address a meeting of the Eugenics Society at the Mansion House. ... His report he was keen to reassure them, was eugenic in intent and would prove so in effect. ... The idea of child allowances had been developed within the society with the twin aims of encouraging the educated professional classes to have more children than they currently did and, at the same time, to limit the number of children born to poor households. For both effects to be properly stimulated, the allowance needed to be graded: middle-class parents receiving more generous payments than working-class parents. ... The Home Secretary had that very day signalled that the government planned a flat rate of child allowance. But Beveridge alluding to the problem of an overall declining birth rate, argued that even the flat rate would be eugenic. Nevertheless, he held out hope for the purists. 'Sir William made it clear that it was in his view not only possible but desirable that graded family allowance schemes, applicable to families in the higher income brackets, be administered concurrently with his flat rate scheme,' reported the Eugenics Review.".