British Social Reform and German Precedents: The Case of Social Insurance 1880-1914

This is a study of one of the central themes of pre-1914 British history: the move toward social reform and the accompanying growth of collectivism and bureaucracy. Focusing on Britain’s efforts to adopt compulsory social insurance, which was pioneered by Germany in the 1880s and has since been instituted across the world, Hennock probes into the problems inherent in borrowing from a vastly different political culture. Relating Britain’s policy on compensation for industrial accidents, old age pensions, and national insurance legislation to reforms in other spheres in which German precedents had challenged accepted ways, Hennock sheds light on the issue of innovation--and resistance to innovation--from abroad.