Gregory Anderson a Private Welfare Agency for White-collar Workers between the Wars

Despite the proliferation of studies concerned with the unemployment problem and the mechanics of welfare provision between the world wars, most historians have focused either on the difficulties facing manual workers or on the role of state services in the provision of benefits. This emphasis is not surprising given the persistence of a high level of manual unemployment in this period, which led in turn to an unprecedented demand for maintenance and a huge increase in public expenditure on unemployment relief. However, the emphasis upon manual workers has led to an unfortunate neglect of other sections of the labour-force, while the concern with the evolution of state services has diverted attention from the continuing importance of voluntary agencies in the field of welfare provision. The present paper concentrates on the experience of the most numerous of the non-manual workforce, clerks, by exploring the activities of a major provincial friendly society, the Liverpool Clerks' Association, which through its extensive provision of benefits serves to illustrate the impact of the inter-war depression on one section of the white-collar class. The activities of the LCA confirm the persistence of a nineteenth-century, mutual-self-help tradition extending benefits to a class of claimants who have been largely ignored by historians of the inter-war years. In addition the particular facilities of the LCA, especially the employment department, help to illuminate the workings of the white-collar labour market during the recession.