Resilience amidst Industrialisation: Workplace Accidents and the Origins of the Welfare State in Britain

At the dawn of the twentieth century, many countries across the globe targeted the most obvious hardship of industrialisation: workplace accidents. New social security policies were seen by many as a means to remain resilient in the face of new forms of occupational risk related to mechanisation, modern management structures and the fast speed of industrial work. This legislation often served as an initial step towards the gradual expansion of national social policy to new areas, from old-age pensions to health insurance. Why were workplace accidents an initial target? And, how did these policies aim to address the broader problems of industrialisation?

This paper explores the impetus behind Britain’s first national social-security policy, the Workmen’s Compensation Act of 1897, and its successors in the first part of the twentieth century, leading up to the 1946 National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act. This period witnessed the zenith and gradual decline of global British economic predominance, the strains of three major wars and the gradual fall of the British Empire. Against this backdrop, the paper suggests that securing the workplace against accidents and compensating their consequences were seen as two means towards the same end: the optimization of worker productivity in the UK. As the case of workplace accidents suggests, the origins of modern Britain’s welfare state lay in ensuring the smooth operation of the economy, while also assuaging the worries of social reformers and workers alike about occupational health.