This thesis examines the discourse, policy and intervention surrounding ‘problem families’ in post-war Britain from 1943 to 1974. Its contemporary salience is provided with comparisons of the Coalition and Conservative Governments’ Troubled Families Programme launched in 2011, committed to turning around the lives of Britain’s 120,000 ‘troubled’ families.’ Current historiography has emphasised its discursive formation in constituting an ‘underclass,’ linking it to the pathologisation of the behaviour of the poor. This thesis explores the operationalisation of the label by the state, and the processes of identification and intervention pursued to produce the desired outcome of self-sustaining citizenship. The principal source for the thesis are the surviving 1,817 case histories of 1,702 mothers and their children who attended the Brentwood Recuperative Centre for rehabilitation as a ‘problem family’ from 1943 to 1970. The North West provides a regional and local focus, as statutory and voluntary organisations operating within the county and boroughs council boundaries of Lancashire and Cheshire sent 1,196 of the 1,817 cases, permitting a closer scrutiny of the meaning and application of the label. Supplementing this archival source are the case paper and committee file evidence and minutes of the statutory or voluntary agencies which referred the families. By linking records of the mothers who went and the individuals who sent them, the process by which certain families were identified and the legitimation of their intervention, permits a deeper exploration of the conflicting roles of welfare and the state in post-war Britain. The reconstruction of this process of identification and intervention is undertaken on three interconnected levels. Firstly, the personal encounter between the family and the official, considering the role of professional, ideological and local discourses in singling out families for intervention. Secondly, the role of the local authority and council in structuring social service policies which framed the personal encounter and the workplace culture of officials: what Lipsky terms ‘street-level bureaucracy.’ Thirdly, the relationship of this pattern of personal and local practice to central government, national discourse and other ‘problem family’ policies in authorities beyond the North West. This demonstrates not only the need to return the state to analysis of the welfare state, but also that common experience and understanding of the welfare state is mediated through street-level bureaucrats and the subject of official discretion, rather than simply in legislation. Ultimately, the ‘problem family’ should be seen not as the preserve of a handful of experts, but embedded in the operational implementation of family welfare policy and practice across post-war Britain.

This thesis investigates the work and operation of the Manchester-based poverty relief charity, the Wood Street Mission (WSM), between 1945 and 1990. While the history of post-war welfare has underlined the survival and growth of the voluntary sector at a national level, the development of middle-class philanthropy at a local and community platform remains neglected. By focusing on the WSM, this thesis explores the way in which a small charitable organization adapted to the post-war welfare state, and responded to important economic and social problems. It argues that local middle-class philanthropy in post-war Britain was a resilient and dynamic force within the mixed economy of welfare. In particular, it demonstrates that the WSM performed a diverse range of work in the fields of health, leisure, education and advice as a means to alleviate urban tension deriving from inflation, unemployment, housing, and juvenile delinquency. Moreover, the study establishes that the WSM combined traditional poverty relief activities with pioneering youth projects in responding to local community needs. Looking beyond traditional explanations of philanthropy as driven by either ‘social control’ or ‘kindness’, this research adopts a contemporary approach for the framing of charitable action in the post-war period, which accounts for central and local government policies, voluntary sector associations, and commercial forces. This thesis also develops historical understanding of the post-war experience of welfare by exploring the oral testimonies of former employees of the WSM, and people that received assistance, within the framework of a theory of memory composure. By drawing on memory theory, it offers a fresh perspective on the role of both altruism and stigma in post-war society by investigating how charity staff and ‘clients’ have interpreted and reconstructed their pasts. Building on research by Alessandro Portelli, Alistair Thomson and Penny Summerfield, it provides an important theoretical development through applying memory composure theory to the context of poverty and charity. The thesis will argue that charity staff and ‘clients’ accounts of the past were not only structured by different understandings of poverty, but also shaped by expressions of empathy. It demonstrates long-standing and contemporary definitions of poverty, as well as class, political and religious interpretations of the term, structured their oral recollections of the WSM. Moreover, it demonstrates that wide ranging concepts of empathy were conveyed in the narration of accounts concerning the WSM’s post-war activities, including an imagining of oneself in another’s situation and being emotionally affected by someone else’s experiences. Using the WSM as a site of study, this thesis breaks new ground in the historiography of post-war welfare in Britain by exploring the relationship of poverty, charity and memory.