Figure 1.--

World War I required a huge national effort, even greater than the struggle against Napoleon. Britain had to introduce conscription for the first time as well as mobilizing the homefront. In addition to Government efforts, a range of private voluntary efforts emerged to support the War effort, embraced by people of all classes. Fundraising and charitable volunteering is a regretably under-reported element of World War. And the Brirish effort is no exception. Despite the limitd coverage, the effort had an important impact on the War and its outcome. Many new charities were founded and quite a number still operate today and are among the best known modern British charities. These efforts addressed a range of needs and in different ways. Many were to help the servicemen at the front. And for the first time in British history, there was a substantial effort to assist the families of the servicemen who had to survive with the breadwinner gone. Earlier in British history, these mothers became essentially widdows when their husbands were gone. At the time it was primarily the father who supported the family financially and work opportunuties for women were very limited. There wre also charities for the wounded, displaved, and refuges on the Continent. This began with the Belgians invaded by the Germans. The private effort was staggering. The Charity Commision registered over 11,000 charities of all sizes. Nearly 6,500 were exempted from registration. The Commission refused to register 42 prospective charities. [Charity Commission]

National Effort

World War I required a huge national effort, even greater than the struggle against Napoleon. Britain had to introduce conscription for the first time as well as mobilizing the homefront. This meant that more people were involved in the effort than any other national undertaking in British history with the exception of World War II.

Voluntary Efforts

In addition to Government efforts, a range of private voluntary efforts emerged to support the War effort, embraced by people of all classes. Many new charities were founded and quite a number still operate today and are among the best known modern British charities. Large numbers of Britons of all genders and ages wanted to do their part.

Activities

These efforts addressed a range of needs and in different ways. Many were to help the servicemen at the front. And for the first time in British history, there was a substantial effort to assist the families of the servicemen who had to survive with the breadwinner gone. Earlier in British history, these mothers became essentially widdows when their husbands were gone. At the time it was primarily the father who supported the family financially and work opportunuties for women were very limited. There wre also charities for the wounded, displacd, and refugees on the Continent. This began with the Belgians invaded by the Germans. The private effort was staggering.

The Charity Commission

Charity was not a new concept in Britain. It was for most of British history the province of the Church. A body of Commissioners had been established by the Statue of Charitable Uses (1601). With the Victorian era and both the rise of industry and wealth and the impetus toward humanitarian activities by the rising middle-class, the existing reguations were inadequate. A range of groups including the church, the courts, bussiness, the landed aristocracy, and the universities resisted reforms. Parliament passed the Charitable Trusts Act creating a Charitable Commission to regulate the growing number of chritable efforts (1853). Parliament passed further acts to increase the authority of the Commission (1855, 1860, and 1862). While extensive charitable humanitarian efforts existed before World War I, the War resulted in an explosion of voluntary humanitarian effort to support the War effort and both the servicemen and the people in Britain and abroad adversely affected by it. The millions of voluntary donations and thousands of new charities created demands as nevrr before on the Charity Commission. Parliament passed new legislation to regulate the many charities , essentiallycreating the modern chariable system. The Charity Commision registered over 11,000 charities of all sizes during te War. Some charities are not subject to regulation by or registration with the Charity Commission, because they are already regulated by another body, and are known as exempt charities Nearly 6,500 were exempted from registration during the War. The Commission refused to register 42 prospective charities. [Charity Commission] Parliament through the War Charities Act made registration for public appeals compulsory (1916) This gave local authorities the ability to decide which organisations would be registered or exempt. This local focus mean that were wide differeces in the way the act was applied. This included how to defining a war charity and just what constituted a public appeal. Today's charities with origins in the First World War Royal British Legion Formed 1921 from four veterans organisations Blind Veterans UK (formerly St Dunstan's) Save the Children National Federation of Women's Institutes People's Dispensary for Sick Animals Toc H (a club set up by an army chaplain in 1915) Blesma (British Limbless Ex-Service Men's Association) Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund. >

Beginnings

These chrities began with mostly the wealthy and influential coming to Whitehall. This is a street in Westminster (London) lined with many of the most important Government ministries and departments. Thus Whitehall became term used to mean the British Government. As many of the first ideas were efforts to assist the servicemen at the front, it was the War Office they approached. Gradually ideas camf from a wider swath of British society involving other ministries. The Charity Commission was used to coordinate these voluntary efforts. The first major non-military effort was to help Belgian refugees fleeing the Germans.

Range of Charities

The approximately 18,000 charities Britons founded during the War were invomved in a wide rane of activities. There appearsto be very little both at home in Britain or at the Front id not busy themselves dooing. A historian writes, "Hundreds of thousands of them provided food and drink often within range of the enemy guns, knitted ‘comforts’, collected funds, visited the wounded, acted as part-time police, wrote letters to prisoners, sold flags, and organised committees and a thousand other activities." [Grant] The most popular causes became 'comforts' (including clothing, books and food)- for British and Empire troops at the Front. Other activties included medical services, support for disabled servicemen, organisations for relieving distress at home, post-war remembrance and celebration, aid for refugees and countries overseas, and assistance to prisoners of war. Donations to war and other charities rose between 1914 and 1918, and continued to do so into the 1920s. From the start, as reservists were called up, the loss of the main wage-earner created severe hardship for many families. At first, the war exacerbated unemployment, because the markets for some goods collapsed. The government quickly realised men would not volunteer to fight if they did not believe that their homes and families would be looked after.

Impact on Britain

The role of the humanitarian effort is well documented as is the services offered to soldiers and civilians, including both Brtish and foreign civilians. A less well recognized impact of the voluntary humanitarian effort was the impact on British society. Some observers beieve that the enormoty of the War effort and the associated voluntar efforts helped create a social cohesion cutting across social class barriers to an extent previously unknown in British history. This helped build morale among British troops at the front during the 4 years of War and had powerful social consequences after the War.

Extent

Fundraising and charitable volunteering is a regretably under-reported element of World War. And the Brirish effort is no exception. Despite the limited coverage, the effort had an important impact on the War and its outcome. Cgaitable fund raising in Britain is belieced to have totaled an amazing £75 million (some £3.6 billion in 2014 pounds). And tht was only the cash contributions. If we add in the value of donated goods for troops comforts and hospitals alone would accounting for another £20-30 million. One historin believes that the total value of donations might have reached as much as £150 million meaning some £7 billion today. [Grant]

Individual Charities

Volunteering for humanitarian pyrposes became a very important part of the Britih war effort on the home front. It was a way that men and women of all genders and ages, including children, could contribute to the War effort. These humanitarian activities made a very important element of the British war effort both at home and in the battle areas overseas. The scale of the War and War effort was unprecedented as was the needs that need to be addressed.

Assisting Refugees

Because of the German invasion of neutral Belgium (August 1914), the plight of refugees became a concern from the very outbreak of the War. Refugees fleeing the German Army became a major issue from the first day of the War. Accounts of German artocities fed the refugee flow. Thousands of Belgians sought safty in the Netherlands, France and Britain. Thus the largest British charitable effort in the first mnths of the war was efforts to care for the flood of Belgian refugees. The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, led by Millicent Fawcett, provided 150 interpreters to meet them in British ports. Some 265,000 refugees arrived from Belgium, most with little more than the clothes on their back. Volunteers were needed to offer the wide range of services needed. The Germans occupied almost all of Belgium. Tlarger task of feeding the Belgians in the German occupied country would fall to Aerica which saved milliond from srarving. Belgias were not the only refugeees taken in by Britain. There was also an effort to take in Serbian refugees. The largest number of refugees brought to Britain , however, were the Belgians. The British Government helped set up the War Refugeees Committee. There job was to coordinate relief efforts. The Comittee's performance varied, but what ever the effectiveness of the Committee, the effort was there. Donations of money and goods poured in to the Fund from the British people. Importantly while the Germans also organized voluntary charitable groups, we know of no German effort to aid non-German refugees or people in the country's they occupied.) There were also thousands of offers of accommodation s well as contributions of time and effort. The War Refugee Committee set up a network of local charities, eventually reaching 2,000 organizations. They were nearly all staffed and run by un-paid volunteers.

Paget's Massage Corps

One of the first new charities ws founded by Almeric Paget, a wealthy ndividual the Conservative MP for Cambridge. Paget and his wife Pauline were strong believers in the theraputic benefits of massage. Before the War, the Pagets championed the cause of making having the medical establishmnt recognize remedial massage as a legitimte therapy. They trained women as 'rubbers'. The problem was not only the medical establishmnt, but sciety that did not look on women massaging men as very respectanle. Paget went to the War Office and offered to fund a corps of 50 trained volunteer masseuses ('medical rubbers') out of his own pocket. This was essentially the beginning of modern physiotherapy. A clinic to treat injured soldiers was set up in their London home. The scale of the fighting n the Continnt escaletd that demand soon exceed te capacity of the Paget clinic. The War Office asked the Pagets to fund more services, including an outpatient clinic (early 1915). They provided this using another of their London properties.

National Relief / War Fund

Perhaps the most important war-time charity was the National Relief Fund, sometimes referred to as the National War Fund. It was foundedonly days after Britain declared war. Edward, Prince of Wales, was recruited as treasurer. It thus became referred to as the Prince of Wales National War Fund or the National War Fund. The purpose was to help the poorer families of the millions of men in the services and ease the suffering from what was described as 'industrial distress'. Conscripting men in the millions meant taking away the family bread winners. The meager soldiers' pay was only a fraction of the wages the men had been earning. This not only left millions of families without theur headm but meant that they were reduced to poverty. The Prince of Wales in the era before TV or even radio, publicized the effort through the newspapers. (Ironically two decades later he woyld deliver one of the most famous radio addresses of all time when he annoubced his abdication.) His message in major newspapers stated, " At such a moment we all stand by one another, and it is to the heart of the British people that I confidently make this earnest appeal." In only a week a £1 million in donations poured in the the Fund. ( £1 million was a great deal of money in 1914. ) Some £5 million the first year or in 2014 terms nealy £0.5 billion. The Fund set the tone of national philanthropic unity of spirit that would continue for the duration of the War.

Red Cross

Flag Day fundraisung

Belgian refugees were the subject of many early fundraising first fundraising efforts. A Flag Day event was held in Glasgow (October 3, 1914). It was reportedly a great success. They raised £5,874 6s 10d: "Of this amount, £169 10s was in gold and £2,724 in silver. Boxes of chocolates sold in the streets brought in £54 and over £10 was received from the sale of grapes. A number of Belgian refugees took part in the collection, including a child of three years, who comes from the Louvain district." [The Aberdeen Press and Journal]

Newspaper appeals

British newspapers ran appeals collecting everything from sports equipment to canned goods in addition to money. The Daily Express organized the Cheery Fund were "to oblige everybody at the front who asks for things, and cheer up those who do not want anything". Men in the services received a quite amazing variety of gifts from the Express' Cheery Fund. This included footballs and cricket balls and bats, phonagraphs and records, books, banjos, violins, and games.

Tobacco appeals

Tobacco and cigarettes were among the most popular charitable causes, at least on the part of the servicemen who benefitted. One of the most important tobacco charities was the Smokes for Wounded Soldiers And Sailors Society – widely known as the SSS. They distributed more than a billion cigarettes to the military casualties. One of their most important fund raising event was Fag Day.

Save the Children

A British woman, Eglantyne Jebb, founded Save the Children after the War to assist the children adversely affected by the war (1919). Eglantyne was born in Ellesmere, Shropshire (1876). Her family was well to do and Eglatyne and her sisters grew up in comfortable circumstances in rural England. The Jebbs had a strong social conscience and were commited to public service. Their mother, Eglantyne Louisa Jebb, founded the Home Arts and Industries Association, to promote Arts and Crafts among rural youth. Eglantyne' sister Louisa would help found the World war I Women's Land Army. Another sister, Dorothy Frances Jebb, married the Labour MP Charles Roden Buxton, and argued against the demonisation of the German people after the war. Eglantyne' concern was primarily the children in war ravaged Central Europe where war time food shortages were resulting in famine conditions. It would be some time before the agricultural sector could ve returned to normal. An early effort was to feed Austrian children many of whom were threatened by post-War famine conditions. People were beginning to starve and children were the most vulnerable. Such was the animosity toward Germany and Austria-Hungary after the War, the core of the Central Powers, Jebb was criticized for assisting 'the enemy'. Eglantyne bravely began handing out leaflets in the heart of London-- Trafalgar Square. The leaflets had a shocking photo of two emaciated children. The headline read: ‘Our Blockade has caused this – millions of children are starving to death’. Eglantyne was arrested and put on trial for her protest. We are not surevjust what law was being violated, apparently some kind of war time censoeship still in effect. She was found guilty, but the judge was so impressed with her that he actually offered to pay her fine. It proved to be the first donation to the charity she went on to found -- Save the Children. Eglantyne became known as the 'White Flame' because the flame of her commitment and love of children in distress burned to a white heat of passion all her life. Save the Children remains one of the biggest humanitarian legacies of the Great War. Chapters were founded not only in Britain, but in countries America and Sweden that would make important humanitarian efforts in the 20th century and continues to do so in the 21st century.

YMCA

YWCA

Th YMCA became one of the largest providers of charitable support to soldiers, munitions workers and families during the War. The numbers are quite impressive. Some £158 million was spent on cups of tea and other refreshments, £55 million on relief stations at home and in France, £7 million on notepaper for over 200 million letters home, £1m on sports, concerts, and other entertiments. An especially notable support was £850k used to accomodate the families of terminally ill soldiers so they could say goodbye to loved ones and die in dignity. Some 40,000 YWCA volunteers left their homes and families to follow the troops to France and other overseas locations. And their were casialties from injury or illness. These nobel young women were granted official recognition by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and many received military and civilian honours.

The Children's Society

The Children's Society was a private chrity founded to aid street children. Edward Rudolf, a young Sunday school teacher, found two of his pupils begging for food on the streets and wanted to do something about it (1881). He di not like the idea of commoting children to workhouses or orphanages. These institutes were regarded with fear and distrust, often for good reason, by much of the population. As aresult they were usually the refuge of last resort. Some did not even provide for basic needs. Others did, but were hardly a good environment for a child. Rudolf's idea was that children should be part of their local community and not removed from it. His vision was to give poor, homeless children a loving and secure family environment. To do this he began opening small family group or cottage homes, with around 10 children aged between 5-14 years old. A master and matron were employed to act as parents. Poverty was a major factor in children entering The Children's Society homes, but children affected by family breakdown or dysfunction were also taken in. Runaways and young offenders were also taken in. World War I had a serious impact on The Children’s Society. With fathers away and family income sharply cut, there was an ncrease in the number of street children. The Society for the first time took in more than 1,000 children in a sinle year.

Role of the British Royal Family

Briton's began to question the Royal Family in the 19th century. Early in Victoria' region there were demands for a constitution, even a republic, most famously as part of the 1848 revolutions. By this time Queen Victria with the help of here remrable husband, Prince Albert, had estanlished herself as a rediubtavle institution. After Queen Victoria, however, the monarchy became more of a ceremonial institution and people were aan questioning its usefulness. It can be argued that it was World War I that transformed the image of the monarchy and made it perfectly acceptable as a modern institution. It is during the war that the royal family developed through its war work developed a more personal relationship with the British public. They began distancing itself from their European relations, such as notably Kaiser Wilhelm II (Queen Victoria's grandson). This involved changing the family name from theGerman Saxe-Coburg to the more British sounding Windsor. The British royal family did extensive wartime charity work. The Prince of Wales Relief Fund was the most important effort, but all members of the family were involved in war work. Family members constantly paid visits to to servicemen, factories, and charity workers to boost morale. They encouraged public donations and making personal appeals. And like the Prince of Wales lent their names as patrons to charitable efforts. These royal visits featured in the new movie newsreels as well as in the newspapers. Here the Royal family's role in World war II only strengthened this connection.

Complications

As with many human activities, even voluntarism and charity have complications. As noble an undertaking as Queen Mary's Needlework Guild fiund itself criticized. At the onsey of the war women in Briton's textile and clothing industry began to lose their jobs as the country's established export markets began to decline. And the Queen's charitable Guild was a threat to their the job prospects of weavers. The Governmnt's War Emergency Workers' National Committee, which included leading figures from Britain's rising labour movement, opposed the Guild. The Queen asked the representatives of working women to Buckingham Palace. The result was the Queen's Work for Women Fund. The Government issued contracts to supply clothing and other items for the Army Supply Department. The Queen placed a personal order for 75,000 woollen body belts as part of her Christmas gift to the soldier's at the Front. In the end the unemployment that ininitiall occurred was more than absorbed by the needs for lavor to produce arms and supplies as well as food on British farms. This brings to light amodern pgenomenon. We see entrpreneurs like Bill Gates and warren Buffett like the great captains of industry before them (Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller) felt a need to charitable work or in the case of Buffet assciate himself with leftwing politicans. In ctuality their achievements in bysiness is vastly mote important than anything that can ve achieved through charity. Not to mention how left-wing politicans disparage charity.

Children

Children were not only the beneficiary of voluntary charitable effortd, but also played an important role in the War effort. Activities were actually included in the school week. One poular activity was Egg Day. Here the children brought their breakfst eggs which were collected for wounded soldiers. Children were used as props in fundraising drives, dressed up as small soldiers and nurses. A few children became quite well known. Jennie Jackson was perhaps the most famous. She was only 7 yers old at the outbreak of the War. Dressed up in a replica uniform, she toured pubs, clubs and factories, collecting donations. She raised some £4,000. Children organized local fund raising drives for charities like the National War Fund. And youth groups like the Boy Scouts, Boys' Brigade, and Girl Guides participated in a wide range of activities to support the War effort.

Sources

Grant, Peter. Philanthropy and Voluntary Action in the First World War.

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Created: 7:48 AM 10/6/2016
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