The 50 Years Ago column from the October 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard
[From the “Socialist Standard," October, 1906]
There were 121,979 persons in England and Wales certified as insane and under care on January 1st. 1906, being 2,150 in excess of the figures recorded on the corresponding day of 1905.
On January 1st, 1906, according to a Parliamentary paper issued by the Local Government Board, there were 926.741 paupers in England and Wales, equal to one in 37 of the population.
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[The corresponding numbed of persons registered as of unsound mind on January 1, 1955, was 152,144, the increase since 1906 being rather less than proportionate to the increase of population.
In December, 1955, the number of persons receiving weekly allowances from the National Assistance Board was 1,612,000. Including wives, young children and other dependents these assistance allowances “made provision in whole or in part for a total approaching two and a quarter million persons.”—(Report of National Assistance Board for 1955, page 5).
These figures are not comparable with the 926,741 for 1906 because the 1906 figures relate to England and Wales only while the figure 1,612,000 relates also to Scotland and Northern Ireland. A more nearly comparable figure for 1906 is 1,124,421, given in the 16th Abstract of Labour Charities, 1913, page 334, but that figure included Southern Ireland. The population covered by the 1906 figure was about 43. million compared with the present population of 51 million.]
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