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Poverty, philanthropy and the state: charities and the working classes in London, 1918–1879

The last 12 years have seen an unprecedented growth in the scale and scope of the voluntary sector. In the ten years from 1996/97 to 2006/07, its income almost doubled, from £17bn to just over £33bn.(1) Meanwhile, more than half – 58 per cent – of the 2,705 people interviewed in England for Helping Out: a National Survey of Volunteering and Charitable Giving – commissioned by the Cabinet Office's third sector division and conducted by the National Centre for Social Research and the Institute for Volunteering Research (IVR) – had both volunteered and donated to charity in the last 12 months, and 81% had given to a charity within the last four weeks.(2) As a general election approaches, all three political parties are at pains to stress the importance of the so-called ‘voluntary sector’ to civil society, and to the effective delivery of welfare services.