biography
| name: |
Beveridge, William Henry Beveridge, Baron
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1879–1963)
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| biography:
| Economist and social reformer, born in Rangpur, W India. He studied at Oxford, and became a leading authority on unemployment insurance. He entered the Board of Trade (1908) and became director of labour exchanges (1909–16). In 1909 he published his notable report, Unemployment, in which he argued that the regulation of society by an interventionist state would strengthen rather than weaken the free market economy. He was instrumental in drafting the Labour Exchange Act (1909) and the National Insurance Act (1911). In 1941 he was commissioned by the government to chair an inquiry into the social services, and produced the report Social Insurance and Allied Services (1942), popularly known as the Beveridge Report. This was to become the foundation of the British Welfare State and the blueprint for much social legislation from 1944 to 1948. He was director of the London School of Economics (1919–37) and Master of University College Oxford (1937–45). He was elected to parliament as a Liberal (1944), but was defeated in 1945, and became a peer in 1946. |
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