Social Work Archives and the ‘Classic’ Postwar British Welfare State

This paper explores how I have used the collections held at the University of Warwick Modern Records Centre (MRC) to understand how the welfare state works from the inside; or within. Histories of the ‘classic’ postwar British welfare state are mostly either from above or below. This informs the approach and types of sources used. From above, histories of social security, health services and welfare provision are told through legislation, policy documents and government departmental archives. From below, histories of gendered, classed, or racial marginalisation are reconstructed through oral interviews, community and activist archives, and careful reading of official sources against the grain. Using different organisational, professional and individual collections relating to social work held at Warwick, this paper explores how officials did a range of health, welfare and social work whilst being squeezed from above and pressed from below. Ultimately, the view from within revealed by these sources exposes the emergent, contested, and complex relational dynamics of mundane policy and practice which shaped the ‘classic’ postwar British welfare state from 1945 to 1976.