The Daily Herald and the campaign for a universal pension
In 1939, the Daily Herald newspaper threw their support behind the National Old Age Pensions Association. With photos and stories, they lobbied for a universal pension of £1/week.
Daily Herald Photograph: Pensioners march in London Daily Herald Photograph: Pensioners march in London (1938-11-23) by Roper, George WNational Science and Media Museum
"To-day begins a great campaign... Justice for the Old Folk"
State pensions have existed in the United Kingdom since 1909, though early versions were strictly means-tested. By the 1930s, belief in the inadequacy of official statistics and concern about the exclusions of existing provisions resulted in growing demands for change.
Founded in 1938 as a national lobby, the National Old Age Pensions Association was among the organisations lobbying for changes to the structure of state pensions aimed at alleviating poverty and improving living conditions.
With an estimated 2 million members nationwide, the Association organised rallies to recruit public support. Here 77-year-old Mr Whitlock of Woolwich speaks to a crowd gathered in Hyde Park to demand increased pensions. Bob and Mrs Upcraft were among the crowd of supporters.
Daily Herald Photograph: Petitioning for pensionsNational Science and Media Museum
What did they want?
An increase in state pensions from 10s to £1/week, an end to means-testing, and changes to other eligibility criteria.
Here, Bob Upcraft—a founder of the Old Age Pensions Association in West Ham—attends the House of Commons with his wife to present their petition.
They don’t want to sit back and let others do their fighting for them. They are in it themselves.
Rev. W.W. Paton, founder of the Old Age Pensioners’ Association, quoted in the Daily Herald, 12 July 1939, page 5
Local groups from across the United Kingdom delivered similar petitions to 10 Downing Street. Mr Pritchard (78), Ms March (78), Mrs Emily Hendicott (81), and Samuel Cotton (76) form one of the deputations. A month later, groups from Scotland and Manchester added their voices.
Daily Herald Photograph: Pensioners petition House of CommonsNational Science and Media Museum
Convoys of delegates attended debates in Parliament to ensure their demands were heard.
Daily Herald Photograph: Old Age Pensioners AssociationNational Science and Media Museum
Rev. Paton, pictured smoking a pipe, helped found the Association after witnessing the conditions faced by his parishioners. He, Bob Upcraft, and other members sort silver paper to raise funds for their local chapter.
A campaign is launched to-day by the ‘Daily Herald’ to focus the nation’s conscience on the injustice and hardship inflicted on those 2,300,000 old people who are expected to eke out the rest of their days on ten shillings a week.
Barbara Ayrton-Gould, Chair of the Labour Party, Daily Herald, 5 July 1939, page 10
Daily Herald Photograph: Tape RoomNational Science and Media Museum
Rallying public opinion
Change required public support. Social media didn’t exist in the 1930s, so campaigners worked with the Daily Herald—a newspaper with strong Labour connections, a history of running interactive reader campaigns, and a pioneering approach to photojournalism—to tell their stories.
Daily Herald Photograph: PensionersNational Science and Media Museum
‘Life on Ten Bob a Week’
Activist journalist Ritchie Calder detailed the deprivations of trying to making do on ‘ten bob a week’ in regular articles featuring conversations with ‘Old Bob’ and ‘Ma’ Upcraft, as well as interviews with experts on housing, nutrition and economics.
Daily Herald Photograph: PensionersNational Science and Media Museum
A weekly outing for the Upcrafts
Dressed in their ‘Sunday Best’, the Upcrafts each receive their ten-shilling pension on a weekly trip to the post office. Mrs Upcraft tells her husband to hold on to his share until they get home. Then it goes for the rent, the coal, the gas, the insurance and the dairy bill.
She spends hers in the market stalls, a place where essentials can be purchased cheaply. As Calder writes, ‘Every halfpenny must be stretched as far as a penny... And she is out of soap this week, so that means going short on veg.’
The aged themselves fall into four categories. Those who receive Poor Law relief to supplement their wretched pension; those who obtain some kind of work to help them along; those who are enabled to live by the help of relatives, and those who try to exist somehow on their pension of 10 shillings a week.
Barbara Ayrton-Gould, Chairman of the Labour Party, Daily Herald, 5 July 1939, page 10
Daily Herald Photograph: Pensioners at homeNational Science and Media Museum
A week in the Upcrafts’ home
At home, the Upcrafts get their first proper meal in three days. Mrs Upcraft saves even her peelings to help stretch their weekly shop. 77-year-old Mr Upcraft reads a week-old paper in the background.
Daily Herald Photograph: Pensioner tends a fireNational Science and Media Museum
Mrs Upcraft carefully stirs and banks the fire in their hearth. She must make half-a-crown’s worth of coal last a week. And a fire is essential not just for warmth, but as their only means of cooking.
Daily Herald Photograph: Pensioner fetching waterNational Science and Media Museum
Mr Upcraft fetches water from an outdoor washhouse. He must carry it up a steep flight of stairs to the backroom of a cottage they share with two other families. He reports that it’s not a bad task when the weather is good, ‘but he dreads the frost in the winter.’
Daily Herald Photograph: Pensioner tending a railway-side gardenNational Science and Media Museum
Mr Upcraft maintains an allotment beside the railway that employed him for 42 years. It’s an activity to occupy his time, but it also supplements their meagre pension with fresh vegetables. Any surpluses can be sold for a few extra pennies.
Daily Herald Photograph: Pensioners making teaNational Science and Media Museum
When supplies run low toward the end of the week, it’s back to tea made from a few remaining ‘dusty dregs’ in the tea caddy and meals of bread alone.
Daily Herald Photograph: Pensioners at homeNational Science and Media Museum
Mum and Bob Upcraft, the two old age pensioners whose plight has caused so much indignation, want people to understand that they are not asking for sympathy for themselves. They have co-operated in the ‘Daily Herald’ campaign because they want to help the hundreds of thousands of old pensioners like themselves, in as bad or even worse circumstances.
Ritchie Calder, Daily Herald, 7 November 1939, page 5
While the demands for an increase in pensions ultimately remained unmet, the actions and arguments of the National Old Age Pensions Association contributed to the findings and provisions later laid out in the 1942 Beveridge Report.
All images are from the Science Museum Group collection. Copyright Mirrorpix, Hulton Archive/Getty Images, and TopFoto.
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