Lascelles - linking social capital as prerequisite to access charity

(notes from Lascelles' chapter on charity in Victorian England, edited by G M Young)

"Influence and friends" were necessary for many people if they were to access help from charity - beneficiaries had to compete for the interest of subscribers. For instance, admission to charity hospitals were through letters obtained from subscribers. This suggests that good social capital (linking social capital?) was important prerequisite of any help and any transfer of resources from rich to poor. Did this reinforce the way that charity primarily helped the "respectable" poor rather than the lowest "underclass"? Did it also encourage linking social capital and a strategy where those who might be poor would seek to develop relationships with those who had more power and money? This could also have had positive benefits for those who were successful, beyond simply the ability to access resources from charity in times of need. It could also have led to other opportunities (eg employment opportunities) and adoption of behaviours which could have longer-term benefits. The need to present narratives and arguments as part of the competition for support would also surely have led to some internalisation of those narratives, which again could have reinforced certain behaviours. (did Jewish charity on this model play a role in the embouregoisement of Jews in London in the first part of the nineteenth century?)

Lascelles also discussed motives for charity, generally having a benevolent view of Victorian benevolence, saying that a genuine desire to improve the condition of the poor was stronger motive than fear of rising discontent, and quoting the fact that benevolence continued strongly after the fear of revolution had passed and with a rise in state welfare support. He also claims that "there can be no doubt that the poor had to rely more on charity than on public funds", which Susannah Morris would probably disagree with (see her paper at VAHS seminar on charitable resources compared to the Poor Law.