Finally...

I've finally written up the second version of my literature review and then attempted to present all of it in 10 minutes at a proper academic conference (well, the new researcher session at NCVO's researching the voluntary sector conference anyway). Presentation wasn't too bad bearing in mind how much stuff I had to say and that none of the audience were really interested in the early nineteenth century...

Anyway, the basic argument is:
Social control has been used as a concept when looking at charities at this point but it needs to answer who is the controller, who is controlled and how are they controlled. In terms of charities, it's not a simple middle class controller because of how decisions were made and who made them in an organisation (for instance working class paid staff or staff who of a different ethnicity to the trustees) and that many organisations were working class led. And the poor could to some extent negotiate with charities through personal knowledge of precedent and those who made decisions (especially with those charities where donors voted on who should get help) - and pick up some elements of what is on offer and reject others (eg with education). Charities also weren't that effective, with relatively small numbers helped and with the more controlling aspects dumped when the demands of applicants became too much. Irish charities also weren't that interested in changing the working class into bourgeois Britons as they still emphasised traditional alms giving and with Catholic ideas about the "holy poor".

More on the social capital argument later in the week...