Whitehall and the Labour Problem in late-Victorian and Edwardian Britain

Roger Davidson is Emeritus Professor of Social History in the University of Edinburgh. He has published widely on the history of medical and governmental responses to sexual issues. He is author of Dangerous Liaisons: A Social History of Venereal Disease in Twentieth-Century Scotland (2000), The Sexual State: Sexuality and Scottish Governance, 1950-80 (2012), and Illicit and Unnatural Practices: The Law, Sex and Society in Scotland since 1900 (2019).

• Part 1: The Context 1. The Terms of the Debate 2. The Labour Problem Part 2: The Inputs 3. The Origins of the Labour Department 4. The Production Structure of Labour Statistics Part 3: The Output 5. The Commodity Structure of Labour Statistics: Rationale and Content 6. The Commodity Structure of Labour Statistics: The Shortfall Part 4: The Constraints 7. Treasury Control and Labour Statistics 8. The Failure of Ancillary Producers 9. Industrial Resistance 10. The Technical Structure of Labour Statistics 11. The Ideology of Labour Administration Part 5: The Implications 12. Labour Statistics and Social Policy

Original reviews of Whitehall and the Labour Problem in Late-Victorian and Edwardian Britain: ‘…it provides a useful case study through which to evaluate various arguments about the social bases of the state and the growth of state intervention…The book is a nice addition to labour history and to the history of administration. James E. Cronin, The American Historical Review, Vol 91, Issue 4, (1986)‘This volume presents convincing arguments and solid evidence…’ Jacques Ferland, Labour/Le Travail Vol 20, (1987).