About
British economist and Liberal politician who was a progressive and social reformer who played a central role in designing the British welfare state. He was also nominated to the House of Lords, where he helped lead the Liberal peers.
Before Fame
After graduating from Balliol College, Oxford, he briefly became a lawyer before soon getting into social services. By 1908 he was regarded as the leading authority on unemployment insurance, and so was brought in by Winston Churchill to combat unemployment and poverty.
Trivia
He was a member of the Eugenics Society, which promoted the study of methods to 'improve' the human race by controlling reproduction. In 1909, he proposed that men who could not work should be supported by the state "but with complete and permanent loss of all citizen rights - including not only the franchise but civil freedom and fatherhood."
Family Life
He was born in Rangpur, British India (now Rangpur, Bangladesh). The eldest son of Henry Beveridge, an Indian Civil Service officer and District Judge, and scholar Annette Ackroyd. In 1942 he married the mathematician Janet Philip.
Associated With
After World War II, new prime minister Clement Attlee used his ideas to establish the National Health Service in 1948.
