Blacktown, mass-observation, and the dynamics of voluntary action in mid-twentieth-century England

Abstract

This article examines the place of class and religion in discourses of voluntary action in mid-twentieth-century England, focusing on an overlooked Mass-Observation survey of the district of Aston in Birmingham. It situates Lord Beveridge's Voluntary Action report in its intellectual and social context, through utilizing the qualitative findings of the Mass-Observation district survey of Aston, elements of which were repurposed for the Voluntary Social Services Enquiry from which Voluntary Action emerged. The article takes a thematic approach, investigating how class and religion was seen and reported by Mass-Observers in the context of Aston. Two key arguments are made: that contrary to overarching narratives of post-war secularization, Christian churches actually remained in a relatively dominant position in terms of voluntary action; and that conceptions of voluntary action fundamentally misread working-class understandings of voluntarism, as well as the wider priorities of the post-war working classes. Drawing attention to the importance of class and religion to patterns of voluntary action evident in the Aston survey, yet less considered in historiographical terms, the construction of elite narratives of voluntary action and civil society are more discernible.