One Nationism and Nathaniel Louis Cohen

Nathaniel Louis Cohen (22/05/1844 – 14/01/1913) was the youngest surviving son of Louis Cohen and a member of a Jewish banking family.  Joining the firm at the age of 16, he was a talented financier. His consolidated stock scheme was even adopted by the government of the day. Following the dissolution of the business in 1901, of which he had become a partner, Nathaniel was then to devote his time to numerous civic and charitable causes.[1]  Politically active at a local level in London, between 1907-11, he served as an elected councillor on the London County Council.[2]  Nathaniel has been referred to as extreme Tory yet his politics are perhaps best described as One Nation Conservatism. This slogan was inspired by the novels and speeches of Benjamin Disraeli, Conservative leader of the Opposition and later Prime Minister.  One Nationism was the Conservative response towards the emergence of divisive class politics brought about by the effects of rapid industrialization and urbanization in the course of Victorian Britain.

‘As the party of social order, hierarchy and paternalism, many Tories reacted with horror to a world of mill and factories where men, women and children toiled for long hours [or] bosses who seldom showed a broader concern for their welfare.’[3]

Although he did not invent the institution, the achievement for which Nathaniel is best known, is his contribution to the establishment of the first successful labour registry, a forerunner of the employment exchange, in Egham in 1885.[5]  Then, as now, a persistent economic problem was that of fluctuations in the trade cycle with alternating periods of growth and stagnation which, to varying degrees, impacted on employment. This was a time when the legislation designed to support those in need was dictated by the Workhouse Test; people seeking support from the authorities had to submit to entry to the parish workhouse. This was a system implemented by the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 and was designed to discourage claimants. If implemented literally, this was an inflexible system which, being designed to keep the local rates down, was an impractical response to the rapid and unpredictable changes of the trade cycle. Nathaniel on realising that most people simply did not earn enough to put aside money for when they were out of work, suggested that the state should set up what would later be known as public works schemes, to provide paid employment as a temporary measure.

‘The state, through the workhouse authorities, should provide the desired relief in exchange for a variety of labour to be undertaken specially for the employment of needy applicants.’[6] 

This is a very good example of what might be described as state paternalism. Charity through the form of paternalism had always been a central theme to a Conservative world view. It was believed societal bonds were reinforced by the social responsibility of the elites to those less fortunate, an important connection which reinforced class interdependence above differences in status and wealth.  Over the course of the later 19^th and especially the 20^th centuries, One Nation Conservatism would later develop traditional Tory ideas to expanding the role of the state; in an age when parliamentarians and government ministers were unpaid, the elite political class formed an economic and social hierarchy who, through the drawing up of interventionist social policy were, in effect, performing a paternalist role on a national scale. This, however, was an interpretation of Toryism which went beyond the philanthropy envisaged by Nathaniel.

It was his response to the problem of unemployment in Egham for which Nathaniel achieved lasting national importance. Although a construction boom in Egham and Staines, stimulated by the building of Royal Holloway College and Sanatorium together with the Staines Waterworks, had encouraged an influx of workers into these districts, by 1884 these projects were nearing completion.  As a consequence, unemployment rose sharply. Such was the situation in Egham that, in December, the administrators of poor relief set up the Egham Bread Relief Fund.[7]  Only in the larger towns and cities was there well established support for those seeking employment. In rural parishes, such as Egham, the unemployed were reliant on word of mouth and walking long distances, often in a vain, to find a job. Exampling a local situation whereby an Egham resident had walked forty miles to find work when a suitable opening was near his home, Nathaniel was determined to find a more efficient means by which people could quickly become re-employed. The solution he, along with three other gentlemen, devised was a return to the labour exchange as a means by which local employers and prospective employees could be easily connected.[8]

The Egham experiment was a reflection of contemporary attitudes towards the problem of unemployment and the agency required to assist those requiring help from the authorities.  From a late Victorian standpoint, welfare involved outside agency acting on behalf of others.  This was very different from a 20^th century definition of a Welfare State with services enacted by parliamentary legislation supported out of funds raised by taxation.  The cost of running the Egham Bureau were kept down by the fact that the local civil registrar gave his services free and the bureau operated out of his place of work, the Egham Registry for births, deaths and marriages.  Necessary income was dependent on voluntary subscriptions with Nathaniel proving to be a generous benefactor contributing towards over 40% of the initial costs for the first twelve months between  1885-6.[9] 

Those who had been helped into finding employment were encouraged to donate part of their wages to the registry as appreciation.[10]  An organisation which depended on voluntary local sources of revenue had to focus its support on the immediate neighbourhood, yet there were other motivations in maintaining the local orientation of the registry. Nathaniel wrote:

‘It is recommended that registries should be limited to lads and men who have resided for a definitive period and who are personally known or recommended to the registrar as of good character’.[11]

The reference made to ‘good character’ is a reflection of the distinction between deserving and undeserving poor, itself testament to the durability of societal attitudes which had become encapsulated in the response to poverty and unemployment since the end of the 16^th century and the Elizabethan Poor Laws. 

The continuities in attitudes and approaches towards social problems connecting society through the ages notwithstanding, the Egham Registry stands out because of its contribution to a national debate and the developing consensus on the need for further reform.  The 1834 Poor Law which had established a national system, treated those who sought support from their local parish almost as criminals. Indeed, the workhouses to which they had to submit were infamously referred to as ‘the Poor Law Bastilles’. 

Along with the support of three like minded individual gentlemen, Nathaniel realised that those made destitute because of unemployment were not responsible for their plight.  As in Elizabethan times, unemployed seeking official help were obliged to apply to their local parish, yet Nathaniel did concede that ‘if a vacancy occurred for which a local man was not available an outsider could be sent.’[12]   He also advocated for a differentiated approach to local responses to unemployment.  He argued that the Egham Registry was best suited for rural parishes which, in his view, lacked the support mechanism made available in the larger towns where there existed well established sources of support offered by voluntary societies and the craft trades unions.[13]  The fact that he differentiated between approaches to the problem of finding work was a challenge to the inflexibility of the existing Poor Law which imposed a common system throughout the realm. 

In a clear attempt to engage in a national debate on the matter, soon after the establishment of the Egham Registry, he wrote in the National Review and described the process he had adopted which was based on advertisements for employees made by local businesses and which appeared in the registry and local press.   To further encourage debate, he wrote to The Times and ‘sent pamphlets and specimen stationery on the running of labour registries to everyone whom he thought might be interested’.[14] 

Through the operation of the registry, Nathaniel was able to accumulate reliable data as to the relative success of his initiative.  He also recognised the value of a London office for similar labour registries partly because of the opportunity for sharing data which could then help form a broader picture on the nature of the problem of unemployment.  Statistical evidence would later be key in the development of the first system of national unemployment insurance in the early years of the 20^th century.[15] Based on the figures collated by historian, P.J. Campling, the Egham bureau’s annual success rate of finding employment for those seeking it was a little over 78%. Although acknowledged as the first successful employment exchange in Britain,  Nathaniel’s experiment was short lived and from 1892, the success rate declined.  By the time of its dissolution in 1894, only 56% of those who applied for work via the registry were, indeed, successful.  

His advocacy of a national office notwithstanding, Nathaniel’s outlook was still rooted in community responsibility and charity over state intervention. In his involvement in local politics, he had opposed those who sought to expand state intervention, yet the declining success of his experiment in Egham was illustrative of the need for new approaches. In 1902 the first labour exchanges supported by local taxation were established in London and the metropolitan districts and, in 1909, the Labour Exchanges Act sought to establish a national network. Although his advice had been sought in the drafting of the 1909 legislation, by the time of his death in 1913, more uniform state approaches to social problems such as unemployment were replacing self funded and autonomous community based local initiatives which had been the cornerstone of Nathaniel’s philanthropy and Conservative world view.

Article by Geoff Meddelton

Bibliography

-Campling, R; ‘Nathaniel Cohen and the beginnings of the Labour Exchanges Movement in Great Britain’; Surrey Archaeological Collections, volume 69, pp. 155-168The Surrey Archaeological Society, Castle Hill, Guildford, 1973

-Cohen, Nathaniel, Louis; ‘Free Registries and the Marketing of Labour’, The National Review, Volume 9, 1887, pp. 45-48.

-Cohen, Nathaniel Louis in Biographical Archives 1 246; pp.45-46 (British Library).

-Renwick, Chris; Bread for All, The Origins of the Welfare State, Allen Lane, Milton Keynes, 2017.

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[1] Founder member and Vice President of the Jewish Religious Education Board/ Stepney Jewish Schools/ Committee for London Hospital/ Cambridge University Appointments Board/ Council of the London Chamber of Commerce/ Royal Statistical Society/ Mansion House Council of the Dwellings of the Poor/ East London Tenants Protection Society/ East London Apprenticeship Society.   He also served on a number of civic institutions in Egham

[2] He was a member of the Municipal Reform Party which was allied to the Conservatives; it contested local elections in opposition to the so called progressive parties (Labour-Liberal alliance).  

[3] Chris Renwick,  Bread for All: The Origins of the Welfare State, Allen Lane, Milton Keynes, 2017

[4] Cohen, Nathaniel louis in British Biographical Archive 1 246, pp. 45-48.

[5]  Previous attempts were made in 1650, 1833 and 1871.

[6] Nathaniel Cohen; ‘Free registries and the Marketing of Labour’, The National Review, pp. 155-167Volume 9, 1887

[7] P.J. Campling, Nathaniel Cohen and the Beginnings of the Labour Exchange Movement in Great Britain; pp.155-168 in ‘Surrey Archaeological Collections, Volume 69’, The Surrey Archaeological Society, Castle Arch, Guildford, 1973

[8]  Campling, p.157.

[9]  Campling, p.159.

[10]  Ibid, p.158.

[11] Free Registries, pp.60-61

[12] Campling, p.159.

[13] Campling, pp.160-161.

[14] Campling, p.159.

[15] Free Registries, pp.64-66.