BEVERIDGE (OF TUGGAL), WILLIAM HENRY BEVERIDGE, 1ST BARON

born March 5, 1879, Rangpur, India died March 16, 1963, Oxford, Oxfordshire, Eng. economist who helped shape Great Britain's post-World War II welfare state policies and institutions through his Social Insurance and Allied Services (1942), also known as the Beveridge Report. The son of a British civil servant in India, Beveridge was educated at Balliol College, Oxford. His lifelong interest in the causes and cure of unemployment began in 1903 with his appointment as subwarden of Toynbee Hall, a London settlement house. After serving as director of Labour Exchanges (190916), he became permanent secretary of the Ministry of Food in 1919. He directed the London School of Economics and Political Science from 1919 to 1937, when he was elected master of University College, Oxford. He was knighted in 1919 and was created a baron in 1946. In his Unemployment: A Problem of Industry (1909), Beveridge argued that unemployment was in large measure caused by the organization of industry. His revised views, set forth in Full Employment in a Free Society (1944), were strongly influenced by Keynesian economics. Beveridge's crowning achievement came during World War II, when, at the invitation of the government, he helped work out the blueprints of the new British welfare state. His other works include Insurance for All (1924), British Food Control (1928), Planning Under Socialism (1936), Pillars of Security (1948), Power and Influence (1953), and A Defence of Free Learning (1959).