We all learned about the 1870 Education Act at school, but there had been vast improvements in literacy rates long before that, mostly due to cheap private schools, and by 1851 two-thirds of primary-school-age children were attending school in England and Wales, entirely voluntarily.8 Similarly a voluntary welfare state had long been in existence before Labour came along; by 1901 friendly societies had 5.47 million members, over half of adult men, and provided benefits for 40 per cent of adult males. Clement Attlee’s government didn’t create the British welfare state, it nationalised it.
