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Past Caring
Two hundred and thirty years before Beveridge
Wendy Moore, freelance writer and author, London
wendymoore@ntlworld.com
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
In the sloth-like progress that characterises medical history, few visionaries have lived to see their dreams reach fruition. Reformer Beatrice Webb died a tragic five years before the creation of the National Health Service she outlined in 1909. But that was nothing to John Bellers, the Quaker philanthropist who advocated a state funded health service more than two centuries before Britain’s Labour government took the hint.
A wealthy London cloth merchant, Bellers (1654-1725) never shrank from grand schemes that helped those worse off. In 1695 he proposed a "Colledge of Industry" to provide training and employment for the poor in a self sufficient community that would later inspire Karl Marx. Not confining himself to national problems, in 1710 he called for a European parliament to settle border and other disputes. But truly a man before his time, in 1714 Bellers published his plan for a national health service in "An
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