The Victorian Ethical Foundations of Social Work in England—Continuity and Contradiction

In this article we argue that during the Victorian era certain ethical foundations of best practice were identified and were central to the work of particular individuals. We also argue that there was a strongly discriminatory moralistic basis to social policy and mainstream charitable intervention that militated against these ethical foundations. We suggest that this contradiction is replicated in New Labour's ‘Third Way’ and that we need to heed the tradition of social inclusion espoused by some of the Victorian practitioners discussed if we genuinely mean to put into practice the ideas of social worth and community espoused by New Labour rather than return to the Victorian distinction between the ‘respectable’ or ‘deserving’ poor and the ‘pauper’.