Laybourn, Keith

Keith Laybourn is Professor of History at the University of Huddersfield. He has written and edited 41 books, his most recent title being Britain’s First Labour Government (London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). Dr. Laybourn's other titles include The Rise of Labour (1988), Britain on the Breadline (1990,1996), Under the Red Flag (1999), with Dylan Murphy, The Rise of Socialism in Britain (1997) and A Century of Labour (2000 and 2001).

Guild of Help and the Changing Face of Edwardian Philanthropy. The Guild of Help, Voluntary Work and the State, 1904-1919

1994 0-7734-9144-9
The Guild of Help was formed in Bradford in 1904 and quickly spread to oust the Charity Organisation Society as the major component of British charity in the early 20th century. It arose at a time of concern about 'National Efficiency' and the condition of the poor. Its main aims were to organise community help for the poor, through the organisation of voluntary helpers, to act as clearing house for charity provision, and to improve the working relationship between charity and the state. The Guild was, therefore, central to the treatment of poverty, and closely involved in the issues of social control, New Liberalism, community consciousness, the new Liberal state welfare measures and the activities of public bodies..

Unemployment and Employment Policies Concerning Women in Britain 1900-1951

2002 0-7734-7085-9
This study addresses the three major aspects of Britain's discriminatory approach to women's employment laws which were domestic service, broad unemployment and the links between voluntary bodies and the British state

Working Class Gambling in Britain c. 1906-1960s

2007 0-7734-5374-1
Examines the class nature of gambling in Britain which made the off-course ready-money gambling of the working-class illegal while permitting the middle-class off-course credit gambling. It rejects the views of the National Anti-Gambling League that working-class gambling was an excessive waste of money and suggests that it was, by and large, ‘a bit of a flutter’ by the working classes. Using rarely used Home Office and police evidence, it suggests that both the police and the Home Office would have liked the Street Betting Act of 1906, and other restrictive legislation, removed since it was an impediment to good relations with the working classes upon which the police relied for evidence of serious crimes.