A Pioneer in Infant Welfare: the Huddersfield Scheme 1903-1920

Abstract

While the infant welfare movement and its consequences have been wellcovered by social and demographic historians, little attention has been paid to the development of programmes at a local level. Yet it was at the municipal level that most initiatives emerged prior to the passing of the Maternity and Child Welfare Act of 1918. Huddersfield is recognized as a pioneer of infant welfare provision, having initiated a comprehensive system of notification of births and health visiting in the first decade of this century. The authors of the Huddersfield Scheme, Benjamine Broadbent, Chairman of the Health Commitee, and Dr S. G. H. Moore, the town's Medical Officer of health, become leaders of the infant welfare movement. This article explores how and why interest in infant life-saving developed in Huddersfield indicating how local concerns, conditions and personalities shaped the form the Huddersfield Scheme took. It considers why the solutions of notification and visiting, proved so enduring, despite their failure to influence mortality rates.

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