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John Burns at the Local Government Board: a Reassessment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2009

Kenneth D. Brown
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Abstract

History has judged John Burns's tenure of the Local Government Board between 1905 and 1914 to have been almost totally barren because his officials were able to capitalize on his great personal vanity in order to flatter him into incompetence and reaction. This article attempts a re-assessment of Burns's presidency along four lines. First it seeks to suggest that his achievement, while by no means impressive, was perhaps more substantial, particularly on the administrative side, than is usually argued. Secondly, it points out that he was already well disposed towards the sort of attitude current among LGB officials when he went to the board. It suggests further that there were certain institutional obstacles which hindered Burns, including the existence of several royal commissions examining aspects of Board work, the poor quality of LGB staff, and the absence of a well-developed statistical section. Finally, it is argued that while Burns's personality was the key factor in his presidency, it was not so much his vanity as his absorbtion with trivia, his intellectual limitations, and lack of any constructive ideas that lay behind his relatively unimpressive record.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , April 1977 , pp. 157 - 170
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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