Sheltered Employment and Disability in the Classic Welfare State: Remploy c.1944-1979

This thesis seeks to understand how Remploy and sheltered employment functioned in the period referred to as the classic welfare state, 1944-1979. Established as one of the measures contained in the Disabled Persons (Employment) Act 1944, Remploy became the chief provider of sheltered employment for severely disabled people in post-war Britain. Yet with no detailed historical analysis of the company having been undertaken, differing accounts of its development have proliferated across disciplines. The prevailing view has presented it as a cohesive, catch-all, national scheme with a fundamentally humanitarian agenda. Using the extensive archival records relating to Remploy and other sheltered employment providers for the first time, this thesis examines the development of the company. It considers the fundamental areas of understanding Remploy in terms of why it was created, how it functioned, who it employed, and how far it came to dominate the wider field of sheltered employment provision. It argues that there was in fact no ‘golden age’ of Remploy and sheltered employment in the period. Remploy also represents a previously unexplored aspect of the welfare state and one of the few statutory measures put in place for disabled people. Therefore, as well as revealing how sheltered employment functioned in the period, this thesis uses Remploy as a new case study in addressing the current views and key debates concerning disability and the classic welfare state in Britain.