Impact of the Boer War

• The second Boer War (October 1899 – May 1902) was not a conscript war. Young men volunteered in their thousands, although many were rejected as unfit. In some industrial areas, two out of three potential recruits didn’t pass the basic army medical examination.  
• Rowntree noted that out of 3600 volunteers seeking enlistment in York, Leeds and Sheffield between 1897 and 1900, 27% were rejected as unfit and a further almost 30% were only accepted as ‘specials’, in the expectation that army training could bring them up to standard.  
• There were immediate fears, both economic and military: 

  • The security of the British Empire depended on a fit, efficient army, an army that couldn’t find sufficient fit recruits would be unlikely to be able to maintain the Empire.  
  • Britain had been the leading industrial nation in the world in the early years of the 19th century. The successful economies of Germany and the USA seemed to imply that Britain now had a somewhat inferior workforce with neither the stamina nor the intelligence and skills to compete.  
• The Interdepartmental Committee on Physical Deterioration (1903 - 1904):

  The committee’s brief was to investigate claims that the health of the population was deteriorating. The committee concluded that the health of large sections of the urban population was being undermined by poverty, ignorance and neglect.  
• The Interdepartmental Committee on Physical Deterioration (1903 - 1904):

  It made 53 recommendations that were focused on changing public health administration and improving the standard of public health provision, introducing new methods of monitoring the health of the people, and improving standards of personal hygiene. For example, this included medical inspections and the provision of free school meals for the very poor.