Victorian Social Reform: A Bibliography of the Published Papers of the Social Science Association 1857-86

The National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, known as the Social Science Association, was an influential forum for the development of social policy between the 1850s and 1880s to which many notable Victorians gave papers and addresses. Leading politicians, intellectuals, bureaucrats, churchmen and businessmen were among its members. It was influential in many different areas - legal reform, penal policy, education, public health and commercial relations – and provides vivid insight into Victorian social and institutional development. This project has produced an exhaustive bibliography of all contributions to the Association over three decades. Nearly 4,500 of these, given by over two thousand contributors, have been traced and entered on a database accessible via the internet. This will give scholars access to sources which will assist many different projects studying the development of British social policy. Until now scholars have had difficulty forming a view of the work of the Social Science Association, and tracing contributions to it by many different Victorians, women as well as men. The bibliography now produced is a guide to specific contributions by named individuals, and to groups of papers and discussions on major and minor social questions of the era.