William Beveridge

The Right Honourable The Lord Beveridge KCB
Member of Parliament for Berwick-upon-Tweed
In office 17 October 1944 – 15 June 1945
Preceded by	George Charles Grey
Succeeded by	Robert Thorp
Majority	7,523 (74.8%)
Personal details
Born	(1879-03-05)5 March 1879 Rangpur City, Bengal, India (now Bangladesh)
Died	16 March 1963(1963-03-16) (aged 84) Oxford, England
Nationality	British
Political party	Liberal
Spouse	Janet Philip ​ ​ (m. 1942; died 1959)​
Parents	Henry Beveridge (father) Annette Akroyd (mother)
Education	Charterhouse School
Alma mater	Balliol College, Oxford
Occupation	Economist politician
Known for	Work towards founding the welfare state in the United Kingdom

William Henry Beveridge, 1st Baron Beveridge, KCB (5 March 1879 – 16 March 1963) was a British economist and Liberal politician who was a progressive and social reformer who played a central role in designing the British welfare state. His 1942 report Social Insurance and Allied Services (known as the Beveridge Report) served as the basis for the welfare state put in place by the Labour government elected in 1945.^[1]

He built his career as an expert on unemployment insurance. He served on the Board of Trade as Director of the newly created labour exchanges, and later as Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Food. He was Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science from 1919 until 1937, when he was elected Master of University College, Oxford.

Beveridge published widely on unemployment and social security, his most notable works being: Unemployment: A Problem of Industry (1909), Planning Under Socialism (1936), Full Employment in a Free Society (1944), Pillars of Security (1943), Power and Influence (1953) and A Defence of Free Learning (1959). He was elected in a 1944 by-election as a Liberal MP (for Berwick-upon-Tweed); following his defeat in the 1945 general election, he was elevated to the House of Lords where he served as the leader of the Liberal peers.