Reformer
Like Gladstone, Besant was one of the great philanthropists of the Nineteenth Century. He set up the Home Arts Association which offered evening classes in various handicrafts (the idea had been piloted by Charles Leland in Philadelphia); and helped to found the Women's Central Bureau of Work which aimed to help middle-class women find employment. Whilst he explored issues surrounding poverty in his novels, he actively campaigned on behalf of sweatshop workers in London's East End, and for the poor in the parish of St. James' Ratcliffe. He supported the work of the Salvation Army, Ragged School Union, London Hospital and public libraries.38
(Special Collections has thirty-one works by Walter Besant, held in the 19th Century and 19th Century Novels collections.)
