Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) is a UK charity that works to alleviate poverty and social exclusion .
8-521: The Group first met on 5 March 1965, at a meeting organised by Harriett C. Wilson . It followed the publication of Brian Abel-Smith and Peter Townsend 's work Poor and the Poorest : both men were founding members of the Group. At the second meeting one of the points raised was "That although increased family allowance might be the simplest and most equitable way of overcoming the poverty of large families, there
16-606: A British sociologist and activist born in Germany. She was a founder of the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), and served as its vice-chair for 15 years. Wilson was born on 14 September 1916 in Berlin, Germany, into a wealthy family, which had converted from Judaism in the 19th century. It suffered catastrophic losses in the hyperinflation of the early 1920s . She left school at 16. In 1935, she married Harro Veit Simon,
24-577: A Jewish family friend, with whom she was forced to flee from Nazi Germany . After a period in Spain, where their son John Veit-Wilson was born in 1936, they came to London, England. He was to be an Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at the Northumbria University . Her first marriage ended in divorce in 1938. Wilson entered the London School of Economics as a mature student in 1943, graduating with
32-466: A degree in sociology in 1946. That year she married Arthur James Cochran Wilson (1914–1995), a Canadian crystallographer, who was later a professor at Cardiff and Birmingham universities. They had two children, Howard (died 2001) and Mary. Having obtained a PhD at the University of Wales in 1946, Wilson published her first book, Delinquency and Child Neglect , in 1962. She also set up a nursery school on
40-650: A deprived housing estate in Cardiff , with the help of the Quakers , which she and her husband had joined. Her criticism of the new Labour government for ignoring family allowances contributed to the formation in 1965 of the Child Poverty Action Group , of which she was vice-chair until 1982. She continued her work in Birmingham (1966–1972) and Warwick (1976–1984), and after retirement in Cambridge. Her co-written Parents and Children in
48-401: The poorest families." Tony Lynes was the first full-time secretary of the Group in 1966. Frank Field served as Director of the Group from 1969–1979 and was followed by Ruth Lister (1979-1987) and Fran Bennett, and later by Kate Green (2004-2009). CPAG programmes include: Harriett C. Wilson Harriett Charlotte Wilson (née Friedeberg ; 14 September 1916 – 14 July 2002) was
56-421: The precise details of a scheme for reform: we are agreed, however, that action should be taken to achieve a radical improvement in the standard of living of families in poverty and we wish to bring this memorandum to your attention. We ask that the present arrangements for family allowances and the allowances for children be reconsidered and revised, and that bigger direct allowances be paid in respect of children in
64-456: Was likely to be considerable difficulties in bringing about a change of this kind, partly because of the fear that this would tend to encourage people to have large families." One of its first actions was to send a letter to the Prime Minister, on 22 December 1965, signed by a number of distinguished public figure, which stated: "The signatories of this letter would probably not all agree on
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