(I) The term ‘welfare state’ came into wide use in Britain
in the 1930s. (II) Though it is largely a twentieth-century
phenomenon, its roots reach into the previous century.
(III) As the working-class population expanded in 1850s,
a number of British theorists began exploring ways to
confront the poverty of the working class and the
unemployed. (IV) For example, John Stuart Mill was one
of those who started the discussion of the need for a
welfare state in Britain. (V) In a few countries, the
twentieth-century welfare state began taking shape in
the decades between World War I and World War II