Brendan Llewellyn: Learn from the distant past and bring emotion back into play

The document, just 118 years old, was designed to alert the reader to the case for a national pension scheme. Perhaps it had an effect as six years later in 1908 the Old Age Pensions Act came into force with the first state pensions paid on 1st Jan 1909. Here's some extracts from the document: "In all his majesty's dominions it would be impossible to picture a scene more sad and pathetic than that at the gates of the workhouse when husband and wife, now tottering to the grave, after one long and continuous struggle for independence, are at last compelled to sever the ties they hold so de...