Welfare reformer

Was killing time in the National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh and decided to check out who all the male statues and busts which festoon the entrance actually are. This one, unlike the writers and poets will not be known by many. He is Thomas Chalmers, an evangelical protestant minister whose actions split the Church of Scotland in two during the 1840s. A friend, Jim Smyth has been researching him, given his views on welfare reform have strongly influenced the American 'New Right'. Chalmers felt Poor Law relief pauperised the poor. His solution was to give them none. His ideas also seem to have a resonance with Cameron and his crew.