Some would claim that charity is a core cultural trait of mankind. The urge to help others is a selfish act of survival of the group and hence individual security. In today’s world, welfare has assumed a wider meaning and is linked with the economy of the state, the concept of human rights of society, structure of society and cultural expression of welfare. The state may be willing to contribute towards welfare but poor economic conditions may not allow welfare programmes or only allow low key programmes. With poor level of governance most welfare work comes to a standstill. In such situations the burden of poor economies can be shared by all rather than the poor alone. Human rights, as defined by the UN, impinge on the basic concept of welfare as seen by individual states. The right of all people to shelter, security, health, job, education as well as freedom to speak, associate and practice religion are concepts difficult to swallow for many societies and states. Social disparity may not allow many to grant rights to others. Yet social welfare is a practical arm of human rights and not an act of charity to be left to individual whims. In Islam, social welfare is the right of the underprivileged and not an act of charity extended by the state or individual. On the other hand the welfare of all the citizens of the state is vital for economic and social development. There are more than 94 indicators to measure social development. Each country’s performance in this area can be monitored following each intervention. Although social welfare had been debated by philosophers for a long time, it only became important after the Industrial Revolution in the 1840s. This was the time of the birth of modern cities with all its problems of communal living and compression of people into tight compartmental life, dynamics new to the first generation rural society. Since the Industrial Revolution started in England, the first city to cross the 2 million mark inhabitants a hundred years ago was London. The responsibilities of the new industrialised state was projected in the domain of social welfare of its people. Social welfare was the responsibility of the parish but with a large number of new towns, this became impractical. The Poor-Law Amendment Act was passed in 1834 and the Municipal Corporations Act in 1835. These were the basis of social welfare in the Britain of the future (Hill, 1997). Social welfare at the level of local government started in the middle of the 19th century West and emerged as a profession. Social welfare work in the hospital started in Massachusetts General Hospital, USA in 1905 (Morales and Sheafor, 1989). Social welfare departments in hospitals in Pakistan started in 1963. The Lahore Journal of Economics, Vol.3, No.1 106 The concept of a welfare state was introduced in the 1910 budget by David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill which was blocked in the House of Lords. In the USA Child Welfare was started in 1912 and social welfare was introduced during the Roosevelt era in 1935. The Social Security Act of 1935 was a significant landmark for the US. WH Beveridge (1879-1963), born in Rungpur, now Pakistan) is considered as the father of the modern welfare state when he produced the Beveridge Plan in 1944. The Beveridge Plan recommending war on Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor, and Idleness formed the basis of post war liberalism (Dean, 1994). It was after World War II that the Labour Government in Britain put the theories of social scientists into practice with great enthusiasm. It was a combination of “Keyesian economics and Beveridgean social concern that gave the welfare state its strong political legitimacy and popular appeal”. Health, education, housing, minimal wages, money for the unemployed, care of the handicapped and destitute were assured by the state.