The British Polio Fellowship: its contribution to the development of inclusivity for disabled people

Abstract

The organizations set up to cope with polio in the years of epidemic outbreaks in Europe constitute an interesting focus in historiography as an example of contemporary patients’ associations and mutual aid groups. The main aim of this paper is to reconstruct and analyse the principal highlights in the birth and development of the British Polio Fellowship (BPF) and its historical meaning in the history of polio associationism. The Infantile Paralysis Fellowship (now BPF) was founded in 1939 and, since then, has played an important role in the development of services for disabled people. It was founded as an organization of disabled people, not an organization for disabled people and so has always been an authentic voice of polio-disabled people. Achievements during the past seventy years have included the development of employment for disabled people, improvements in financial benefits, provision of better access, provision of holidays, the creation of opportunities for respirator-dependent people to live in their own homes, and the development of disability sport.