 Among the early forms of social welfare in New Zealand was the old age pension, introduced by the Liberal Government in 1898.The scheme was introduced to avoid what MP William Pember Reeves described as the "worst social evils and miseries" referring to the British workhouses where the elderly lived in spartan institutional circumstances.The pension scheme was non-contributory and was available only to the "deserving poor"; men and women who had become destitute through no fault of their own.