This chapter introduces the history and development of social work in the UK. A historical perspective and appreciation of the profession’s early roots and subsequent development of social work, is an important first step in critically understanding our current role, alongside the challenges and contradictions of the role, as well as proving a useful foundation for critically exploring current debates and contemporary dilemmas which still abound in the profession. The history of social work in the UK therefore highlights how social work as a profession and its associated practices is a product of the political, social and economic forces within society. In other words, the development of social work over many years, is a product of industrialisation and urbanisation and its contradictory aims; that of maintaining the social order as well as promoting social justice, is a dilemma that has not gone away, in other words, care versus control. Such a holistic and historical understanding of how the profession got to where it is now, is essential in a profession which remains much maligned and is subject to intense media, public and political hostility when things go tragically wrong.