Inter-War Britain

I

Introduction

Inter-War Britain, the period between the end of World War I and the beginning of World War II during which Britain experienced a high level of unemployment, confronted considerable industrial and social change, and made a significant transition towards progressive politics. At the end of the Great War Britain had become a debtor, rather than a creditor nation, and as a result of the fighting and the harsh peace imposed on Germany, she had lost many of her overseas markets. As a consequence, Britain suffered from serious structural unemployment. This period has thus been dubbed “the locust years”, when Britain survived “on the breadline”. Nevertheless, the inter-war period was also one that saw the rapid growth of the car industry and light electrical consumer industries, which burgeoned in the 1930s, and the first steps towards some forms of social security provision.

II

Economic and Social Problems After World War I

Unemployment was the dominant issue in British society during the inter-war years. It arose from Britain's loss of export markets for her staple industries during World War I. Unemployment levels were rarely less than the “intractable million” and reached more than 3 million, about a quarter of the insured population, by 1931. This was in the wake of the Wall Street Crash of November 1929 that led to dramatic falls in share prices, the collapse of trade throughout the world causing the Great Depression in industries, and worldwide rises in unemployment. Such severe levels of unemployment created difficulties at every level of society and influenced all aspects of life during these years.

A

Industrial Change

However, it should be recognized that while the industrial output of the coal industry, shipbuilding, and other staple industries declined, new industries experienced growth. Most remarkably, the car industry was achieving an annual production level of close to 500,000 units by the end of 1937. The Midlands, southern, and south-eastern parts of England enjoyed a certain prosperity spurred by the new electrical industries, construction, and the new service industries that were replacing the heavy industries. Industrial output in Britain rose by about 2 per cent per annum in the 1920s and by more than 3 per cent per annum in the 1930s. It is thus not surprising that historians such as John Stevenson, Chris Cook, and others, maintain that the quantity and quality of life improved for the majority of families throughout the period. Indeed, Poverty and Progress, the social investigation of York conducted by Seebohm Rowntree in 1936 and published in 1941, suggested that the standard of living of people in the city had increased by at least 30 per cent in the years since Poverty: A Study of Town Life, which Rowntree had prepared in 1899 and published in 1901.

For the majority of the population conditions probably improved during the inter-war years. However, this was not true for about half of the working classes, who thus represented about 38 per cent of the nation. Rowntree's 1936 survey of York acknowledged that around 28 per cent of the population of the city, and 50 per cent of its child population, was living in a state of poverty as measured by the adjusted standards of the day. The situation was much bleaker in the depressed areas of Wales, Cumberland, Scotland, and north-eastern England where unemployment levels of 70 per cent or more were recorded. John Boyd Orr's survey of income and eating habits, which led to the publication of Food, Health and Income (1936), suggested that there may have been at least half the population of Britain existing on a standard of living which was insufficient to maintain healthy life.

B

Industrial Relations and the General Strike

The General Strike was a consequence of the conditions of the inter-war economy. The poor economic conditions of the early 1920s, with rising unemployment and depressed markets, led to downward pressure on the monetary wages of most workers. In many of the older declining industries monetary wages fell by 30 per cent or more, and in the mining industry wage reductions varied between 30 and 40 per cent between 1921 and 1925. Britain's return to the gold standard in April 1925, at an inflated value for the pound, imposed an extra burden upon those industries that were exporting and had suddenly found their export prices increased. In the coal industry, which faced extra competition from a revival in German mining, this led employers to demand further wage cuts of up to 10 per cent. This prompted the threat of a miners' strike in July 1925, forcing the government to intervene with a nine-month subsidy, and raised the prospect of a major coal dispute in March 1926. For the nine days in May of the General Strike the General Council of the Trades Union Congress called out about 1,750,000 of its members in support of the miners. However, the preparations made by the government meant that it was entirely unsuccessful, and its longterm impact has been questioned by historians such as H. A. Clegg and Keith Laybourn.