‘A moral unity equalled by no
other large national state’?
Edward Shils and Michael Young
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Sociologists at London School of Economic: new science for studying nation
Argue for unprecedented ‘moral unity’ of Britain at start of 1950s
Partly a product of longer-term trends over the past century
Assimilation of working class into the ‘moral consensus’ of British society had gone
further than anywhere else
Transformation from unruly to peaceable society
Decline in hostility to symbols of authority
Although ‘ruling class’ somewhat discredited by WW1, General Strike, and
Depression, consensus on fundamental values remained and reinforced by WWII
Labour victory 1945 brings moral unity of British society to remarkably high level
by concern for under-privileged and not alienating middle and upper classes
Although attention to class, notably missing is any attention to divisions of
race/ethnicity or of gender; no mention of internal British divisions of four nations
or region
Post-war full employment, government patronage, and growing repugnance to
Soviet Union brings many intellectuals back into the fold
Context of Coronation of Elizabeth II,
1953
• Edward Shils and Michael
Young, ‘The Meaning of
the Coronation’,
Sociological Review
(1953).
• Coronation of Elizabeth
(27) in June 1953.
• Ceremony a symbol of the
moral unity, but also a
role in cementing
‘An act of national communion’
• Huge crowds in London
• Via television and radio
ceremony itself brought
into the homes of the
nation: 20 million watch
(key event in expansion in
TV: 1950 less that
100,000 TVs; by
coronation day, 2 million)
• Street parties up and
down country.
The sacred dimension
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Not just product of media/market
Not just irrationality
Not just love of pomp
Not just desire to have a good
time
Not just release from drabness
and routine
Not just attraction to young
Queen
Crucially, touches the sense of
the sacred in people: importance
of ceremony and ritual
Link to religion, but more a form
of secular form of sacred
Family Britain
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Shift from focus on monarchy to
Royal Family
Link to emphasis on family in period
(unique period of stability? David
Kynaston, Family Britain, 1951-57
(London, 2009); Pat Thane, ‘Family
Life and “Normality” in Postwar
British Culture’, in Richard Bessel and
Dirk Schumann (eds.), Life after
Death: Approaches to a Cultural and
Social History of Europe during the
1940s and 1950s (Cambridge, 2003),
pp. 193-210.)
Family also deployed as metaphor in
thinking about involvement of
Commonwealth: a family of nations
(Conservative) Tradition or Modernity?
(Conservative) Tradition
Modernity
• Ancient symbols of monarchy: .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=aGLN1kREJ2Q
• Symbols of privilege
• Overlooks social divisions and
inequalities
• Idea of the sacred
• Rhetoric of new Elizabethan age
(delusions of continuing power?)
• Incorporation of the modern into
the traditional: moral unity
• Many of these symbols are
‘invented traditions
• Importance of medium of
television
• Shift to family
• Argument that symbol of
monarchy helps democracy
• Young and Shils in fact of left
(Young involved in writing
Labour’s 1945 manifesto, and
founder of Consumers’
Association and Open
University)
An alternative moment to test the
climate of the nation
• Festival of Britain, 1951
• Centred on London (8m visitors),
but events across the nation
• Timed for centenary of 1851
Great Exhibition
• Emphasis on modernity, as in
Dome of Discovery and Skylon
structure on South Bank, and in
use of modern design projected
into home via fabrics and
wallpapers.
• Provides an idea of the modern
for a generation
• Aims to pull Britain into a new
age
A Tonic for the Nation?
• A pale imitation of the
show of international
strength in 1851
• As much driven by
desire for release from
austerity and for fun:
Battersea Pleasure Park
just as much an
attraction: ‘a tonic for
the nation’
Cultural Paternalism?
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Alongside emphasis on science and
the future, also much on history,
tradition, and culture
Emphasis on value of education: an
improving mission (even in relation to
design and science)
Driven by Labour Party (Herbert
Morrison)
Labour Believes in Britain (1945):
‘Socialism is not bread alone.
Material security and sufficiency are
not the final goals. They are also
means to a greater end – the
evolution of a people more kindly,
intelligent, co-operative, enterprising,
and rich in culture’.
Hope this might be electoral boon to
Labour, but loses 1951 Autumn
General Election to Churchill.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
m9uGlfvyH0M
Austerity Britain
• Key context of post-war
austerity
• 1947 Fuel Crisis
• 1948 London Olympics –
the ‘austerity games’ –
still in midst of rationing
of food, fuel, building
material
• The ‘flying housewife’
Fanny Blankers-Koen
• 1952 Great Smog
Does the Affluent Society Challenge
‘Moral Unity’?
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1947: The ‘New Look’
1952 Introduction of commercial television
1956 Premium Bonds; 1960 Betting and
Gaming Act; advance of hire purchase and
culture of credit
Rise in crimes of violence: 5,869 in 1950;
11,592 in 1960; 21, 046 in 1968
Richard Hoggart, The Uses of Literacy (1957):
concern about erosion of working-class
culture via commercialism/Americanism
Michael Young sets up Institute of
Community Studies, and with Peter Wilmott
publishes study of breakdown of workingclass community: Family and Kinship in East
London (1957)
Increasing anxieties about community,
‘culture’, and divisions of age (adolescents),
and ethnicity/race; and gender (feminism)
Is the post-war Festival/Coronation moment
on the cusp of austerity/affluence, still with
unity of war in the background, a unique
moment for national unity?