The Dawn of Affluence
Economic and Social Context, 18801960
Plan
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State and social safety net
Living Standards & Poverty
Consumerism & Leisure
Affluence
Victorian State
• Minimal state based on laissez-faire principles:
free market and self-help.
• Hard times? Living standards growing - possibly
after about 1820, certainly after about1840
• Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, reformed
Elizabethan Poor Laws to tackle problem of
pauperism, based on ideas of ‘less eligibility’,
‘workhouse test’
• Otherwise, contact with state minimal
Early 20c reform
• 1906 Liberal Government reforms, after Asquith
becomes leader: 1908 Old Age Pension; 1911
Insurance Act (health and unemployment)
• Political expediency – w/c adult male vote;
Labour Party
• Poverty survey results
• ‘National Efficiency’; rise of competing industrial
economies; threat to global imperial dominance
• Change in prevailing ideology?
Welfare interwar
• ‘Homes for Heroes’: Addison Act 1919
• Ministry of Health 1919, raising of school leaving
age 14 (Fisher Act 1918)
• Extension of 1911 Insurance Act, 1920;
Contributory OAP, Widows, Orphans 1925
• Not universal (of risk or persons)
• Compromise between individualism and
collectivism.
• Beginnings of social safety net
Beveridge and post-WW2
welfare
• 1942 Report. Universal (of both risk and persons):
‘cradle to grave’ provision for sickness,
unemployment, maternity, old age, industrial
injury, widows and orphans etc
• 5 evils: idleness, want, ignorance, squalor, disease
• Full employment, family allowances paid direct to
mother are pre-conditions
• ‘male breadwinner’ welfare state
• 1945-50 Labour Government: NHS 1948;
National Assistance 1948
Living Standards, 1886-1960
1.Sustained increase in average real earnings
2. Fall in average family size
3. Fall in length of normal working week
Putting 1-3 together:
(a) lower incidence of subsistence poverty
(b) greater discretionary spending
(c) more leisure time
Average Weekly Money Earnings Adult
Male Manual Workers
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1886 24s 2d (£1.21) 54 hour normal week
1906 29s 4d (£1.48) 54 hour normal week
1938 69s 0d (£3.45) 48 hour normal week
1960 282s 1d (£14.10) 40 hour normal week
Nearly 12-fold increase in money earnings
These figures need to be adjusted for inflation.
Prices increase by roughly 4.5 times 1886-1960
• Real average earnings increase by roughly 2.5
times 1886-1960
Average Real Earnings, 1870-2010
Source: Feinstein 1870-1962 (1995, 263:266); official Average Earnings Index (AEI) and retail price index 1963-2010.
Poverty.
• Socially determined concept ; different methods
and standards used (Rowntree 1901, Bowley 1912,
Rowntree Human Needs1934, Abel Smith &
Townsend 1965). Results not comparable.
• 1901 Rowntree 30% of York in Poverty. 1951
Rowntree’s third survey of York. 3%.
• 1960s re-establishment of poverty as political
issue. Abel-Smith & Townsend, Poor and the
Poorest, 1965.
Poverty Surveys: Causes
• Early twentieth century: Rowntree (Poverty, 1901)
low or irregular wages, large family size, sickness,
old age
• Interwar:(Rowntree Poverty & Progress 1936):
unemployment, low wages, old age, sickness
• Early 1950s (Abel-Smith & Townsend Poor and
Poorest 1965), large family size (6 or more), old
age. Poverty among the old and young;
• Life cycle poverty
Population and Family Structure
• Rapid population growth ends in 1920s.
• Smaller family size. CBR falls 26/1000
1906-10, 20/1000 1921-5, 15/1000 1936-8
• Mean household size: 1891 4.6; 1911 4.4;
1921 4.1; 1931 3.7; 1951 3.2.
• Continuation of trend that began @1870.
Adoption of pattern of small families by all
classes through family limitation.
Discretionary Income, Leisure
and Affluence
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more leisure activity
new products
better quality and cheaper housing
middle class (salaried workers) clearly
better ‘quality of life’ 1930s
• working-class by 1950s
Leisure Activities.
• Cinema. 1914: 400m admissions per year, 1934:
903m, 1946: 1635m
• Radio: BBC 1922. 71% households by 1939.
• Newspapers: 1900 daily read by 1 in 6 adults,
1920 1 in 2 (4 in 5 Sunday). Book sales @7m
1928, @27m 1939.
• Seaside Holiday. Blackpool 4m visitors 1914, 7m
1939.
New Consumerism
• Electrification of the home. 1931<1/3rd of
homes had electric power, 1938 >2/3rds
• Durable household goods: electric cookers,
fridges, water heaters, irons, vacuums.
• Transport and communications. Motor cars,
bicycles, radios, telephones. 1924: @0.5m
cars, @0.25m telephones; 1939:2m cars, 1m
telephones
Who benefited?
• Varies considerably by product, but largely
middle class phenomenon interwar.
• Not restricted to very affluent, nor generally
products for the mass market (later in
1950s). Radios, irons exception.
• Still relatively low disposable income
among working-class. Poverty and
unemployment prevent full participation for
sizeable minority until 1950s/60s.
Affluent Society.
• Phrase borrowed from J.K Galbraith’s
denunciation of American society in ‘50s
for allowing public squalor and growing
private wealth to co-exist.
• In Britain, affluence captured by Harold
Macmillan’s phrase during 1959 G.E.,
‘Most of our people have never had it so
good’
Affluence
• Mass consumerism: new products,
widespread ownership of 1930s products,
new techniques.
• 1956, 8% of households had fridges, 69%
1971. TV’s rare early ‘50s, by 1971 91%
households. 1951 telephone still rare, by
1971, owned more than half of households.
Conclusion
• Britain 1880 or 1900 fundamentally
transformed by 1950
• Material progress widely, though not
equally, shared. Those excluded benefited
from universal safety net
• Smaller households, more income and
leisure time; new consumer products