Austerity Britain

by David Kynaston

  10. Langford, 9 May 1945; St John, 8–9 May 1945; The Journals of Denton Welch (1984), p 191.

  11. Lees-Milne, p 188; The Second World War Diary of Hugh Dalton (1986), p 858; recollections of Michael Burns; Langford, 9 May 1945; Lewis, 9 May 1945; Heap, 9 May 1945; Fifty Years On (Radio 4, 23 May 1995); Heap, 9 May 1945.

  12. Kenneth Tynan, Letters (1994), pp 70–71; M-O A, FR 2263.

  2 Broad Vistas and All That

  1. The main source for this paragraph is A. H. Halsey (ed), Twentieth-Century British Social Trends (Basingstoke, 2000).

  2. Picture Post, 4 Jan 1941.

  3. Richard Bradford, Lucky Him (2001), p 52.

  4. F.W.S. Craig (ed), British General Election Manifestos (1975), pp 123–31; Asa Briggs, Michael Young (Basingstoke, 2001), p 69.

  5. Times Literary Supplement, 14 Jan 2000.

  6. John Vaizey, In Breach of Promise (1983), p 141; John Singleton, ‘Labour, the Conservatives and Nationalisation’, in Robert Millward and John Singleton (eds), The Political Economy of Nationalisation in Britain, 1920–1950 (Cambridge, 1995), p 17.

  7. Alan Deacon and Jonathan Bradshaw, Reserved for the Poor (Oxford, 1983), p 42; Nicholas Timmins, The Five Giants (2001), p 47; Jane Lewis, Women in Britain since 1945 (Oxford, 1992), p 21; Jeffrey Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society (Harlow, 1989), p 232; New Statesman, 6 Feb 1998 (Raymond Plant). Generally on the Beveridge Report, see: Rodney Lowe, The Welfare State in Britain since 1945 (Basingstoke, 1999), chap 6.1; Timmins, chaps 1–3.

  8. Ralf Dahrendorf, LSE (Oxford, 1995), p 385; Jim Kincaid, ‘Richard Titmuss 1907– 73’, in Paul Barker (ed), Founders of the Welfare State (1984), pp 114–20; Charles Webster, ‘Investigating Inequalities in Health before Black’, Contemporary British History (Autumn 2002), p 86; John E. Pater, The Making of the National Health Service (1981), p 78; Guardian, 20 May 1994 (Paul Addison).

  9. Times Educational Supplement, 24 Jul 1943; Gary McCulloch, Philosophers and Kings (Cambridge, 1991), p 61; TES, 24 Jul 1943.

  10. Financial News, 22 Jan 1934; Paul Oliver et al, Dunroamin (1981), pp 34–7, 46; George Orwell, Coming up for Air (Penguin edn, 1962), pp 13, 16; Thomas Sharp, Town Planning (1940), pp vii, 54, 57, 109; Independent, 19 Feb 2001; Architectural Review (Apr 1943), p 86; Gordon E. Cherry, Urban Change and Planning (Henley-on-Thames, 1972), p 163; Harold Wilson, The Governance of Britain (1976), p 54.

  11. F. J. Osborn, ‘Space Standards in Planning’, in Gilbert and Elizabeth Glen McAllister, Homes, Towns and Countryside (1945), p 101.

  12. Lionel Esher, A Broken Wave (1981), p 31; Patrick Dunleavy, The Politics of Mass Housing in Britain, 1945–1975 (Oxford, 1981), p 54; Picture Post, 4 Jan 1941; Architectural Review (May 1942), p 128; Sharp, Town Planning, pp 76, 78.

  13. Peter Hall, Cities of Tomorrow (Oxford, 2002), p 236; Arnold Whittick, F.J.O. (1987), p 74; Nicholas Bullock, ‘Plans for Post-war Housing in the UK’, Planning Perspectives (Jan 1987), pp 82, 78; Nick Tiratsoo et al, Urban Reconstruction in Britain and Japan, 1945–1955 (Luton, 2002), p 6.

  14. Junichi Hasegawa, Replanning the Blitzed City Centre (Buckingham, 1992), pp 50–52, 77–9; Hasegawa, ‘The Reconstruction of Portsmouth in the 1940s’, Contemporary British History (Spring 2000), pp 49–50; Nick Tiratsoo, ‘Labour and the Reconstruction of Hull, 1945–51’, in Tiratsoo (ed), The Attlee Years (1991), pp 127–31.

  15. Gordon E. Cherry, ‘Lessons from the Past’, Planning History, 11/3 (1989), pp 3–7; Tiratsoo et al, Urban Reconstruction, p 5; Cherry, ‘Lessons’, p 5; Brian Chalkley, ‘The Plan for the City Centre’, in Mark Brayshay (ed), Post-war Plymouth (Plymouth, 1983), pp 17–18, 27–8, 30.

  16. Architectural Review (Jan 1941), pp 31–2; Hasegawa, Replanning, p 32; Nick Tiratsoo, Reconstruction, Affluence and Labour Politics: Coventry 1945–60 (1990), p 13; Tiratsoo et al, Urban Reconstruction, p 17. In general on the reconstruction plans for Coventry, see: Tiratsoo, Reconstruction, Affluence and Labour Politics, chap 2. .

  17. Picture Post, 4 Jan 1941; Steven Fielding et al, ‘England Arise!’ (Manchester, 1995), pp 81–2.

  18. Jeremy Nuttall, ‘“Psychological Socialist”, “Militant Moderate”: Evan Durbin and the Politics of Synthesis’, Labour History Review (Aug 2003), pp 238, 241, 243; Stephen Brooke, ‘Evan Durbin: Reassessing a Labour “Revisionist”’, in Twentieth Century British History, 7/1 (1996), p 34; E.F.M. Durbin, The Politics of Democratic Socialism (1940), pp 330–31; Jim Tomlinson, ‘Planning: Debate and Policy in the 1940s’, Twentieth Century British History, 3/2 (1992), p 164. In general on Durbin, in addition to the above, see: Elizabeth Durbin, New Jerusalems (1985).

  19. Architectural Review (Feb 1942), p 40; James Lansdale Hodson, The Sea and the Land (1945), p 303; Deacon and Bradshaw, Reserved for the Poor, pp 32–4.

  20. The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Volume II (1968), p 104; M-O A, TC 2/2/J; Vere Hodgson, Few Eggs and No Oranges (Persephone edn, 1999), p 334; Mass-Observation, ‘Social Security and Parliament’, Political Quarterly (Jul–Sept 1943), pp 249, 246–7; John Jacobs, ‘December 1942: Beveridge Observed’, in John Jacobs (ed), Beveridge 1942–1992 (1992), pp 21–2; Tony Mason and Peter Thompson, ‘“Reflections on a Revolution”?’, in Tiratsoo, Attlee Years, p 57; Robert J. Wybrow, Britain Speaks Out, 1937–87 (Basingstoke, 1989), p 16; BBC WA, R9/9/9 – LR/3163.

  21. M-O A, FR 1162.

  22. José Harris, ‘Did British Workers Want the Welfare State?’, in Jay Winter (ed), The Working Class in Modern British History (Cambridge, 1983), p 214; Jacobs, ‘December 1942’, p 21; M-O, ‘Social Security’, p 253.

  23. George H. Gallup (ed), The Gallup International Public Opinion Polls: Great Britain 1937–1975, Volume One (New York, 1976), p 75; Express and Star, 22 Nov 1943.

  24. Hodson, Sea, pp 303, 348; Steven Fielding, ‘What Did “The People” Want?’, Historical Journal, 35/(1992), pp 627–8; Jacobs, ‘December 1942’, p 30.

  25. Wybrow, Britain Speaks Out, p 16; Singleton, ‘Labour’, pp 21–2; Rodney Lowe, ‘The Second World War, Consensus, and the Foundation of the Welfare State’, Twentieth Century British History, 1/2 (1990), p 175; The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Volume III (1968), p 226.

  26. Mass-Observation, The Journey Home (1944), pp 42, 96, 105, 109–10; M-O A, TC 3/1/F.

  27. M-O A, FR 1162.

  28. Architectural Review (Nov 1941), p 148; Naoki Motouchi and Nick Tiratsoo, ‘Max Lock, Middlesbrough, and a Forgotten Tradition in British Post-war Planning’, Planning History (2004), pp 17–20; Journal of the Town Planning Institute (Nov– Dec 1945), pp 1–5.

  29. Architectural Review (Apr 1943), p 88; Hasegawa, Replanning, pp 80–84; Peter J. Larkham, ‘Rebuilding the Industrial Town’, Urban History (Dec 2002), pp 401–2.

  30. Coventry Standard, 1 Mar 1941; Hasegawa, Replanning, p 39; Coventry Evening Telegraph, 15/19/21 Dec 1944; Mason and Thompson, ‘Reflections’, pp 63–4.

  31. Mass-Observation, ‘Some Psychological Factors in Home Building’, Town and Country Planning (Spring 1943), pp 8–9; Mass-Observation, People’s Homes (1943), pp 4–5, 219, 226; Architectural Review (Nov 1943), p 144.

  32. Mass-Observation, People’s Homes, p xix; Mrs M. Pleydell-Bouverie, Daily Mail Book of Britain’s Post-War Homes (1944), pp 19–20; R. E. Pahl, Divisions of Labour (Oxford, 1984), pp 321–2; Nick Tiratsoo, ‘The Reconstruction of Blitzed British Cities, 1945–55’, Contemporary British History (Spring 2000), p 39.

  33. Tiratsoo, ‘Blitzed’, p 38; Mark Clapson, Invincible Green Suburbs, Brave New Towns (Manchester, 1998), p 58; The Social Survey, Furniture (1945), pp 20–21.

  34. F. J. Osborn, New Towns After the War (1942), p 13; Picture Post, 18 Jan 1941.

  35. Mass-Observation, People’s Homes, pp xxiii, 226; Bullock, ‘Plans’, pp 78, 80; Pleydell-Bouverie, p 19.

  36. Dennis Chapman, A Social Survey of Middlesbrough (1945–6), pt II, pp 1, 3, 12; pt II, pp 9–10; pt III, pp 14, 24–32; pt IV, pp 1–5, 16.

  37. Mason and
Thompson, ‘Reflections’, pp 56–7; Lowe, ‘Consensus’, pp 177–8; Nicholas Joicey, ‘A Paperback Guide to Progress’, Twentieth Century British History 4/1 (1993), pp 41–4; Harold Nicolson, Diaries and Letters, 1939–1945 (1967), p 465; New Society, 25 Apr 1963; Ross McKibbin, Classes and Cultures (Oxford, 1998), pp 527–8; Picture Post, 18 Jan 1941; Adrian Smith, ‘The Fall and Fall of the Third Daily Herald, 1930–64’, in Peter Catterall et al (eds), Northcliffe’s Legacy (2000), pp 179–80.

  38. Lesley A. Hall, Sex, Gender and Social Change in Britain since 1880 (Basingstoke, 2000), pp 139–40; Eliot Slater and Moya Woodside, Patterns of Marriage (1951), pp 82–3, 249–54.

  3 Oh Wonderful People of Britain!

  1. The Diaries of Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart, Volume Two (1980), pp 439–40; Lang-ford, 22 May 1945; Haines, 16/19/26 May 1945; St John, 1 Jun 1945; Loftus, 7 Jun 1945.

  2. Edmund Wilson, The Forties (New York, 1983), p 107; Eric Parker, Surrey (1947), pp 105–9; Author (Winter 1996), p 137; The Rev. W. Awdry, The Three Railway Engines (1967), p 40; Guardian, 7 Jun 1995; Letters for a Life: The Selected Letters and Diaries of Benjamin Britten, 1913–1976, Volume Two (1991), p 1252.

  3. St John, 14 Jun 1945; Keith Waterhouse, City Lights (1994), p 170; Humphrey Carpenter, Dennis Potter (1998), pp 27–32.

  4. Michael Foot, Aneurin Bevan, Volume I (Granada edn, 1975), pp 503–4; Edward Pearce, Denis Healey (2002), p 54; Austin Mitchell, Election ’45 (1995), p 20.

  5. Martin Gilbert, ‘Never Despair’: Winston S. Churchill, 1945–1965 (1988), pp 32, 49; Haines, 4/5 Jun 1945; Robert Rhodes James, Bob Boothby (1991), p 330; Ursula Bloom, Trilogy (1954), pp 167–8; Thelma Cazalet-Keir, From the Wings (1967), p 124; Times Literary Supplement, 9 Jul 2004 (Angus Calder); News of the World, 1 Jul 1945; Paul Addison, ‘Churchill and the Price of Victory’, in Nick Tiratsoo (ed), From Blitz to Blair (1997), p 74.

  6. Julian Amery, Approach March (1973), p 438; Hugh Thomas, John Strachey (1973), p 223; Spectator, 15 Mar 2003 (Antonia Fraser); John Campbell, Margaret Thatcher, Volume One (2000), p 53; Among You Taking Notes . . . The Wartime Diary of Naomi Mitchison (1985), p 327; Anne Perkins, Red Queen (2003), p 78; Simon Hoggart and David Leigh, Michael Foot (1981), pp 90–91; Chaplin, 7/3/1, 8 Jul 1945; Tottenham and Edmonton Weekly Herald, 22/29 Jun 1945.

  7. Luton News, 21/28 Jun 1945, 5 Jul 1945.

  8. Lord Elwyn-Jones, In My Time (1983), p 84; Mitchell, Election ’45, p 44; Nina Bawden, In My Own Time (1994), p 77.

  9. M-O A, FR 2270A; Mass-Observation, ‘Post-Mortem on Voting at the Election’, Quarterly Review (Jan 1946), p 59; The Complete Works of George Orwell, Volume 17 (1998), p 192; Wilson, The Forties, pp 109–10; Tony Mason and Peter Thompson, ‘“Reflections on a Revolution”?’, in Nick Tiratsoo (ed), The Attlee Years (1991), p 64. .

  10. Manchester Guardian, 4 Jul 1945; Langford, 5 Jul 1945; The Correspondence of H. G. Wells:, Volume 4 (1998), p 523; Independent, 30 Jun 2003; Mitchell, Election ’45, p 78; Loftus, 5 Jul 1945; St John, 5 Jul 1945; Ferguson, 5 Jul 1945; News of the World, 8 Jul 1945; Pathe Newsreel, circa 10 Jul 1945.

  11. News of the World, 8 Jul 1945; Nella Last’s War (Bristol, 1981), p 293; James Hinton, ‘Militant Housewives’, History Workshop (Autumn 1994), p 132; Haines, 14 Jul 1945; Selected Letters of André Gide and Dorothy Bussy (Oxford, 1983), p 243; Tottenham and Edmonton Weekly Herald, 20 Jul 1945.

  12. Brown, 2/4, 12 Jul 1945; Osborn, p 88; M-O A, FR 2270B.

  13. David Kynaston, The City of London, Volume III (1999), pp 508–9; M-O A, FR 2270A.

  14. Lockhart, p 473; Kenneth O. Morgan, ‘Wales since 1945’, in Trevor Herbert and Gareth Elwyn Jones (eds), Post-War Wales (Cardiff, 1995), p 10; Mitchison, Among You, pp 334–5; Selina Hastings, Evelyn Waugh (1994), p 495; Walter Allen, As I Walked Down New Grub Street (1981), pp 103–4.

  15. Tony Benn, Years of Hope (1994), p 91; Francis Beckett, Clem Attlee (1997), p 198; William Harrington and Peter Young, The 1945 Revolution (1978), p 192.

  16. A.J.P. Taylor, Beaverbrook (1972), p 568; Anthony Howard, ‘“We Are The Masters Now”’, in Michael Sissons and Philip French (eds), Age of Austerity (Oxford, 1986), p 3; James Agate, Ego 8 (1946), p 184.

  17. Loftus, 26 Jul 1945; King, 26 Jul 1945; Heap, 27 Jul 1945; Nella Last’s War, p 298; Haines, 26 Jul 1945; Harrington and Young, 1945, p 189; Michael Ignatieff, Isaiah Berlin (1998), p 134; Peter J. Conradi, Iris Murdoch (2001), p 211; Dylan Thomas, The Collected Letters (2000), p 624; The Nightfisherman: Selected Letters of W. S. Graham (Manchester, 1999), p 51.

  18. Pamela Street, Arthur Bryant (1979), p 132; John Gale, Clean Young Englishman (1988), p 84; The Noël Coward Diaries (1982), p 36.

  19. Gilbert, ‘Never Despair’, pp 113, 115; Mark Garnett, Alport (1999), p 66; Horizon (Sept 1945), p 149; The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Volume III (1968), pp 446–7.

  20. Retrospective explanations include: Henry Pelling, ‘The 1945 General Election Reconsidered’, Historical Journal, 23/2 (1980), pp 399–414; Gary McCulloch, ‘Labour, the Left, and the British General Election of 1945’, Journal of British Studies (Oct 1985), pp 465–89; Geoffrey K. Fry, ‘A Reconsideration of the British General Election of 1935 and the Electoral Revolution of 1945’, History (Feb 1991), pp 43–55; Steven Fielding, ‘What Did “The People” Want?’, Historical Journal, 35/(1992), pp 623–39; Stephen Brooke, ‘The Labour Party and the 1945 General Election’, Contemporary Record (Summer 1995), pp 1–21; Michael David Kandiah, ‘The Conservative Party and the 1945 General Election’, Contemporary Record (Summer 1995), pp 22–47.

  21. Kandiah, ‘Conservative Party’, p 106.

  22. Orwell, Volume III, pp 447–8; The Times, 15 Dec 1990; Uttin, 29 Jul 1945.

  23. John K. Walton, Blackpool (Edinburgh, 1998), p 139; Heap, 29 Jul 1945; Radio Times, 27 Jul 1945; Harold Nicolson, The Later Years, 1945–1962: Diaries and Letters, Volume III (1968), p 30; Christopher Mayhew, Time to Explain (1987), p 88; Gaitskell, p 7.

  24. Brown, 1/15, 2 Aug 1945; Lord Taylor of Mansfield, Uphill All The Way (1972), p 138; Lockhart, p 477; Richard Rose, ‘Class and Party Divisions’, Sociology (May 1968), p 131.

  25. News Chronicle, 7 Aug 1945; Radio Times, 3 Aug 1945; Norris McWhirter, Ross (1976), pp 59–60; Heap, 6 Aug 1945.

  26. BBC WA, Home Service, 6 Aug 1945; Bloom, Trilogy, p 159; Elizabeth Longford, The Pebbled Shore (1986), p 226; Joan Wyndham, Love is Blue (1986), p 189; Canon L. John Collins, Faith under Fire (1966), pp 98–9.

  27. Martin Stannard, Evelyn Waugh: No Abiding City, 1939–1966 (1992), p 151; Joyce & Ginnie: The Letters of Joyce Grenfell and Virginia Graham (1997), p 134; Noël Coward Diaries, p 37; Frances Spalding, Vanessa Bell (1983), p 328; Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (1981), p 116; Ferguson, 8 Aug 1945; Langford, 7 Aug 1945.

  28. St John, 7/9 Aug 1945; Nella Last’s War, pp 302–4.

  29. Langford, 14 Aug 1945; Nella Last’s War, p 305–6; Loftus, 14/15 Aug 1945; Merthyr Express, 18 Aug 1945.

  30. Headlam, p 475; Haines, 15–16 Aug 1945; Uttin, 15 Aug 1945; Langford, 15 Aug 1945; Heap, 15 Aug 1945.

  31. Osborn, pp 92, 95; Grantham Journal, 17 Aug 1945.

  4 We’re So Short of Everything

  1. Tribune, 14/28 Dec 1945. On the tour itself, see: Ronald Kowalski and Dilwyn Porter, ‘Political Football’, International Journal of the History of Sport (Aug 1997), pp 100–21.

  2. Accrington Observer, 8/12 Jan 1946; Rogan Taylor and Andrew Ward, Kicking and Screaming (1995), p 60; Andrew Ward, Armed with a Football (Oxford, 1994), pp 2–9; Heap, 4 Oct 1945; Ford, 21 Sept 1945; Joanna Bourke, Working-Class Cultures in Britain 1890–1960 (1994), p 186; Ted Kavanagh, Tommy Handley (1949), pp 199–200; King, 29 Apr 1946; Kevin Brownlow, David Lean (1996), p 203. On ITMA, see also Denis Gifford, The Golden Age of Radio (1985), p 134; John Gross, A Double Thread (2001), p 79.

  3. William Glock, Notes in Advance (Oxford, 1991), p 40; Independent, 4 Aug 1995 (Bryan Robertson); Golden, 12 Mar 1946; Bryan Appleyard, The Pleasures of Peace (1989), p 56; Ta
tler, 7 Nov 1945; Chips: The Diaries of Sir Henry Channon (1967), p 414.

  4. Barry Turner and Tony Rennell, When Daddy Came Home (1995), pp 61, 95, 100.

  5. Elizabeth Wilson, Only Halfway to Paradise (1980), p 22; Jane Lewis, Women in Britain since 1945 (Oxford, 1992), p 17; Cynthia L. White, Women’s Magazines, 1693–1968 (1970), pp 135–6; Guardian, 8 Nov 1999; Janice Winship, ‘Nation Before Family’, in Formations of Nation and People (1984), p 196; Haines, 3 Mar 1946; Heap, 21 Mar 1946; James Lansdale Hodson, The Way Things Are (1947), p 278.

  6. The Times, 18 Dec 2003; Independent, 16 Feb 1989; The Times, 23 Oct 2000; Independent, 26 Oct 2000.

  7. Muriel Bowmer Papers (Department of Documents, Imperial War Museum), vol 5, fols 1099, 1118; Barbara Pym, A Very Private Eye (1984), p 249; The New Yorker, 1 Dec 1945; George Beardmore, Civilians at War (1984), p 200; Gerard Mooney, ‘Living on the Periphery’ (PhD, University of Glasgow, 1988), p 218.