From rationing to consumerism: economic recovery and the impact of growing affluence – social change in post war Britain

Question 1

Immigration

Answer 1

• 1948 The ‘Empire Windrush’ reached Britain, carrying the first immigrants from Britain’s Caribbean possessions.
• There was plenty of work in the UK for the new arrivals, but the Caribbeans first clashed with the natives over the issue of accommodation.
• Excluded from much of the social and economic life around them, they began to adjust the institutions they brought with them - the churches, and a co-operative method of saving called the ‘pardner’ system.
• Caribbeans began to participate in institutions to which they did have access: trade unions, local councils, and professional and staff associations.

Question 2

The wind rush

Answer 2

• The UK recruited displaced people ‘European Volunteer Workers’ in order to provide labour to industries that were required in order to aid economic recovery after the war .e.g. in the 1951 census, the Polish-born population of the UK was 162,000
• Indians began arriving in the UK in large numbers shortly after their country gained independence in 1947. e.g. 60,000 arrived before 1955, many of whom drove buses, or worked in foundries or textile factories.
• 250,000 Poles fought with Britain in WW2. Over 100,000 stayed permanently.
• There was also an influx of refugees from Hungary, following the crushing of the 1956 Hungarian revolution, numbering 20,990

Question 3

Reactions to immigration

Answer 3

• The White Defence League was founded in Notting Hill in 1956.
• It encouraged its members to go on ‘Nigger hunts’, to intimidate immigrant families and to attack mixed race couples.
• From the early 1950s, ‘Teddy Boys’ began to turn hostile towards the growing numbers of Black families in London and Birmingham.
• Right-wing groups exploited the situation. Fascist groups such as the Union for British Freedom set up branches in the district.
• Sir Oswald Mosely, founder of the pre-war British Union of Fascists, held street-corner meetings in west London and further afield. Leaflets and wall slogans urged ‘Keep Britain White’.

Question 4

1958: The Notting Hill race riots

Answer 4

• summer of 1958, gangs of Teddy Boys became increasingly open about their aggressive intentions toward anyone who was Black
• After two weeks of civil unrest in Nottingham, rioting erupted in Notting Hill. It began at around midnight on 30 August and lasted a week. Crowds of up to 400 white youths chased Caribbeans in North Kensington.
• Trouble spread to Paddington, Notting Dale, Shepherd’s Bush and Marylebone. The police eventually reasserted control and the disorder died out on 5 September.
• The nation generally was shocked at the events and the riots sparked long-running debates about racial prejudice, community harmony and the scale of commonwealth immigration in the inner cities.
• Although the rioting calmed down, racial ill-feeling continued to simmer in North Kensington.

Question 5

1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act

Answer 5

1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act- Until the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, all Commonwealth citizens could enter and stay in the UK without any restriction. The Act made Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKCs), whose passports were not directly issued by the UK Government (i.e., passports issued by the Governor of a colony or by the Commander of a British protectorate), subject to immigration control.

Question 6

The affluent society?

Answer 6

• I The Tories were lucky as they came to power at the same time that Britain’s post-war Economic position was starting to improve.
• Men’s weekly wage improved from £8.30 in 1951 to £15.35 in 1961
• This sparked a huge increase in private savings at all levels of society.
• Labour’s subsidies for agriculture had led to a huge increase in production – by 1954 food rationing could be abandoned.
• Private home ownership doubled between 1951-61.

Question 7

Housing 1950 onwards

Answer 7

• The Tories built an average of 300,000 new homes per year between 1951-64.
• This fuelled an exodus from the old slum areas of Britain.
• The first ‘high-rise’ apartments were built in order to replace slums.
• Labour’s new towns were greatly expanded and large sections of Essex, Surrey and Sussex became home to developments for re-housed Londoners.

Question 8

Media 1950’s onwards

Answer 8

• It was during the 1950s that the media and businesses ‘invented’ a new, distinct demographic: the teenager
• The decade witnessed the development of a specific teenage culture - the rock n roll era.

Question 9

The ‘Mods’

Answer 9

Mod is a subculture that began in 1960s Britain and spread, in varying degrees, to other countries and continues today on a smaller scale. Focused on music and fashion, the subculture has its roots in a small group of London-based stylish young men in the late 1950s who were termed modernists because they listened to modern jazz, although the subculture expanded to include women.

Question 10

The ‘rockers’

Answer 10

The rocker subculture was centred on motorcycling, and their appearance reflected that. Rockers generally wore protective clothing such as black leather jackets and motorcycle boots (although they sometimes wore brothel creeper shoes). The common rocker hairstyle was a pompadour, while their music genre of choice was 1950s rock and roll, played by artists like Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, and Bo Diddley.

Question 11

Popular entertainment

Answer 11

• The Ealing studios were at their most prolific in the 1950s, making a series of classic films such as the biting social satire, ‘I’m alright Jack’, about the failings in British industry.
• National service often gave opportunities to people from working class backgrounds to break into the world of entertainment.
• Beatles 1960s onwards
• The 1950s saw several ex-national servicemen break through to begin to define popular culture:
• The Goon show, Hancock’s Half hour

Question 12

Private eye

Answer 12

• 25th October 1961.
• In the Autumn of 1961, Cook’s impression of MacMillan

Fresh from this triumph, the 24-year-old Cook opened Britain’s first satirical nightclub, The Establishment, to ape the political cabarets of 1930s Berlin which, as he points out, “did so much to prevent the rise of Adolf Hitler.”

-He then founded the satirical magazine, Private, which was merciless towards establishment figures.

Question 13

The Profumo affair 1963

Answer 13

At a party at the country estate of Lord Astor on July 8, 1961,
-British Secretary of State for War John Profumo [cons]

• 19-year-old London dancer Christine Keeler.
• Profumo began an affair with Keeler, and rumours of their involvement soon began to spread. In March 1963 Profumo lied about the affair to Parliament, stating that there was “no impropriety whatsoever” in his relationship with Keeler.
• Profumo resigned, admitting “with deep remorse” that he had deceived the House of Commons.
• Prime Minister Macmillan continued in office until October, but the scandal was pivotal in his eventual downfall
• Labour Party defeated the Conservatives in a national election.