Lecture 2: The Great War and Social Change

Question 1

What was the impact of WW1 on British society?

Answer 1

Wars catalyst for change associated with Arthur Marwick – central thesis is that WW1 brought about positive consequences – instrument for meaningful social change

Question 2

Robert Roberts -

Answer 2

working class boy during the war, lived in Salford in Manchester – old man in 1970s looking back at childhood

Question 3

Changes after the War:

Class (socio-economic) relationships:

Answer 3

• Social Class – better standard of living, initial disruption of the economy yet after that there was virtually full employment and money wages rose, health improvement brought about higher life expectancy, changing attitudes, united by patriotism such as war fever and a common enemy, many volunteers for the war

Question 4

Gender relationships:

Answer 4

• Gender relations – women employed in non-industrial jobs in office or transport work, expansion to industry grew in 1915 and 1916 as a result of inscription, more money = more leisure activities, largest single group to be granted the vote

Question 5

Changes in class relations:

Answer 5

• Continued industrial unrest (1916 onwards) – 2.5 million working days lost to strikes
• Not all workers did do well during the war
• Gains not universal
• Class divisions reinforced in military

Question 6

Changes in gender relations?

Answer 6

• Hostility from male colleagues
• Patronising attitude taken by the press
• Experiences affected by class status
• Changes not lasting – no permanent change for women
• Many women left jobs after war
• Despite women’s value – dismissed when men returned from the war

Question 7

Female suffrage:

Answer 7

• Contribution made by women during the war allowed reforms
• Women over 30
• Young and single excluded

Question 8

War as a stimulant for conservatism?

Answer 8

• Decline in population rate of growth
• Motherhood emphasised particularly as absent father during the war
• Human tragedy of war – 750,000 never returned

Question 9

Impact of war =

Answer 9

huge, political, welfare state, workforce, significance change to society

Question 10

Arthur Marwick = The Deluge (1965)

Answer 10

• “in cams state control, new prosperity, new self-confidence for families below the poverty line, challenge to established authorities”

Question 11

Robert Roberts = The Classic Slum (1971)

Answer 11

• “Things, people told each, will never be the same again”

- “began to confront their superiors”

Question 12

J.M. Winter = The Great War and the British People (1986)

Answer 12

“paradox of the Great War: despite the carnage, for non-combatants, health actually improved”

Question 13

A.L. Bowley = Has Poverty Diminished (1925)

Answer 13

• “Despite unemployment, proportion of those in poverty was just over half that of 1913. Needed a war to do it”

Question 14

Trade Unions:

Answer 14

4m trade union members in 1914

6. 5m in 1918
   1916: Britain lost 2.5m working days to strikes

Question 15

Changes in gender relations:

Answer 15

July 1914: 212,000 women employed in engineering and munitions industries
1918 - total was almost a million
More women in work at 1911 than in 1922
1918: 1m women employed in the metal and chemical trades, 1 1/4 million employed as domestic servants

Question 16

H.G. Wells (1916)

Answer 16

“those women have won the vote”

Question 17

DeGroot = Blighty, British Society in the era of the Great War (1996)

Answer 17

• “What is striking is how much of pre-war society survived”

Question 18

Peter Clarke = Hope and Glory (2004)

Answer 18

• War had not created vast new opportunities for women

Question 19

Sex Disqualification Act, 1919

Answer 19

Gave women access to legal professions and higher branches of civil service (generally this benefitted middle class women only)

Question 20

Restoration of Pre-War Practices Act, 1919

Answer 20

Excluded women from many of the jobs they had undertaken during the war

Question 21

Gender relations - Men

Answer 21

Recruitment of nearly 5m men, 1914-18 (22% male population)
Over 1.5m men permanently disabled, nearly 3/4 million British men died
1918 - “everywhere I turn I am looking on men with Broken bodies and women with broken hearts”
1,400 men, women and children killed by aerial bombardment 1915-1918