T1 Social Cultural Flashcards
1
Q
The ‘Ruling Establishment’
A
- The ‘Establishment’ was a term for the informal networks that connected the political and social
ruling elite within Britain. - These were privileged people (overwhelmingly male) who traditionally held all the wealth,
influence, and power in Britain. - The British ruling ‘establishment’ included the aristocracy and the highest-ranking politicians, civil
servants, judges, bishops, diplomats, police, officers in the armed forces, and the leaders of
business and the media. - Most were very well off, but wealth was less important than background and connections.
- The natural progression for members of the establishment was to attend the most exclusive public
schools like Eton or Harrow, then attend university at either Oxford or Cambridge, and then to
enter high-ranking positions of power, authority, and influence. - Given that members of the ruling ‘establishment’ had often been to the same expensive public
schools and then attended Oxbridge [Oxford or Cambridge University], the ‘establishment’ is
sometimes called ‘the-old-boys network’.
2
Q
Criticism of The ‘Ruling Establishment’
A
- Critics of the establishment believed that Britain was being held back by its ruling social elite.
- The perception of the ruling elite was that it: emphasised arts education in preference to science;
blocked talent from the outside; and tried to hide its own mistakes. - What ‘class-ridden’ Britain needed it was argued, were leaders who had earned their positions
through their personal merit and who better understood the modern, technical age in which they
were living. - This is something Harold Wilson’s Labour Party would exploit in the 1964 General Election with
his emphasis on ‘The White Heat of Technology’.
3
Q
The Rise of Political Satire
A
- By 1960 there was also a political ‘satire boom’. Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and
Alan Bennett made a big impact with their satirical stage show called, Beyond the Fringe. - From 1961, the political satirical magazine, Private Eye, rapidly established a loyal following for its
witty disrespect for the great and famous. - In 1962, the ground-breaking political satire TV show, The Week That Was, made its debut on BBC
television satirising and lampooning public figures.
4
Q
1950s Writers – Angry Young Men
A
- By the late 1950s a group of writers, who came to be known as ‘angry young men’, led the way in
using the arts to attack the behaviour and attitudes of the established upper and middle classes. - The first of these was a play called, Look Back in Anger, by John Osborne, staged in 1956. It was
very controversial. - These ‘angry young men’ became a term given to a group of writers who rebelled against
traditional theatre and literature to produce plays and books that, they felt, reflected
contemporary society. T - heir writing was sarcastic, bitter, and often bleak in outlook. Mundane settings and everyday
language was used to show contemporary Britain. - As well as John Osborne’s play Look Back in Anger (1956), other notable works include: John
Braine’s Room at the Top (1957); Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party (1958); Alan Sillitoe’s Saturday
Night and Sunday Mornings (1958); David Storey’s This Sporting Life (1960); and Stan Barstow’s A
Kind of Loving (1960).
5
Q
The Position of 1950s Women
A
- In 1951, women lives were restricted by the traditional values and expectations of being a good
wife and mother were the social norm. - Average married age at the age of 21 and 75% of women were married, while 20% of women
worked. - Family allowance was meant to ensure that mothers did not need to work, designed to secure full
employment for men and support nuclear family ideals. - The husband controlled family finances as mortgages and bank accounts were in men’s names.
- Trade Unions generally against women working – fears that this could lower wages and impact on
children. - However, labour saving devices such as washing machines (one marketed as ‘the Liberator’) made
life easier for the women who could afford them, however by the end of the 1960’s this did not
prevent second wave feminism arguing against the idea women were trapped by domestic roles.
6
Q
Race Relations
A
- At Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953, there was evident enthusiasm for the British
Commonwealth ideal. - The British Commonwealth referred to those countries Britain once ruled that use to be part of
the British Empire. - The New Commonwealth referred to those countries which had recently gained independence
like India, Pakistan, the West Indies and so forth. - The Old Commonwealth referred to the older white colonies settled by the British like Canada,
Australia, and New Zealand.
7
Q
The Empire Windrush (1948)
A
- The ship called, the Empire Windrush, sailed from Kingston, Jamaica, to London in May 1948,
carrying 492 migrant workers seeking a new life in Britain. - About 75% of them were male, working to support their families back home.
- Although the number of migrants were small, the Windrush voyage became a symbol of a new
wave of Afro-Caribbean immigration into Britain from the New Commonwealth. - Between 1948 and 1958, about 250,000 immigrants arrived in Britain from the West Indies and
other parts of the New Commonwealth like the Indian subcontinent. - There was also continuing flows of arrivals from the Irish republic.
- Under existing laws, they had the full rights of British citizenship.
- The official welcome they received was a warm one. Cinema newsreels enthusiastically recorded
the event and assured the newcomers that they would soon find jobs and a home. - The government had encouraged these arrivals to settle in Britain, to help with the labour
shortage and to fill vacancies, principally in hospital and transport services. - British public attitudes towards immigration were mixed. For some there was a general feeling of
tolerance and ‘getting along’. - But there were many unpleasant examples of outright racism from the host communities and
instances of friction and resentment against the new arrivals. - The authorities regarded immigration as economically desirable (immigrants filled many low wage
jobs) and hoped that the social tensions would gradually ease with time.
8
Q
White British Emigration
A
- At the same time there was considerable outward migration from Britain.
- In the 1950s, Australia was particularly keen to attract new citizens from Britain, offering assisted
passages and help with jobs and housing. - There was also a steady flow of British emigrants to North America. In the 1950s, Britain received
a total of 676,000 immigrants seeking permanent residence, while at the same time, 1,320,000
Britons left for life abroad. - By the 1960s, the total inward migration was 1.25 million and the outward emigration was 1.92
million.
9
Q
The Notting Hill Riots (1958)
A
- By the late 1950s, racial tensions began to rise.
- In 1958 there were outbreaks of violence in the Notting Hill area of London. It was an area with a
large concentration of people from the Caribbean. - The area was very run-down and unscrupulous landlords exploited tenants with overcrowded and
badly maintained housing. At first, the violence was mostly with youths attacking West Indians;
gangs of white youths went on what they called ‘nigger hunts’ after pub brawls. - Later there was some concerted violence in the other direction. The police were unprepared and
lacked experience in dealing with a race riot. - In August 1958, the most disturbing incident in Notting Hill occurred when a crowd of over 600
white males tried to batter their way into black-owned properties. - Television newsreels showed disturbing scenes of police battling to keep white and black mobs
apart, while the fire services struggled to quench the fires started by the throwing of petrol
bombs. - To quell the trouble, at least in the short term, severe prison sentences were imposed on the
white ringleaders who were found guilty of inciting the disturbances. - The racist leader of British fascism, Oswald Mosley, tried to use the issue by standing at the Union
Movement candidate in the 1959 General Election for the Kensington North constituency, which
included the area of Notting Hill, on a platform of repatriation [the returning of immigrants to
their home countries].
10
Q
Kelso Cochrane Murder (1959)
A
- In May 1959, Kelso Cochrane, a West Indian man, was stabbed to death in the street by a group
of six whites. - Despite witness statements being collected, no charges were brought, a situation that led many
immigrants to fear that the law would not really protect them.
11
Q
The Salmon Report & Factors
A
- The Macmillan Conservative government also set up an official inquiry into the disturbances under
Lord Salmon to examine the underlying reasons for the 1958 Notting Hill Riots. - Sexual jealousy of young white males who resented white women going out with black males.
- The anger of whites at the willingness of blacks to work for low wages.
- Bitterness at the rise of rents which, whites believed, were a result of the readiness of blacks to
live in cramped conditions and, therefore, pay higher collective rents than individual whites could
afford. - There were white ‘teddy boys’ who used violence against immigrants because they wanted to become ‘local heroes’ to whites fearful of the growing number of black residents.
- The Salmon Report approached the riots very much as a law and order issue.
- It put the problem down to increased immigration and made no overt references to the racism
and discrimination suffered by immigrants.
12
Q
The 1962 Commonwealth Immigration Act
A
- The racial violence brought to national attention a problem that many politicians would have
preferred to leave alone. - There had been reluctance to use legislation to control immigration from British New
Commonwealth countries with such close historic links to Britain. - The government now, however, had interpreted the 1958 Notting Hill Riots as a sign that New
Commonwealth immigrant numbers had to be controlled. - Therefore, in 1962, the Commonwealth Immigration Act was passed.
- One consequence of the introduction of the 1962 Commonwealth Immigration Act was that as it
was being prepared there was a rush of immigrants into the period before it come into force. - Between 1960 and 1962, over 230,000 more New Commonwealth citizens arrived in Britain.
- This in fact marked in fact an immigration peak, but it was such numbers, in a short space of time,
that fuelled the anxieties of those who called for a complete block on entry. - This proved a highly controversial measure and was condemned in many quarters as being racist
since it placed restrictions on would-be entrants to Britain according to their ethnic origins. - The Labour Party strongly opposed the 1962 Act, but did not repeal [remove] it after the 1964
General Election.
13
Q
A Patriarchal Society
A
- In the 1950s women were seen primarily as housewives and mothers.
- Very few women made it into senior positions in industry, commerce, the civil service or politics.
Women MPs, particularly in the Conservative Party, constitutes only a tiny minority. - The young, Margaret Thatcher, turned down as a Conservative candidate for the safe seat of
Orpington, largely because the local party doubted whether she could look after young children
and stand for election, concluded that her political ambitions should be put on hold for several
years. - The 1950s average marriage age for a woman was 21 years-old and 75% of all women were
married. Women were expected to be virgins, and most were, upon marriage. - In the traditional values of the time, sex-outside-of-marriage, adultery and abortions were social
taboos that could lead to the shaming and shunning of women, within their own family and by
the local community. - The priority for newly married women was to have, and then raise, children.
- A household’s mortgages and bank accounts would be in men’s names only making women
financially dependent upon their husbands. - Family Allowance (later renamed Child Benefit in 1977) was paid directly to mothers, and it was
supposed to ensure that women did not need to work and the welfare state assumed the nuclear
family [a married couple with two children] and full employment for men.
14
Q
Unequal Pay
A
- Although by 1964 the number of women working had risen, but it was still relatively uncommon
for married women, especially those with children, to go out to work. - Between 1951 and 1961 the percentage of women within the workforce did rise, but only from
26% to 35%. That average female wages were less than two-thirds those of men was less
surprising than the fact that this was widely held, not least by women themselves, to be right and
proper. - The trade unions tended not to support women working as they believed that it would lower male
worker wages. Many people believed that it would be damaging for children if their mother
worked. For those women who did work there were some improvements, though mainly for
middle-class women working in public-sector professions such as equal pay for teachers (1952)
and civil servants (1954) were introduced.
15
Q
Labour-Saving Consumer Goods
A
- Women’s lives, however, in the home were improved by new labour-saving devices.
- Between 1957 and 1959 the number of households owning a washing machine rose by 54% and
a refrigerator by 58%. One Hotpoint washing machine was even called ‘The Liberator’. - Without the washing machine, washing clothes would take a whole day and without a fridge,
women needed to shop for fresh food every day.
