Twentieth

Century
Britain

L3 S5 Civilisation britannique (CM)

T. A. Heron – 2018-2019
 Twentieth Century Britain

Dr. Tim A. Heron

Contact: t.heron@unistra.fr

Moodle
 Twentieth Century Britain

• CM: 12 hours

• TD: 12 hours

• 1 mid-term exam: written (week 9 or 10)

• 1 final exam: oral

 Twentieth Century Britain

• Attend lectures & classes

• Pay attention & take notes

• Read over your notes at home

• Personal research
 Twentieth Century Britain

• Be respectful

• Computers tolerated if they are used for work

• Avoid checking your phones

Great Britain

England
+ Wales
+ Scotland
The United Kingdom today

England
+ Wales
+ Scotland
+ Northern Ireland
 The British Isles

England
+Wales
+ Scotland
+ Northern Ireland
+The Republic of Ireland
The United Kingdom in
1901

England
+Wales
+ Scotland
+ Ireland
Edwardian Britain
1900-1914
 Victoria
(1837-1901)
Edward VII
(1821-1910)
Lily Langtry
• Edwardian era: 1901-1914
I. Edwardian society
1. A unique, urban society

• 1871: 33% population in big cities >100,000 ppl

• 1901: 44%
• London in 1851: > 2 million ppl
1. A unique, urban society

• 1911: only 11% ppl work in agriculture

• (USA 31%, Germany 37%; France 43%)
2. Technology and Transportation
• 1882: first demo of electric ligthing
(Birmingham)
• 1901: 1st transatlantic radio message in England
• 1885: 1st British car
• 1914: 132,000 cars registered
• 1900-1939: tarring of roads
2. Technology and
Transportation

• 1863: the London

Underground
• 1909: 1st recognized
airplane flight in
England.
• Luxury transatlantic
passenger lines
• Blue Riband award
3. Hierarchy
a. Upper class / Nobility

• Nobility = aristocracy + gentry

• Edwardian era: still powerful, but slow decline
ITV, 2010-2015
a. Upper class / Nobility

• debts
• taxes: new property taxes & “death duties”
• decline of country houses
• 1,200 closed/demolished 1918-1975
• National Trust
a. Upper class / Nobility

• expansion of institutions with a meritocratic

ethos
• Liberal party: anti-aristocracy
• 1908: PM Herbert Asquith
a. Upper class / Nobility

• New plutocratic élite

• 1895-1914: 30 men left who left over £2 million:
only 3 are nobles
• 19th c: 10% of new lords associated with
commerce & industry
• 1905-1911: 40%
a. Upper class / Nobility
Winston Churchill
a. Upper class / Nobility

• Still led “Society”

• Life of luxury
b. Middle Classes

• Upper
• Lower
b. Middle Classes

• 7x more clerks in
1911 than in 1861
• 1911: 14%
population
= lower middle class
jobs
• 1/3 women
• “daily”
c. Working Classes

• manual labour
• skilled vs unskilled
• labour aristocracy vs “sweated industries”
(finishing trades, tailoring, toy-making…)
• 40% families: same occupation as parents
d. Living conditions of the working-classes

• Over 50% of wages spent on food

• Food healthier, more diverse
• The poorest: undernourished
• Rent 20-30%
• Fuel / light 10%
• Clothing 5%
d. Living conditions of the working-classes

• pawn shops
• no unemployment benefits
• no state insurance => private insurance
(medical / funeral costs)
 Charles Booth
Life and Labour of the People in
London, 1889-1903
One of Charles Booth’s “poverty maps” of London
No. 7 Rydal Street: upper. 3 rooms, 4 persons. Man, wife and 2
children. Labourer (nominal). A family of professional beggars.
Always moving to escape rent. Lazy and filthy.

No. 6 Cleveland Terraces. 4 rooms, 7 persons. Man, wife and 5

children. Was in gasworks. Met with an accident and now cannot
work. Clean respectable people. Great poverty.

No 1 Latin Place South. Cottage. Rooms 2, Persons 8. Man, wife

and 6 young children. Gardener, out of work. Wife lately
confined. Semi-starvation. Is helped by charity.

No. 2 Latin Place South. Cottage. Rooms 2, Persons 5. Man,

wife and 3 young children. Paralysed. Wife does mangling.
Dreadful poverty.
Benjamin Seebohm
Rowntree
Poverty: a study of
town life, 1901
d. Living conditions of the working-classes

• York: 1/3 of the population = poor

• “The wages paid for unskilled labour in York

are insufficient to provide food, shelter, and
clothing adequate to maintain a family of
moderate size in a state of bare physical
efficiency.”
Poverty: a study of town life, 1901
Causes of poverty:
• born into poverty
• old age (no pensions)
• unemployment
• death of a wage earner in the family
• illness
• low wages
• large families
• competition with Germany & the USA
d. Living conditions of the working-classes

• Victorians: philanthropy & private charity:

“voluntaryism”
• “deserving poor”
• poor / workhouses: not effective
• Change of attitude: poverty = social, not
individual problem
d. Living conditions of the working-classes

• Cadburys in Birmingham
• Rowntrees in York
• Quakers
Bournville, 1909
d. Living conditions of the working-classes

• Local councils begin to invest

• from £30M in 1871 to £161M by 1913
Edwardian society:
• urban

• hierarchical & unequal

 slow decline of nobility

• poverty
 social, not individual problem
 state should intervene
II. Edwardian politics
1. Working class politics

• 1832 Great Reform Act = disappointment

• 1905-1914?
• 40% men without the vote
• all women without the vote
1. Working class politics

• no collective workers’ voice in Parliament

• trade union (TU)
• “Trade union, also called labour union,
association of workers in a particular trade,
industry, or company created for the purpose of
securing improvements in pay, benefits, working
conditions, or social and political status through
collective bargaining”
Encyclopaedia Britannica
1. Working class politics

• TU members in 1901: 2 million

• TU members in 1913: 4,1 million
1. Working class
politics

• TUs funded Liberal

Party candidates
• Strikes
• 1888: Annie Besant
& the matchgirls’
strike
1. Working class
politics

• TUs funded Liberal

Party candidates
• Strikes
• 1888: Annie Besant
& the matchgirls’
strike
1. Working class politics
• an era of strikes
• mining, transportation & shipbuilding
1. Working class politics

• socialism
• “an economic system in which goods and
services are provided through a central system
of cooperative and/or government ownership
rather than through competition and a free
market system”
Business Dictionary
1. Working class politics

• 1884 Social Democratic Federation

• 1884 Fabian Society (more middle class)
George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells; Virginia Woolf…
1. Working class politics

• 1888 Scottish Labour Party

• 1893 Independent Labour Party
• 1892 Keir Hardie = 1st ever Labour MP
• 1900 Labour Representation Committee => the
Labour Party (1906)
1. Working class politics

• Conservative party (Tories)

• country gentry, traditional hierarchical society,
Empire, Church of England, army...
• Liberal party
• industrialists, religious nonconformists, free
market, (limited) social & electoral reform
1. Working class politics

feel threatened by Labour

 secret Lib-Lab pact
• constituency
1. Working class politics

• 1906: Labour wins 29 seats

• 1910: Labour wins 40 seats
• 1914 : only 30,000 members still.
• (1922: Labour = second largest party.)
1. Working class politics

Edwardian era:
• increasing class-consciousness
• but divisions
• 1914: over 75% ppl not in TUs
• still need to rely on Lib-Lab alliance
2. Liberal government (1906-1915)

• Conservatives in power 1885-1905

• 1906 general elections
 landslide
2. Liberal government
(1906-1915)

Prime Ministers (PM)

• Henry Campbell-
Bannerman, 1905-1908

• H. H. Asquith, 1908-
1916
 David Lloyd George
Chancellor of the
Exchequer (1908-1915)

“New Liberalism”
state-directed social reform
& redistribution of wealth
by taxation
2. Liberal government (1906-1915)

• 1901 Taff Vale case: employers can sue TUs

• 1906 Trades Dispute Act
• 1907 Free school meals
• 1908: Coal Mines Regulation Act
• 1908: Old age pensions
2. Liberal government (1906-1915)

• Needed extra £16 million a year.

• Increase of taxes
• “Death duties”
• “Super-tax”
“People’s Budget”
Conservative furious
• H. H. Asquith
Winston Churchill
2. Liberal government (1906-1915)

• Conservatives furious
=> intend to block the budget
 Bill

House of Commons (HoC)

House of Lords (HoL)

Royal assent

Act of Parliament
2. Liberal government (1906-1915)

• Lords reject Budget bill 350 votes to 75

• Lloyd George’s Parliament Bill:
- if a bill is voted in the HoC 3 times, the HoL
veto block it: only delay it for two years
- a budget or finance bill can never be delayed
• 29 April 1910: People’s Budget is passed
 David Lloyd George
“How could anyone defend the
Constitution in its present form? No
country in the world would look at
our system - no free country, I
mean... France has a Senate, the
United States has a Senate, the
Colonies have Senates, but they are
all chosen either directly or
indirectly by the people.”
• constitutional crisis
• Edward VI dies
06/05/1910
• George V
(1910-1936)
2. Liberal government (1906-1915)

• Lloyd George threatens Conservatives to ask the

King to create Liberal Lords
• 10 August 1911: Parliament Act was passed by
131 votes to 114 in the House of Lords.
• Huge constitutional change
• Another sign of decline of the nobility
2. Liberal government (1906-1915)

• 1909 labour exchanges

• 1911 National Insurance Bill
unemployment benefits (for some)
 sick leave
 some help for medical treatment & maternity
care
 ancestor of modern welfare state
concerns 70% of the work force—their families
and the unwaged not covered
2. Liberal government (1906-1915)

 ancestor of modern welfare state

“concept of government in which the state […]
plays a key role in the protection and promotion
of the economic and social well-being of citizens.
It is based on the principles of equality of
opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and
public responsibility for those unable to avail
themselves of the minimal provisions for a good
life”. Encyclopaedia Britannica
Edwardian politics:

• working-class begins to get organised (Labour

party)
• Lib-Lab alliance
• Legacy of the liberal government:
- constitutional change
- (cautious) state interventionism & social reform