Britain: Social Issues during the late 1920s

Reduction in Poverty

Seebohm Rowntree's 1899 survey showed that 15.5% of the population in York were living in "primary poverty" in 1899, but this figure had gone down to 6.8% by 1929. The two causes of this decline of poverty were (1) the decline in family size; (2) The increase in real wages.

Freedom of the Individual

There was a decrease in the freedom of the individual during this period. The progress of democracy had the effect of making the judiciary more conservative, and as a consequence the judiciary became less of a check on executive government and more of a tool of it. People seemed to be less concerned with politics. For example, the work of the most popular and representative playwright of the time, Noel Coward, contains no references to political issues.

The British Broadcasting Company

The British Broadcasting Corporation developed out of the Post Office's role as regulator of radio broadcasting. The British Broadcasting Company was given a licence to broadcast programmes in 1922, and this give it a monopoly over broadcasting. It was made a public corporation in 1927, and was financed by licence. Numbers of licences increased from 125,000 in 1923 to nearly 2 million in 1926 and 3 million by 1930.

Its director was John Reith, a Scottish Calvinist, was determined to bring 'all that was best in every department of human knowledge, endeavour and achievement' into British homes. The monopoly situation was endorsed when in 1925 a committee of inquiry supported the argument for a monopoly in broadcasting. In fact, the private British Broadcasting Company was replaced by the British Broadcasting Corporation late in 1926.

John Reith established the independence of the service, and also its cultural aspiration of 'improving' the masses by giving them what Reith “thought was good for them”.

The service boomed throughout the 1930s and licence holders increased to 6 million by 1934, and 9 million by 1939. The BBC won a reputation for impartiality, which may not have been wholly deserved, since the government could influence it at times of crisis, such as the General Strike.

The radio became very important in the cultural life of Britain, and replaced the piano in the front parlour; however, the quality was affected by bureaucracy and the BBC orchestra was second rate.

With the radio monopolising late news, the national papers started to publish earlier. This squeezed out local newspapers. The Manchester Guardian, originally a local paper, became a national; but other local papers had reduced circulation and influence. News was presented in more sensational ways. This innovation was led by Lord Beaverbrook.

The introduction of radio meant that politicians could address audiences over the air. Initially, they were nervous of doing so, but increasingly were drawn to the radio as a means of reaching people in their own homes.

National newspapers

The effectiveness of the distribution network enabled the British National papers to gain a wider circulation than nationals in other countries. The mass-circulation papers were essentially produced in London. The Manchester Guardian was an exception to this rule, but in 1959 it did change its name to the Guardian and in 1970 it relocated to London. The Daily Mail was targeted at the lower middle classes, especially those in clerical jobs, and sold for 1/2 d, the rest of the revenue being made on advertising. Its proprietor, Alfred Harmsworth, also launched the Daily Mirror in 1903 as a specifically women's paper, but this did not succeed and it was relaunched in 1904 as a broadsheet. The editor of the Daily Express had the novel idea of putting news on the front page! There was a change in approach to news — with newspapers becoming more customer orientated. Some Edwardian editors like J.A Spender in the Westminster Gazette and J.L. Garvin in the Observer preserved the tradition of selling on the strength of their leading article alone, but other editors were much more business orientated. The newpaper proprietors won respectiblity: Alfred Harmsworth was made a peer in 1905, as Lord Northcliffe, and also acquired The Times. His brother, Harold Harmsworth, who owned the Daily Mail also became a peer as Lord Rothermere. Max Aitken, who owned the Daily Express became Lord Beaverbrook, and J.B. Elias of the Oldhams Press, became Lord Southwood. The owner of the Daily Telegraph, William Berry, became Lord Kemsley in 1928. George Riddell, owner of the News of the World became Lord Riddell! Circulations of daily nationals increased from 3 million a day at the end of the First World War to over 10 million a day at the beginning of the Second. The British particularly liked reading a paper on Sundays — by 1934 more papers were bought on a Sunday than there were families in Britain.

The organ of the left, the Daily Herald, underwent a change of ownership and reorganisation. It failed as a private enterprise in 1922, and ownership passed to the Labour party and the TUC jointly; then in 1927 the Labour party were unable to pay their share, so the TUC took it over entirely. Bevin took charge of it. He brought in a printing firm, Oldhams, as a business partner. This company owned the Sunday paper, the People. It was run commercially by Elias, the head of Oldhams, and abandoned any mission it never really had to be the intellectual focus of the Labour movement.

Revision of the Anglican Prayer Book

During this period there was a revision of the Prayer Book, which the Anglican Church of England had been seeking for some time, and was desired by most churchgoers. However, although the revision passed the House of Lords it was rejected twice by the House of Commons. The Church responded by authorising the "illegal" new Prayer Book. However, the decline of organised religion in England meant that this was not as big an issue as it might have appeared at the time to some to be. Beliefs were changing, under, affected, for example, by the influence the revolution in physics induced by Einstein, or the revolution in our attitude to ourselves induced by Freud's concept of the unconscious.

Votes for Women

In April 1928 the government passed an act lowering the voting age for women to 21, thus placing them on a par with men, and removing all plural votes except some for business and university franchises, which were removed in 1948. On the whole, women voted more for the Conservatives than for Labour, and the increase in the number who could vote probably damaged the Liberal party, which was not well placed to become a party of the masses. None of the parties particularly targeted women voters.