Unemployment and Poverty in Britain between the Wars

Abstract

Following the closure of Palmer’s shipyard, 200 men from Jarrow marched to London in order to petition Parliament so that the government would ‘… realise the urgent need that work should be provided for the town without delay’.⁴³⁷ Photographs of the 1936 Jarrow march are one of the most enduring icons of the interwar years. Keith Joseph probably had this kind of image in mind when he favourably contrasted the ‘gaunt, tight-lipped men in caps and mufflers of the 1930s’, with the unemployed of the early 1970s.⁴³⁸ The interwar period has become synonymous with mass unemployment, although paradoxically, it was also a time of relative economic prosperity for some Britons. in these years, despite unprecedented high unemployment, the economy grew at a modest rate, living standards improved for those with work and new consumer goods became available that enhanced leisure activity and lessened some of the drudgery of domestic chores. in interwar Britain, many homes and factories were electrified; the ownership of wireless sets became commonplace and the growth in ownership of motor cars transformed social life for those wealthy enough to own them. For the middle classes, and for some sections of the working classes, the modernity of the interwar period was as important as persistent joblessness was for those excluded from the benefits of economic progress. This dichotomy of experience is perhaps best summed up by the phrase ‘poverty and progress’, which, as we have seen, was the title chosen by Rowntree for his second social survey of York in 1936. This chapter will investigate the extent to which unemployment was a cause of poverty and the efficacy of the state response to increased numbers of people who were workless.