The Impact of Depression and War, 1928-45 » Unemployment, Class and the Jarrow Crusade

Class and the Depression

In this study, class means a group of people with a similar level of wealth, work and status in society. In the 1930s, which class you belonged to, and where you lived, made a huge difference to how the Depression hit you.

After the Wall Street Crash of 1929, world trade collapsed. Britain depended on selling goods abroad, so its factories, mines and shipyards lost orders. By 1932 and 1933, nearly three million people were registered as unemployed, around one worker in five. This period of slump and mass unemployment is called the Depression.

Key terms:

• Depression: a long period when trade collapses and many people lose their jobs.
• Means test: an official check of a family's income and savings to decide how much help they could have.
• The dole: the everyday name for unemployment benefit.
• North-South divide: the gap in jobs and wealth between the old industrial areas of the North, Scotland and Wales and the more prosperous South and Midlands.

The old industrial areas

The worst hit places were built around a few old industries that sold abroad: coal mining, shipbuilding, iron and steel, and cotton. Areas such as the North East, South Wales, Clydeside and Lancashire saw these industries shrink fast.

This was the North-South divide. A worker in Jarrow might never find another job, while a worker near London could move to a new factory. By the later 1930s trade recovered and unemployment fell, but it was still over a million in 1937, and the old industrial areas were last to improve.

The means test

Class divides were not new. In 1914 the insurance scheme begun in 1911 covered only some trades, such as building and shipbuilding, and paid for at most 15 weeks in a year, because unemployment was low. By the 1930s the scheme covered most manual workers, but the problem was far bigger and lasted much longer. What stayed the same was that the poor still faced official checks before getting help.

Workers paid into the insurance scheme, and the dole was paid for a limited time, 26 weeks. In 1931 the government cut benefits by 10 per cent and brought in the means test for those still out of work after their insurance ran out.

Officials visited the home and counted the whole household's money. Savings, a part-time job, the wages of a grown-up son or daughter, even a pension could cut the family's payment. People often said that they had to sell possessions before they could get help.

The government said the test was needed to save money in hard times and to target help on the poorest. Critics said it punished the unemployed for something that was not their fault. The government also tried to help the worst areas with the Special Areas Act of 1934, but the aid was small compared with the problem.

The Jarrow Crusade, 1936

Jarrow, on the River Tyne, was the home of Palmers shipyard. When the yard closed in 1934, the town lost its main employer. About seven in ten workers had no job. This was a town where hardly anyone escaped the effects.

In October 1936, about 200 men set out on foot from Jarrow to London, a march of around 300 miles. The town council organised it, and the town's MP, Ellen Wilkinson, walked with them. They carried a petition asking the government to bring new work to the town. They wanted a job, not charity.

So was it a failure? In the short term, yes: the government did not change its policy, and the Labour Party leaders did not back the march. But it showed the nation how bad the Depression was in some places. Ellen Wilkinson later wrote about the town in a book called The Town That Was Murdered. Jarrow only found work again with the rearmament of the late 1930s, as Britain built ships and weapons before the Second World War.

Other protests also took place. The National Unemployed Workers' Movement organised hunger marches to London in the early 1930s. Jarrow is remembered more because it was a whole town acting together.

Not everyone suffered

Class mattered here. Many middle-class and better-off families did well in the 1930s. Prices fell, so those in work could buy more. New houses were built in the suburbs in the South, and more people bought cars, radios and went to the cinema. The Depression was a crisis for working-class families in the old industrial areas, but not for everyone.

Exam-style question

Explain TWO ways in which the help given to unemployed workers in the 1930s was different from the help given in 1914. [6 marks]

Remember: in 1914 the insurance scheme begun in 1911 covered only some trades, paid for up to 15 weeks in a year, and unemployment was low.