The Working Class

• The working class was highly varied with skilled workers in construction or engineering as the working-class aristocracy, unskilled labourers and a destitute at the bottom
• Full employment during both wars helped to absorb the residuum into the respectable working-class
• Trade union membership increased by 90% between 1914-18 and unions were necessarily more inclusive after 1918
• The diverse regional impacts of the economic slump and Great Depression make it difficult to generalise about the experience of the working class as a whole
• The major division was between those with and without work and lower working hours and began to take advantage of mass leisure activities
• Trade union membership fell 40% during the 1920-22 recession and failed to recover in the aftermath of the General Strike
• Areas of industrial growth, such as car production, tended to be non-unionised and in parts of the country that had historically seen fewer strikes
• Around half the working class voted for the Conservative Party between the wars, something that also helped to preserve the remarkable stability of the British political system
• The welfare reforms introduced by the pre-1914 Liberal government, and built upon by interwar governments, helped reduce the social stigma of state assistance for those at the bottom
• Those nearer the top prided themselves on responsible use of their weekly wage and aspired to middle-class standards in the community
• Compared to their social superiors, a smaller percentage of the working class had fought in the First World War
• In 1918, 10.3% of urban working-class men were rejected as unfit for any kind of service and 31.3% were classes as too sickly for combat
• Rationing helped promote working-class health: life expectancy rose from 49 to 56 for men and 53 to 60 years for women between 1911 and 1921
• In many ways, the gains expected by the working class failed to materialise
• Although the state now provided a basic safety net, many people continued to live in squalid houses with poor diets
• Slum clearances did not start properly until the 1950s and exploitative landlords took advantage of tenants while providing inadequate accommodation
• The housing programme of many British cities from the late 1940s centred on the construction of blocks of flats
• There were no mass protests about the inequality of wealth in Britain (the top 0.1% owned 33% of the wealth, while the bottom 75% had less than £100 each)