Prime Ministers from 1900 to 1945: Marquess of Salisbury

Prime Ministers from 1900 to 1945: Marquess of Salisbury, Arthur Balfour, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Herbert Henry Asquith, David Lloyd George, Andrew Bonar Law, Stanley Baldwin, Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin, Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill. SONY VAIO PCG-81111V battery Queen Victoria died in 1901 and her son Edward VII became king, inaugurating the Edwardian Era, which was characterised by great and ostentatious displays of wealth in contrast to the sombre Victorian Era. With the advent of the 20th century, things such as motion pictures, automobiles, and aeroplanes were coming into use. SONY VAIO PCG-81211V battery The new century was characterised by a feeling of great optimism. The social reforms of the last century continued into the 20th with the Labour Partybeing formed in 1900. Edward died in 1910, to be succeeded by George V, who reigned 1910–36. Scandal-free, hard working and popular, George V was the British monarch who, with Queen Mary, SONY VAIO PCG-51111V battery established the modern pattern of exemplary conduct for British royalty, based on middle-class values and virtues. He understood the overseas Empire better than any of his prime ministers and used his exceptional memory for figures and details, whether of uniforms, politics, or relations, to good effect in reaching out in conversation with his subjects.^[61] SONY VAIO PCG-51111M battery The era was prosperous but political crises were escalating out of control. Dangerfield (1935) identified the "strange death of liberal England" as the multiple crisis that hit simultaneously in 1910–1914 with serious social and political instability arising from the Irish crisis, labor unrest, the women's suffrage movements, and partisan and constitutional struggles in Parliament. SONY VAIO PCG-51112M battery At one point it even seemed the Army might refuse orders dealing with Northern Ireland.^[62]No solution appeared in sight when the unexpected outbreak of the Great War in 1914 put domestic issues on hold. McKibben argues that the political party system of the Edwardian era was in delicate balance on the eve of the war in 1914. SONY VAIO PCG-51211M battery The Liberals were in power with a progressive alliance of Labour and, off and on, Irish Nationalists. The coalition was committed to free trade (as opposed to the high tariffs the Conservatives sought), free collective bargaining for trades unions (which Conservatives opposed), an active social policy that was forging the welfare state, and constitutional reform to reduce the power of the House of Lords. SONY VAIO PCG-51212M battery The coalition lacked a long-term plan, because it was cobbled together from leftovers from the 1890s. The sociological basis was non-Anglican religion and non-English ethnicity rather than the emerging class conflict emphasized by Labour. After a rough start Britain under David Lloyd George successfully mobilised its manpower, SONY PCG-7134M battery womanpower, industry, finances, Empire and diplomacy, in league with the French and Americans, to defeat the Germans and Turks. Most Britons eagerly supported the war, but the Irish were restless and plotted a rebellion in 1916. The economy grew about 14% from 1914 to 1918 despite the absence of so many men in the services; by contrast the German economy shrank 27%. SONY PCG-7131M battery The War saw a decline of civilian consumption, with a major reallocation to munitions. The government share of GDP soared from 8% in 1913 to 38% in 1918 (compared to 50% in 1943).^[68][69] The war forced Britain to use up its financial reserves and borrow large sums from the US. The spark that set off the war came in June 1914, when the multi-ethnic Austrian Empire declared war on Serbia. Sony VAIO PCG-5N1M battery The system of alliances caused a local conflict to engulf the entire continent. Britain was part of the Triple Entente with France and Russia, which confronted the Central Powers of Germany, Austria and Italy. Following the assassination Austria attacked Serbia, which was allied to Russia. Russia then mobilized its army, leading Germany to enter into war against Russia. Sony VAIO PCG-5S1M battery France could not afford a mobilized Germany on its border, and it mobilized. Germany declared war on France. Britain was neutral at first as the Liberal government had a pacifist tendency, but it was committed to defending Belgium, which Germany invaded. Britain declared war on Germany and its allies. Sony VAIO PCG-9Z1M battery The romantic notions of warfare that everyone had expected faded as the fighting in France bogged down into trench warfare. Along the Western Front the British and French launched repeated assaults on the German trench lines in 1915–1916, which killed and wounded hundreds of thousands, but failed to make gains of even a mile. Sony VAIO PCG-7171M battery By 1916, volunteering falling off, the government imposed conscription in Britain (but not in Ireland) to keep up the strength of the Army. Industry turned out munitions in large quantities, with many women taking factory jobs. The Asquith government proved ineffective but when David Lloyd George replaced him in December 1916 Britain gained a powerful and successful wartime leader. Sony VAIO PCG-7186M battery The navy continued to dominate the seas, fighting the German fleet to a draw in the only great battle, the Battle of Jutland in 1916. Germany was blockaded and was increasingly short of food. It tried to fight back with submarines, despite the risk of war by the powerful neutral power the United States. The waters around Britain were declared a war zone where any ship, neutral or otherwise, was a target. Sony VAIO PCG-81112M battery After the liner Lusitania was sunk in May 1915, drowning over 100 American passengers, protests by the United States led Germany to abandon unrestricted submarine warfare. With victory over Russia in 1917 Germany now calculated it could finally have numerical superiority on the Western Front. Planning for a massive spring offensive in 1918, it resumed the sinking of all merchant ships without warning. Sony VAIO PCG-31111M battery The US entered the war alongside the Allies (without actually joining them), and provided the needed money and supplies to keep them going. the u-boats were defeated by a convoy system across the Atlantic. On other fronts, the British, French, Australians, and Japanese occupied Germany's colonies. Sony VAIO PCG-31311M battery Britain fought the Ottoman Empire, suffering defeats in theGallipoli Campaign) and in Mesopotamia, while arousing the Arabs who helped expel the Turks from their lands. Exhaustion and war weariness were growing worse in 1917, as the fighting in France continued with no end in sight. The German spring offensives of 1918 failed, Sony VAIO PCG-8152M battery and with the arrival of the American in summer at the rate of 10,000 a day the Germans realized they were being overwhelmed. Germany agreed to an armistice—actually a surrender—on 11 November 1918. The war had been won by Britain and its allies, but at a terrible human and financial cost, creating a sentiment that wars should never be fought again. Sony VAIO PCG-8131M battery The League of Nations was founded with the idea that nations could resolve their differences peacefully, but these hopes were unfounded. The harsh peace settlement imposed on Germany would leave it embittered and seeking revenge. Victorian attitudes and ideals that had continued into the first years of the 20th century changed during World War I. Sony VAIO PCG-7148L battery The army had traditionally never been a large employer in the nation, with the regular army standing at 247,432 at the start of the war.^[70] By 1918, there were about five million people in the army and the fledgling Royal Air Force, newly formed from the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) and the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), was about the same size of the pre-war army. Sony VAIO PCG-7151L battery The almost three million casualties were known as the "lost generation," and such numbers inevitably left society scarred; but even so, some people felt their sacrifice was little regarded in Britain, with poems like Siegfried Sassoon's Blighters criticising the ill-informed jingoism of the home front. Following the war, Britain gained the German colony of Tanganyika and part of Togoland in Africa. Sony VAIO PCG-7152L battery It also was granted League of Nations mandates over Palestine, which was turned into a homeland for Jewish settlers, and Iraq, created from the three Ottoman provinces in Mesopotamia. The latter became fully independent in 1932. Egypt, which had been a British protectorate since 1882, became independent in 1922, although the British remained there until 1952. Sony VAIO PCG-7153L battery Lloyd George said after victory that "the nation was now in a molten state", and his Housing Act 1919 would lead to affordable council housing which allowed people to move out of Victorian inner-city slums. The slums, though, remained for several more years, with trams being electrified long before many houses. Sony VAIO PCG-7154L battery TheRepresentation of the People Act 1918 gave women householders the vote, but it would not be until 1928 that equal suffrage was achieved. Labour did not achieve major success until the 1922 general election. In 1912, the House of Lords managed to delay a Home Rule bill passed by the House of Commons. Sony VAIO PCG-7161L battery It was enacted as the Government of Ireland Act 1914. During these two years the threat of religious civil war hung over Ireland with the creation of the Unionist Ulster Volunteers opposed to the Act and their nationalist counterparts, the Irish Volunteers supporting the Act. The outbreak of World War I in 1914 put the crisis on political hold. Sony VAIO PCG-7162L battery A disorganized Easter Rising in 1916 was brutally suppressed by the British, which had the effect of galvanizing Catholic demands for independence. Prime Minister David Lloyd George failed to introduce Home Rule in 1918 and in the December 1918 General Election Sinn Féin won a majority of Irish seats. Sony VAIO PCG-7171L battery Its MPs refused to take their seats at Westminster, instead choosing to sit in the First Dáil parliament in Dublin. A declaration of independence was ratified by Dáil Éireann, the self-declared Republic's parliament in January 1919. An Anglo-Irish War was fought between Crown forces and the Irish Republican Army between January 1919 and June 1921. Sony VAIO PCG-7172L battery The war ended with the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921 that established the Irish Free State.^[71] Six northern, predominantly Protestant counties became Northern Ireland and have remained part of Britain ever since, despite demands of the Catholic minority to unite with the Republic of Ireland.^[72] Sony VAIO PCG-7173L battery Britain officially adopted the name "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" by the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927. The Lloyd-George coalition fell apart in 1922. Conservative Stanley Baldwin as leader of the Conservative Party (1923–37) and as Prime Minister in 1923–24, 1924–29, and again in 1935–37 dominated British politics. Sony VAIO PCG-7174L battery His mixture of strong social reforms and steady government proved a powerful election combination, with the result that the Conservatives governed Britain either by themselves or as the leading component of the National Government. He was the last party leader to win over 50% of the vote (in the general election of 1931). Sony VAIO PCG-7181L battery Baldwin's political strategy was to polarize the electorate so that voters would choose between the Conservatives on the right and the Labour Party on the left, squeezing out the Liberals in the middle.^[74] The polarization did take place and while the Liberals remained active under Lloyd George, they won few seats and were a minor factor until they joined a coalition with the Conservatives in 2010. Sony VAIO PCG-7182L battery Baldwin's reputation soared in the 1920s and 1930s, but crashed after 1945 as he was blamed for the appeasement policies toward Germany, and as admirers of Churchill made him the Conservative icon. Since the 1970s Baldwin's reputation has recovered somewhat.^[75] Labour won the 1923 election, but in 1924 Baldwin and the Conservatives returned with a large majority. Sony VAIO PCG-7183L battery McKibbin finds that the political culture of the interwar period was built around an anti-socialist middle class, supported by the Conservative leaders, especially Baldwin. Taxes rose sharply during the war and never returned to their old levels. A rich man paid 8% of his income in taxes before the war, and about a third afterwards. Much of the money went for the dole, the weekly unemployment benefits. Sony VAIO PCG-7184L battery About 5% of the national income every year was transferred from the rich to the poor. Taylor argues most people "were enjoying a richer life than any previously known in the history of the world: longer holidays, shorter hours, higher real wages."^[77] The British economy was lackluster in the 1920s, with sharp declines and high unemployment in heavy industry and coal, especially in Scotland and Wales. Sony VAIO PCG-7185L battery Exports of coal and steel fell in half by 1939 and the business community was slow to adopt the new labor and management principles coming from the US, such as Fordism, consumer credit, eliminating surplus capacity, designing a more structured management, and using greater economies of scale.^[ Sony VAIO PCG-381L battery For over a century the shipping industry had dominated world trade, but it remained in the doldrums despite various stimulus efforts by the government. With the very sharp decline in world trade after 1929, its condition became critical.^[79] Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill put Britain back on the gold standard in 1925, which many economists blame for the mediocre performance of the economy. Sony VAIO PCG-382L battery Others point to a variety of factors, including the inflationary effects of the World War and supply-side shocks caused by reduced working hours after the war.^[80] By the late 1920s, economic performance had stabilised, but the overall situation was disappointing, for Britain had clearly fallen behind the United States and other countries as an industrial power. Sony VAIO PCG-383L battery There also remained a strong economic divide between the north and south of England during this period, with the south of England and the Midlands fairly prosperous by the Thirties, while parts of south Wales and the industrial north of England became known as "distressed areas" due to particularly high rates of unemployment and poverty. Despite this, the standard of living continued to improve as local councils built new houses to let to families rehoused from outdated slums, Sony VAIO PCG-384L battery with up to date facilities including indoor toilets, bathrooms and electric lighting now being included in the new properties. The private sector enjoyed a housebuilding boom during the 1930s. During the war trade unions were encouraged and their membership grew from 4.1 million in 1914 to 6.5 million in 1918. They peaked at 8.3 million in 1920 before relapsing to 5.4 million in 1923.Sony VAIO PCG-391L battery Coal was a sick industry; the best seams were being exhausted, raising the cost. Demand fell as oil began replacing coal for fuel. The 1926 general strike was a nine-day nationwide walkout of 1.3 million railwaymen, transport workers, printers, dockers, iron workers and steelworkers supporting the 1.2 million coal miners who had been locked out by the owners. Sony VAIO PCG-393L battery The miners had rejected the owners' demands for longer hours and reduced pay in the face of falling prices.^[84] The Conservative government had provided a nine-month subsidy in 1925 but that was not enough to turn around a sick industry. To support the miners the Trades Union Congress (TUC), an umbrella organization of all trades unions, called out certain critical unions. Sony VAIO PCG-394L battery The hope was the government would intervene to reorganize and rationalize the industry, and raise the subsidy. The Conservative government had stockpiled supplies and essential services continued with middle class volunteers. All three major parties opposed the strike. The Labour Party leaders did not approve and feared it would tar the party with the image of radicalism, Sony VAIO PCG-3A1L battery for the Cominterm in Moscow had sent instructions for Communists to aggressively promote the strike. The general strike itself was largely non-violent, but the miners' lockout continued and there was violence in Scotland. It was the only general strike in British history, for TUC leaders such as Ernest Bevin considered it a mistake . Sony VAIO PCG-3A2L battery Most historians treat it as a singular event with few long-term consequences, but Pugh says it accelerated the movement of working-class voters to the Labour Party, which led to future gains.^[85][86] The Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act 1927 made general strikes illegal and ended the automatic payment of union members to the Labour Party. Sony VAIO PCG-3A3L battery That act was largely repealed in 1946. The coal industry, used up the more accessible coal as costs rose output fell from 2567 million tons in 1924 to 183 million in 1945.^[87] The Labour government nationalised the mines in 1947. The Great Depression originated in the United States in late 1929 and quickly spread to the world. Sony VAIO PCG-3A4L battery Britain had never experienced the boom that had characterized the US, Germany, Canada and Australia in the 1920s, so its bust appeared less severe.^[88] Britain's world trade fell in half (1929–33), the output of heavy industry fell by a third, employment profits plunged in nearly all sectors. At the depth in summer 1932, registered unemployed numbered 3.5 million, and many more had only part-time employment. Sony VAIO PCG-41112L battery Experts tried to remain optimistic. John Maynard Keynes, who had not predicted the slump, said, "'There will be no serious direct consequences in London. We find the look ahead decidedly encouraging."^[89] Doomsayers on the left such as Sidney and Beatrice Webb, J.A. Hobson, and G.D.H. Sony VAIO PCG-51211L battery Cole repeated the dire warnings they had been making for years about the imminent death of capitalism, only now far more people paid attention.^[90] Starting in 1935 the Left Book Club provided a new warning every month, and built up the credibility of Soviet-style socialism as an alternative.^[91] Sony VAIO PCG-51311L battery Particularly hardest hit by economic problems were the north of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales; unemployment reached 70% in some areas at the start of the 1930s (with more than 3 million out of work nationally) and many families depended entirely on payments from local government known as the dole. Sony VAIO PCG-51312L battery In 1936, by which time unemployment was lower, 200 unemployed men made a highly publicized march from Jarrow to London in a bid to show the plight of the industrial poor. Although much romanticized by the Left, the Jarrow Crusade marked a deep split in the Labour Party and resulted in no government action.^[92] Sony VAIO PCG-51411L battery Unemployment remained high until the war absorbed all the job seekers. George Orwell's book The Road to Wigan Pier gives a bleak overview of the hardships of the time. Vivid memories of the horrors and deaths of the World War made Britain and its leaders strongly inclined to pacifism in the interwar era. Sony VAIO PCG-51412L battery The challenge came from dictators, first Benito Mussolini of Italy, then Adolf Hitler of a much more powerful Nazi Germany. The League of Nations proved disappointed supporters; it was unable to resolve any of the threats posed by the dictators. British policy was to "appease" them in the hopes they would be satiated. Sony VAIO PCG-51511L battery By 1938 it was clear that war was looming, and that Germany had the world's most powerful military. The final act of appeasement came when Britain and France sacrificed Czechoslovakia to Hitler's demands at the Munich Agreement of 1938.Instead of satiation Hitler menaced Poland, and at last Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain dropped appeasement and stood firm in promising to defend Poland. Sony VAIO PCG-51513L battery Hitler however cut a deal with Joseph Stalin to divide Eastern Europe; when Germany did invade Poland in September 1939, Britain and France declared war; the British Commonwealth followed London's lead. Britain, along with the dominions and the rest of the Empire, declared war on Nazi Germany in 1939, after the German invasion of Poland. Sony VAIO PCG-5N2L battery After a quiet period of "phoney war", the French and British armies collapsed under German onslaught in spring 1940. The British with the thinnest of margins rescued its main army from Dunkirk (as well as many French soldiers), leaving all their equipment and war supplies behind. Winston Churchill came to power, promising to fight the Germans to the very end. Sony VAIO PCG-5N4L battery The Germans threatened an invasion—which the Royal Navy was prepared to repel. First the Germans tried to achieve air supremacy but were defeated by the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain in late summer 1940. Japan declared war in December 1941, and quickly seized Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore, and Burma, and threatened Australia and India. Sony VAIO PCG-5P2L battery Britain formed close bonds with the Soviet Union (starting in 1941) and the United States (starting in 1940), with the US giving $40 billion in munitions through Lend Lease; Canada also gave aid. (The American and British aid did not have to be repaid, but there were also loans that were repaid.) Sony VAIO PCG-5P4L battery The war years saw great improvements in working conditions and welfare provisions, which arguably paved the way for the postwar welfare state. Infant, child, and maternity services were expanded, while the Official Food Policy Committee (chaired by the deputy PM and Labour leader Clement Attlee) approved grants of fuel and subsidised milk to mothers and to children under the age of five in June 1940. Sony VAIO PCG-5R1L battery A month later, the Board of Education decided that free school meals should become more widely available. By February 1945, 73% of children received milk in school, compared with 50% in July 1940. Free vaccination against diphtheria was also provided for children at school.^[95] In addition, Sony VAIO PCG-5R2L battery the Town and Country Planning Act 1944 gave consideration to those areas damaged in bombing raids and enabled local authorities to clear slums, while the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act passed that same year made £150 million available for the construction of temporary dwellings.^[96] To improve conditions for elderly persons, supplementary pensions were introduced in 1940, and in 1943, Sony VAIO PCG-5S1L battery there were further improvements in rates and conditions for those in receipt of supplementary pensions and unemployment assistance. Food prices were stabilised in December 1939, initially as temporary measure, but made permanent in August 1940, while both milk and meals were provided at subsidised prices, or free in those cases of real need.^[97] Sony VAIO PCG-5S2L battery In July 1940, increased Treasury grants led to an improvement in the supply of milks and meals in schools, with the number of meals taken doubled within a year and increased school milk by 50%. By 1945, roughly 33% of all children ate at school compared with one in thirty in 1940, while those taking milk increased from about 50% to roughly 75%.Sony VAIO PCG-5S3L battery In 1940, a national milk scheme was launched which provided a pint of milk at about half price for all children under the age of five, and for expectant or nursing mothers. The take up rate was such that by 1944 95% of those eligible participated in the scheme. The government’s general food policy that priority groups like young children and mothers were not just entitled to essentials like milk, Sony VAIO PCG-5T2L battery but actually received supplies as well. Evacuation during the course of the war also revealed to more prosperous Britons the extent of deprivation in society. As noted by one historian, evacuation became “the most important subject in the social history of the war because it revealed to the whole people the black spots in its social life.”^[98] Sony VAIO PCG-5T3L battery An Emergency Medical Service was introduced which provided free treatment to casualties (a definition which included war evacuees), while rationing led to significant improvements in the diets of poor families. As noted by Richard Titmuss, "The families in that third of the population of Britain who in 1938 were chronically undernourished had their first adequate diet in 1940 and 1941 ... Sony VAIO PCG-5T4L battery [after which] the incidence of deficiency diseases, and notably infant mortality, dropped dramatically."^[99] The media called it a "people's war"—a term that caught on and signified the popular demand for planning and an expanded welfare state.^[100] The Royal family played major symbolic roles in the war. Sony VAIO PCG-61111L battery They refused to leave London during the Blitz and were indefatigable in visiting troops, munition factories, dockyards, and hospitals all over the country. Princess Elizabeth joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS—a part of the army) and repaired trucks and jeeps.^[101] All social classes appreciated how the royals shared the hopes, fears and hardships of the people. Sony VAIO PCG-61112L battery Britain was a winner in the war, but it lost India in 1947 and nearly all the rest of the Empire by 1960. It debated its role in world affairs and joined theUnited Nations in 1945, NATO in 1949, where it became a close ally of the United States. After a long debate and initial rejection, it joined the European Unionin 1973. Sony VAIO PCG-61411L battery Prosperity returned in the 1950s and London remained a world center of finance and culture, but the nation was no longer a major world power. The end of the war saw a landslide victory for Clement Attlee and the Labour Party. They were elected on a manifesto of greater social justice with left wing policies such as the creation of a National Health Service, Sony VAIO PCG-71111L battery an expansion of the provision of council housing and nationalisation of the major industries. Britain faced severe financial crises, and responded by reducing her international responsibilities and by sharing the hardships of an "age of austerity."^[104]Large loans from the United States and Marshall Plan grants helped rebuild and modernize its infrastructure and business Sony VAIO PCG-7141L battery practices. Rationing and conscriptiondragged on into the post war years, and the country suffered one of the worst winters on record.^[105] Nevertheless, morale was boosted by events such as the marriage of Princess Elizabeth in 1947 and the Festival of Britain. As the country headed into the 1950s, rebuilding continued and a number of immigrants from the remaining British Empire, Sony VAIO PCG-7142L battery mostly the Caribbean and the Indiansubcontinent, were invited to help the rebuilding effort. As the 1950s wore on, Britain lost its place as a superpower and could no longer maintain its largeEmpire. This led to decolonisation, and a withdrawal from almost all of its colonies by 1970. Events such as the Suez Crisis showed that the UK's status had fallen in the world. Sony VAIO PCG-81113L battery The 1950s and 1960s were, however, relatively prosperous times after the Second World War, and saw the beginning of a modernisation of the UK, with the construction of its first motorways for example, and also during the 1960s a great cultural movement began which expanded across the world. Sony VAIO PCG-81114L battery Unemployment was relatively low during this period and the standard of living continued to rise with more new private and council housing developments taking place and the number of slum properties diminishing. The postwar period also witnessed a dramatic rise in the average standard of living,^[107] Sony VAIO PCG-81115L battery as characterised by a 40% rise in average real wages from 1950 to 1965.^[108] Earnings for men in industry rose by 95% between 1951 and 1964, while during that same period the official workweek was reduced and five reductions in income tax were made.^[109] Those in traditionally poorly-paid semi-skilled and unskilled occupations saw a particularly marked improvement in their wages and living standards. As summed up by R. J. Unstead, Sony VAIO PCG-81214L battery、 "Opportunities in life, if not equal, were distributed much more fairly than ever before and\ the weekly wage-earner, in particular, had gained standards of living that would have been almost unbelievable in the thirties."^[110] Between 1951 and 1963, wages rose by 72% while prices rose by 45%, enabling people to afford more consumer goods than ever before.^[111] Sony VAIO PCG-81312L battery The rising affluence of the Fifties and Sixties was underpinned by sustained full employment and a dramatic rise in worker‘s wages. In 1950, the average weekly wage stood at £6.8s, compared with £11.2s.6d in 1959. As a result of wage rises, consumer spending also increased by about 20% during this same period, while economic growth remained at about 3%. Sony VAIO PCG-8131L battery In addition, food rations were lifted in 1954 while hire-purchase controls were relaxed in the same year. As a result of these changes, large numbers of the working classes were able to participate in the consumer market for the first time.^[112] The significant real wage increases in the 1950s and 1960s contributed to a rapid increase in working-class consumerism, Sony VAIO PCG-8141L battery with British consumer spending rising by 45% between 1952 and 1964.^[113] In addition, entitlement to various fringe benefits was improved. In 1955, 96% of manual labourers were entitled to two weeks’ holiday with pay, compared with 61% in 1951. By the end of the 1950s, Britain had become one of the world's most affluent countries, Sony VAIO PCG-8152L battery and by the early Sixties, most Britons enjoyed a level of prosperity that had previously been known only to a small minority of the population.^[114] For the young and unattached, there was, for the first time in decades, spare cash for leisure, clothes, and luxuries. In 1959, Queen magazine declared that "Britain has launched into an age of unparalleled lavish living." Sony VAIO PCG-8161L battery Average wages were high while jobs were plentiful, and people saw their personal prosperity climb even higher. Prime MinisterHarold Macmillan claimed that "the luxuries of the rich have become the necessities of the poor." Levels of disposable income rose steadily,^[115] with the spending power of the average family rising by 50% between 1951 and 1979, and by the end of the Seventies, 6 out of 10 families had come to own a car.^[116] Sony VAIO PCG-9131L battery "Keynesian economic management enabled British workers to enjoy a golden age of full employment which, combined with a more relaxed attitude towards working mothers, led to the spread of the two-income family. Inflation was around 4 per cent, money wages rose from an average of £8 a week in 1951 to £15 a week by 1961, Sony VAIO PCG-9Z1L battery home-ownership spread from 35 per cent in 1939 to 47 per cent by 1966, and the relaxation of credit controls boosted the demand for consumer goods."^[117] By 1963, 82% of all private households had a television, 72% a vacuum cleaner, 45%a washing machine, and 30% a refrigerator. In addition, as noted by John Burnett, Sony VAIO PCG-9Z2L battery “What was equally striking was that ownership of such things had spread down the social scale and the gap between professional and manual workers had considerably narrowed.” A study of a slum area in Leeds (which was due for demolition) found that 74% of the households had a T.V., 41% a vacuum, and 38% a washing machine. Sony VAIO VPCF11C4E/B battery In another slum area, St Mary’s in Oldham (where in 1970 few of the houses had fixed baths or a hot water supply and half shared outside toilets), 67% of the houses were rated as comfortably furnished and a further 24% furnished luxuriously, with smart modern furniture, deep pile carpeting, and decorations. Sony VAIO VPCF11C5E battery The provision of household amenities steadily improved during the second half of the Twentieth Century. From 1971 to 1983, households having the sole use of a fixed bath or shower rose from 88% to 97%, and those with an internal WC from 87% to 97%. In addition, the number of households with central heating almost doubled during that same period, from 34% to 64%. Sony VAIO VPCF11D4E battery By 1983, 94% of all households had a refrigerator, 81% a colour television, 80% a washing machine, 57% a deep freezer, and 28% a tumble-drier.^[118] Between 1950 and 1970, however, Britain was overtaken by most of the countries of the European Common Market in terms of the number of telephones, refrigerators, television sets, cars, Sony VAIO VPCF11M1E/H battery and washing machines per 100 of the population (although Britain remained high in terms of bathrooms and lavatories per 100 people). Although the British standard of living was increasing, the standard of living in other countries increased faster.^[119] In addition, while educational opportunities for working-class people had widened significantly since the end of the Second World War, Sony VAIO VPCF11S1E/B battery a number of developed countries came to overtake Britain in some educational indicators. By the early 1980s, some 80% to 90% of school leavers in France and West Germany received vocational training, compared with 40% in the United Kingdom. By the mid-1980s, over 80% of pupils in the United States and West Germany and over 90% in Japan stayed in education until the age of eighteen, Sony VAIO VPCF22J1E battery compared with barely 33% of British pupils.^[120] In 1987, only 35% of 16–18-year-olds were in full-time education or training, compared with 80% in the United States, 77% in Japan, 69% in France, and 49% in the United Kingdom. Sony VAIO VPCF22L1E battery,Sony VAIO VPCF22M1E battery,Sony VAIO VPCF22S1E battery