The world of the Edwardians

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• The world of the Edwardians

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• J.B. Priestley

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Britain 1912 - 1945

• During the years between the turn of the century
  and the First World War, the glitter of rank,
  wealth and fashion was not confined to England..
  it existed with a considerable amount of
  cross-fertilization, assisted by a world press
  that employed more and more gossip-writers and
  photographers. But it was the English Edwardians
  who occupied and decorated the central position
  and did most to bring the myth of the Lost Golden
  Age into the twentieth century.
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  J.B.Priestley, The Edwardians, 1970

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• During the 1930's Priestley became very concerned
  about the consequences of social inequality in
  Britain, and in 1942 Priestley and others set up
  a new political party, the Common Wealth Party,
  which argued for public ownership of land,
  greater democracy, and a new 'morality' in
  politics. The party merged with the Labour Party
  in 1945, but Priestley was influential in
  developing the idea of the Welfare State which
  began to be put into place at the end of the war.
• He believed that further world wars could only be
  avoided through cooperation and mutual respect
  between countries, and so became active in the
  early movement for a United Nations. And as the
  nuclear arms race between West and East began in
  the 1950s, he helped to found CND, hoping that
  Britain would set an example to the world by a
  moral act of nuclear disarmament.

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The Ruling Classes

• The Edwardian age was probably the last period
  in history when the fortunate thought they could
  give pleasure to others by displaying their good
  fortune before them.

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The Working Classes

• It was calculated in 1911 that the upper and
  middle classes, numbering between five and six
  million people, took two-thirds of the national
  income, while the working class of thirty-nine
  million existed on the remaining third. The
  lowest-paid of all workers were the women in the
  sweated trades, while the worst-paid men were the
  agricultural labourers, of whom there were
  650,000 in 1911 and whose earning wear often less
  than 1 a week.
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  W. Robson 20th Century Britain, 1983

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Women

• Most women still held traditional
  roles in the home

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The beginning of Modernism

• High modernism - looking forward to a
  technological future
• Futurism - belief in technology as a means to
  greater civilisation

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The Titanic as a symbol of human achivement
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World War 2
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1945 Labour election

• Socialist victory in 1945 - a change in national
  direction
• The End of Empire - independence for India 1947
• British Commonwealth begins

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The End of an Era
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Into this uncertain world steps Priestleys
Inspector