British wartime industry....

[phylo_roadking]

All, can anyone point me to a cohesive history of the British wartime economy, particularly with reference to factory use? I've come across a funny....

My original knowledge was thus...

Really essential industries like electricity generation, coal etc, were not taken out of private hands at that point, not until AFTER the war and under Attlee's Labour government BUT essential industries were centrally "controlled" to a far greater degree than in peace time.

Wartime production was by contract, with companies of ALL sizes converting to war work - hence of most interest to me once upon a time, the DOZENS of motorcycle comopanies that survived the Depression converted to war work, NOT making motorcycles - and NEVER changed back. Only the big companies making bikes for despatch work continued doing so after the war, most others stayed in light industry....

OK, here's the oddity; one of the country's largest and most respected producers of MODEL TRAINS before the war, Hambling's, never returned to the scene - because the government "never gave them their factory back"! Apparently the government mandated that the factory go into the production of parts for LEC refridgerators and washing machines!

Its the ONLY time I've EVER come across wording like this; apparently it was to do with export quotas and the Government's "export or die" mentality after the war to try to gain foreign export credits. But for all the size of the factory, and the respect for its luxury products worldwide BEFORE the war, surely it made more sense to go BACK to producing a product that was in DEMAND abroad?

I know this is a very "niche" enquiry, but have any other of the British residents on here ever heard mention of similar control of a small family factory AFTER the war that WASN'T nationalised???

[Andy H]

I'm sure you know of this link, but its all I could think off

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/U ... index.html

Regards

[Rodger Herbst]

P-R Correlli Barnett has written a few books on the UK wartime economy and after,I don't know if they have what you want but you can check them out,they're interesting reading, they are in soft cover now thru Amazon. Two you might be interested in " The Audit of War" and "The Lost Victory".

[gildasfacit]

Phylo

I'm afraid I can't quote any specific examples but you might form a better picture if you look up the legislation that allowed the government to effectively control ANY production, resource or labour force that they considered essential for the 'war effort'. From a dim memory of school history (and when I was in school it was almost 'current affairs' rather than history) these laws were pretty draconian.

My only personal anecdote here is the requistioning of all my Grandmother's galvanised flower buckets (she ran a local florists shop) as firebuckets. She always suspected that this was a con as they didn't have handles and she never saw them in use anywhere in the town. She was promised their return when 'more suitable equipment was available to replace them' but was never compensated. She never saw them again.

Tony Hughes

[phylo_roadking]

Tony, yes their powers were draconian indeed, but I'd love to know when they stopped exercising them, as per the example....or did they ever? I wonder if the legislation is still on the statute books.....after all it would form the backbone of the "nationalisation" empowerment that kicked off under Attlee's government....

[gildasfacit]

Phylo

I don't think that the same legislation was used to power nationalisation as was used during the war. I am think that one of the acts was called something simple like 'the War emergency powers act' and specifically ceased once the war was over. Nationalisation was done under separate acts I think but may well have had a similar basis. They were formed and enacted with considerable haste and many blamed this speed for the problems that ocurred with badly written laws.

You might also look at the Civil Defence Acts of the late 40's and early 50's. I can't say I have much knowledge of them but I think it is those, rather than the nationalisation acts, that carried on some of the war powers into peacetime.

Tony

[phylo_roadking]

Tony, thats an idea, I hadn't thiought of that; my youthful interest in British Civil Defence was more in the Heath Robinson nuts-and-bolts of the "system" than the actual legislation - I even at one formative (shudder) time owned an ex-CD BSA WD40, one of the reasons I now ride japanese! LMAO