A Sheffield Hallam University Thesis
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Labour politics and society in South Yorkshire. TRICKETT, Andrew Stephen. Available from the Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive (SHURA) at: http://shura.shu.ac.uk/20454/ A Sheffield Hallam University thesis This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Please visit http://shura.shu.ac.uk/20454/ and http://shura.shu.ac.uk/information.html for further details about copyright and re-use permissions. REFERENCE ProQuest Number: 10701100 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10701100 Published by ProQuest LLC(2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 LABOUR POLITICS AND SOCIETY IN SOUTH YORKSHIRE 1939-51 ANDREW STEPHEN TRICKETT A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of Sheffield Hallam University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy FEBRUARY 2004 ABSTRACT: This doctoral thesis looks at Labour politics and society in South Yorkshire between the start of the Second World War in September 1939 and the fall from office of the Attlee Labour Government in October 1951. While it accepts the predominating effects of national and international factors in providing challenges which Labour councils and local Labour Parties had to find solutions to - such as the effects of the Sheffield Blitz in 1940 and the need to re-plan Sheffield and the maintaining of the organisational existence of Labour Parties during the Second World War - it nevertheless examines those ‘micro-historical’ factors which made for the local diversity of the party in South Yorkshire. It tries to create a holistic and rounded portrait of the local Labour movement based mainly on fragmentary archival and newspaper evidence and examines current historical debates for local relevance such as whether a post-war consensus actually existed, whether popular political attitudes were radical or conservative and, whether such popular attitudes favoured or dis-favoured Labour. It also looks at Marxist debates over the concept of ‘Labourism’ and whether Labour was narrowly culturally determined or whether other factors were equally important. Chapter One introduces the thesis. Chapter Two examines the fears over the post-war industrial future of Sheffield which took place during the Second World War within the City Council and between it and organisations like the trade unions and the Chamber of Commerce. It also looks at City Council debates over the proposed post-war regionalisation of local government and how that was prevented by a united council. This shows that the centralising tendencies of the London government could be resisted by the peripheries and that such tendencies were not inevitable. Chapter Three examines town planning in Sheffield during the Second World War after the Blitz in December 1940 provided an opportunity to create a more modem, better planned and less ugly city. The planning process is examined and the secrecy of the City Council noted at a time when the country was fighting to defend an open and democratic society from the Nazis. Chapter Three also looks at the wartime context of the acute post-war housing crisis. Chapter Four looks at the wartime Labour Party in South Yorkshire, its ebb in membership prior to 1942 and its resurgence after that date ending with an examination of the 1945 General Election in Sheffield. Chapter Five looks at local government between 1945 and 1951, examining the factors which prevented the reform of the local structure of local government, the effect on Sheffield and Rotherham Councils of the nationalisation of electricity, gas and local authority hospitals, and the attempts to implement the Butler Education Act of 1944 in South Yorkshire. Chapter Six looks at the attempts to implement the 1945 Collie town plan for Sheffield and the reasons for the lack of progress as well as at the contrasting housing records of Sheffield and Rotherham Councils. It attempts to account for the latter’s better record when compared with the former. Chapter Seven looks the ideology and cultural determinants of the Labour Party in South Yorkshire between 1945 and 1951. It also examines Labour organisation noting the essential role of women as unpaid voluntary labour and contrasting it with their limited entry to local political office. Finally it looks at and comments on the municipal and general election results in Sheffield of the Labour Party between 1945 and 1951. Chapter Eight provides a conclusion. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: The research and writing of this thesis has necessarily indebted me to a great many people. I would like to thank my Sheffield Hallam University supervisors, particularly Dr. John Baxendale, with whom I had many interesting and fruitful discussions about my project. I would also like to thank the late Dr. Paul Nunn who supervised my original MA thesis, which allowed me to fulfill the requirements necessary to go on to do a Doctorate, and who tragically died in a mountaineering accident. I gratefully acknowledge the bursary I received from the trustees of his Memorial Fund after his death which allowed me to spend time at the Modem Records Centre at the University of Warwick looking at trades council correspondence and at other records. I would like to thank the staffs of the various archives and local studies libraries in which I worked in South Yorkshire: in Rotherham, Sheffield, Doncaster and Barnsley, but especially the Rotherham Archives and Local Studies Section in which I spent considerable time looking at newspapers, as well as Sheffield Archives and the Sheffield Local Studies Library. I would like to thank Jackie Field and the Sheffield Co- Operative Party for permission to look at material originally gathered by Alderman Albert Ballard on the Sheffield Co-Operative and Labour Movement in the Sheffield Archives; and M. C. Roe and the Sheffield Chamber of Commerce and Industry for permission to also look at material in that archive on town planning and post-war reconstruction. I would like to thank the staffs of the Modem Records Centre at the University of Warwick and the Labour Party Archive and Study Centre in Manchester for their assistance, and the staffs of the Sheffield University and Sheffield Hallam University Libraries for their cordial help and efficiency in dealing with my requests. CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 - LABOUR HISTORIOGRAPHY IN SOUTH YORKSHIRE - pi 1.2 - THE WIDER HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE 1940S - p8 1.2.1 - THE MYTH OF CONSENSUS ? - p8 1.2.2 - APATHY HISTORY ? - p ll 1.3 - SYNOPSIS OF THESIS - pl3 CHAPTER TWO INDUSTRY, MUNICIPAL LABOURISM AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT REFORM IN SOUTH YORKSHIRE, 1939-1945 2.1 - INTRODUCTION - p20 2.2 - PROTECTING SHEFFIELD’S INDUSTRIAL FUTURE - p29 2.3 - THE DEBATE OVER LOCAL GOVERNMENT REFORM - p38 2.4 - CONCLUSION - p46 CHAPTER THREE NEW JERUSALEM PROPOSED ? TOWN PLANNING AND HOUSING PROVISION IN SOUTH YORKSHIRE, 1939-1945 3.1 - INTRODUCTION - p52 3.2 - TOWN PLANNING BETWEEN THE WARS - p58 3.3 - A NEW OPPORTUNITY ? TOWN PLANNING, 1940-1943 - p62 3.4 - THE MANZONI AND COLLIE PLANS - p68 3.5 - THE WARTIME CONTEXT OF THE POST-WAR HOUSING CRISIS - p72 3.6 - CONCLUSION - p76 CHAPTER FOUR THE LABOUR PARTY IN SOUTH YORKSHIRE, 1939-1945: EBB AND RESURGENCE 4.1 - INTRODUCTION - p83 4.2 - EBB, 1939-1942 - p89 4.3 - RESURGENCE, 1942-1945 - p99 4.4 - THE GENERAL ELECTION OF 1945 - pl03 4.5 - CONCLUSION - p i 09 CHAPTER FIVE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND THE LABOUR PARTY IN SOUTH YORKSHIRE, 1945-1951 5.1 - INTRODUCTION - p i 19 5.2 - REFORM OF THE LOCAL STRUCTURE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT - pl23 5.3 - NATIONALISATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS ? - pl28 5.4 - EDUCATION - pl34 5.5 - CONCLUSION - pl40 CHAPTER SIX NEW JERUSALEM POSTPONED ? TOWN PLANNING AND HOUSING PROVISION, 1945- 1951 6.1 - INTRODUCTION - pl46 6.2 - TOWN PLANNING IN SHEFFIELD, 1945-1951 - pl49 6.3 - HOMES FOR HEROES ? THE HOUSING CRISIS, 1945-1951 - pl57 6.4 - CONCLUSION - p i68 CHAPTER SEVEN THE LABOUR PARTY IN SOUTH YORKSHIRE, 1945-1951: IDEOLOGY, CULTURE, ORGANISATION AND ELECTION SUCCESS 7.1 - INTRODUCTION - p i 76 7.2 - IDEOLOGY AND CULTURE - pl81 7.3 - ORGANISATION - pl91 7.4 - ELECTORAL SUCCESS IN SHEFFIELD - pl97 7.5 - CONCLUSION - p202 CHAPTER EIGHT CONCLUSION - p209 APPENDICES - p218 1 - LABOUR PARTY MEMBERSHIP - p219 2 - GENERAL ELECTION AND BY-ELECTION RESULTS, 1935-1951 - p231 3 - CANDIDATES IN SOUTH YORKSHIRE GENERAL ELECTIONS - p242 4 - SHEFFIELD CITY COUNCIL MUNICIPAL ELECTION RESULTS, 1938-1952 - p249 5 - 1951 SHEFFIELD MUNICIPAL ELECTION CANDIDATES - p263 6 - COUNCIL HOUSE CONSTRUCTION IN SHEFFIELD, 1939-1952 - p266 BIBLIOGRAPHY - p273 1 - PRIMARY SOURCES - p274 2 - SECONDARY SOURCES - p277 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 - LABOUR HISTORIOGRAPHY IN SOUTH YORKSHIRE The main focus of this thesis is on the Sheffield and Rotherham County Borough Councils though I also include some material on the County Boroughs of Doncaster and Barnsley and the lesser district councils which came under the umbrella of the West Riding County Council. As the title of my thesis suggests it aspires to be a regional history of Labour politics and society within South Yorkshire between the outbreak of war in September 1939 and the ejection of Labour from national political office in October 1951.