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What Was a British Buy? Empire, Europe and the Politics of Patriotic Trade in Britain, c.1945–1963

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Imagining Britain’s Economic Future, c.1800–1975

Abstract

During the 1920s and 1930s, tens of thousands of Britons participated in campaigns which encouraged shoppers to buy goods from the UK and other parts of the Empire. However, after 1945 consumer movements became increasingly national and insular in focus. This chapter traces post-war shifts in the politics of consumption, showing how government and civil society groups articulated competing consumer appeals of Empire/Commonwealth preference, economic nationalism and Europeanism at a time of geo-political uncertainty. Over the period as a whole, the public representation of the idealised consumer emerged as a figure with loyalties which were now primarily national rather than imperial, or post-imperial.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Valerie Knox, ‘But what is a British buy?’, The Times, 2 Feb 1968, p. 13.

  2. 2.

    ‘Business diary’, The Times, 6 Feb. 1968, p. 21.

  3. 3.

    Stephen Tallents, ‘The Buy British campaign of 1931’, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London, Stephen Tallents papers, ICS79/14/11.

  4. 4.

    Frank Trentmann, Free trade nation: commerce, consumption, and civil society in modern Britain (Oxford, 2008), pp. 191–221, 228–239; Matthew Hilton, Consumerism in twentieth century Britain: the search for a historical movement (Cambridge, 2003), Chaps. 2–4, 6–7.

  5. 5.

    Hilton, Consumerism in twentieth century Britain, pp. 164–171, 173–176, 179–193.

  6. 6.

    There is an extensive literature on the connections between consumerism and imperial development before 1945. For good introductions see Gary B. Magee and Andrew S. Thompson, Empire and globalisation: networks of people, goods and capital in the British World, c.1850–1914 (Cambridge, 2010), Chap. 4; Catherine Hall and Sonya O. Rose eds., At home with the empire: metropolitan culture and the imperial world (Cambridge, 2006); John M. MacKenzie ed., Imperialism and popular culture (Manchester, 1986).

  7. 7.

    Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbon, Continental drift: Britain and Europe from the end of empire to the rise of Euroscepticism (Cambridge, 2016).

  8. 8.

    Gerard Keown, First of the small nations: the beginnings of Irish foreign policy in the inter-war years, 1919–1932 (Oxford, 2016), p. 171.

  9. 9.

    ‘Buy British goods! The duty of every citizen’, Daily Express, 25 Aug 1923, p. 4; see also ‘Business is business. Interference in Europe will not bring trade’, 18 Jul 1923, p. 6, and the following articles from 27 Aug 1923, ‘A British industry in peril’, p. 1, ‘Buy British goods’, p. 4; ‘Shopping within the empire’, Daily Mail, 24 May 1923, p. 2; see also Sir William Crawford, ‘Buy British and sell British’, 12 Mar 1929, p. 6.

  10. 10.

    Daily Mail, 18 Sep 1931, quoted in Adrian Bingham, ‘Enfranchisement, feminism and the modern woman: debates in the British popular press, 1918–1939’, in Julie Gottlieb and Richard Toye eds., The aftermath of suffrage: what happened after the vote was won? (Basingstoke, 2013), pp. 87–104 at p. 94.

  11. 11.

    For the idea that empire shopping revolved around helping ‘British peoples’ see the following articles from Conservative party magazines, M. Fedden, ‘Empire catering’, Home and Politics, May 1928, p. 9; ‘The big campaign for Home and Empire. Mr. Baldwin’s message to you’, Home and Empire, May 1930, p. 3; Lady Fox, ‘The spirit of youth in politics’, Home and Empire, Aug 1930, p. 5.

  12. 12.

    Conservative and Unionist Film Association, Empire Trade (1934), http://www.colonialfilm.org.uk/node/1312. The film appeared in the ‘Britain under the National Government’ series.

  13. 13.

    ‘Buy British goods’, Shell-Mex advert, Illustrated London News, 25 Jul 1925, p. 185; ‘Pillars of British trade’, BP advert (1926), Modern Records Centre, Warwick, BP archive, ARC187604.

  14. 14.

    Managers’ reports on “Buy British” campaign, 23 Feb 1932, The National Archives (TNA), London, CO758/94/6.

  15. 15.

    T. Walton [proprietor of T. Walton Ltd., Covent Garden fruit merchants] to Stephen Tallents, 22 Feb 1932, TNA, CO759/94/6.

  16. 16.

    Stephen Constantine, “Bringing the empire alive’: the Empire Marketing Board and imperial propaganda, 1926–1933’, in John M. MacKenzie ed., Imperialism and popular culture (Manchester, 1986), pp. 192–231 at pp. 215–216.

  17. 17.

    EMB publicity committee minutes, 3 Mar 1932; see also extract from the minutes of the EMB marketing committee, 26 May 1932 in Memo., 6 Jun 1932; Lachlan Maclean, Memo., ‘Buy British campaign’, n.d. [5 Jul 1932], all TNA, CO758/94/2.

  18. 18.

    ‘The end of “Buy British”?’, Manchester Guardian, 9 Mar 1933, p. 8.

  19. 19.

    Tim Rooth, British protectionism and the international economy: overseas commercial policy in the 1930s (Cambridge, 1992).

  20. 20.

    Memo by John D. Hickerson, 6 Aug 1937, in United States Department of State, Foreign relations of the United States diplomatic papers, 1937, Vol. II, The British Commonwealth, Europe, Near East and Africa (Washington, DC, 1954), p. 64.

  21. 21.

    Charlie Whitham, ‘Seeing the wood for the trees: the British Foreign Office and the Anglo-American Trade Agreement of 1938’, Twentieth Century British History 16 (2005), pp. 29–51.

  22. 22.

    James N. Miller, ‘Wartime origins of multilateralism, 1939–1945: the impact of Anglo-American trade policy negotiations’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge University, 2003).

  23. 23.

    ‘Home opinion as shown in the mails to the USA and Eire’, 5 Sep 1940, TNA, CAB 66/11/39, WP (40) 359.

  24. 24.

    David Edgerton, ‘War, reconstruction, and the nationalization of Britain, 1939–1951’, Past and Present, supplement 6 (2011), pp. 29–46 at pp. 30, 36–37, 40.

  25. 25.

    The classic popular ‘island nation’ account of the British war effort was provided in Ministry of Information, What Britain has done 1939–1945 (London, 1945); for the vital role of the empire in the British war effort see David Edgerton, Britain’s war machine: weapons, resources and experts in the Second World War (London, 2011), pp. 13–18, 20–27, 47–50, 274–283.

  26. 26.

    For the problems which polling agencies faced in creating ‘scientific’ surveys in the 1940s see Mark Roodhouse, “Fish-and chip intelligence’: Henry Durant and the British Institute of Public Opinion, 1936–1963’, Twentieth Century British History, 24 (2013), pp. 224–248 at pp. 224–226, 231–245; Penny Summerfield, ‘Mass Observation: Social research or social movement?’, Journal of Contemporary History, 20 (1985), pp. 439–452.

  27. 27.

    BBC Listener Research Report, ‘The British Empire. Some aspects of public opinion on the British Empire, and in particular, the Colonial Empire, January 1943’ (1943), pp. 2, 5, LR/1558. The survey was based on a sample of 895 correspondents. See also Richard Toye, ‘An imperial defeat? The presentation and reception of the fall of Singapore’, in Brian Farrell ed., Churchill and the Lion City: shaping modern Singapore (Singapore, 2011), pp. 108–129.

  28. 28.

    For Women’s Institutes support for Empire shopping in the 1930s see for example Home and Country, Dec 1931, p. 607; Jan 1932, p. 6; Mar 1932, pp. 110–111.

  29. 29.

    James Belich, Replenishing the earth: the settler revolution and the rise of the Anglo-world, 1783–1939 (Oxford, 2009), p. 472.

  30. 30.

    BBC Listener Research Report, ‘“Jobs for all”: eight broadcasts on full employment and its effect on individuals at home and abroad’, Jan 1945, LR/3164.

  31. 31.

    ‘A report on the Industrial Charter’ (File Report 2516), Sep 1947, p. 42, Mass-Observation Archive.

  32. 32.

    For example, an advert for Ford in the Illustrated London News, 22 May 1948, p. 4, said that while in the old days the Dagenham marshes had been the haunt of smugglers who brought ‘black, forbidden imports’, the area was now dedicated to a better purpose: a Ford factory building for export.

  33. 33.

    ‘The other end of the export drive’, Illustrated London News, 6 Aug 1949, p. 215; 17 Sep 1949, p. 437; 17 Dec 1949, p. 966.

  34. 34.

    Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Austerity in Britain: rationing, controls, and consumption, 1939–1955 (Oxford, 2000), pp. 119, 128, 207–208, 214–215; James Hinton, ‘Militant housewives: The British Housewives’ League and the Attlee government’, History Workshop Journal, 38 (1994), pp. 129–156.

  35. 35.

    ‘Food for thought: the dinner table and the empire’, Home and Politics, May 1926, p. 9; ‘The shoppers’ slogan’, Home and Empire, Apr. 1930, p. 20, see also ‘Christmas shopping’, Dec 1931, p. 6; Home Truths (1949–1951), Conservative Party Archive (CPA), Bodleian Library, Oxford, PUB146/1.

  36. 36.

    For the distinction between the two types of internationalism, see Casper Sylvest, British liberal internationalism, 1880–1930: making progress? (Manchester, 2009), p. 10. For their application to trade issues see Richard Toye, ‘The International Trade Organization’, in Amrita Narlikar, Martin Daunton and Robert Stern (eds.), The Oxford handbook of the World Trade Organization (Oxford, 2012), pp. 85–101. On the Sugar Convention, see Trentmann, Free trade nation, pp. 154–161.

  37. 37.

    Scott Kelly, The myth of Mr. Butskell: the politics of British economic policy, 1950–1955 (Aldershot, 2002), Chap. 7, offers a valuable contribution but appears to overstate the significance of the divisions between the parties.

  38. 38.

    Richard Toye, ‘Churchill and Britain’s “financial Dunkirk”’, Twentieth Century British History, 15 (2004), pp. 329–360.

  39. 39.

    Leo Amery diary, 22 Aug 1947, Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge, Leo Amery papers, AMEL7/41.

  40. 40.

    For the detail of the negotiations, see Richard Toye, ‘The Attlee government, the imperial preference system, and the creation of the GATT’, English Historical Review 118 (2003), pp. 912–939.

  41. 41.

    See for example 435.H.C. Deb. 5s., 24 Mar 1947, cols. 885–898, speech by Sir Stafford Cripps.

  42. 42.

    Speech by Sir Stafford Cripps, ‘Second session of the Preparatory Committee of the International Conference on Trade and Employment; verbatim report: third meeting: 11 April 1947’, GATT Archive, E/PC/T/PV. 2/3.

  43. 43.

    ‘A report on the British Commonwealth and Empire’ (File Report 3046), Oct 1948, Mass-Observation Archive, Oct 1948, pp. 4, 16.

  44. 44.

    ‘A Report on the Industrial Charter’, p. 15.

  45. 45.

    The report was based on a survey of 1921 participants. G.K. Evens, Public opinion on colonial affairs (London, 1948), p. iii.

  46. 46.

    Lawrence Black, Redefining British politics: culture, consumerism and participation. 1954–1970 (Basingstoke, 2010), pp. 16–17.

  47. 47.

    H.W. Arndt, Economic development: the history of an idea (Chicago, 1987); John Toye and Richard Toye, The UN and global political economy: trade, finance and development (Bloomington, IN, 2004), Chap. 1.

  48. 48.

    Frank Trentmann, ‘Wealth versus welfare: the British Left between free trade and national political economy before the First World War’, Historical Research 70 (1997), pp. 70–98 at p. 77, quoting Ramsay MacDonald, The Zollverein and British industry (London, 1903), p. 163.

  49. 49.

    For the development of the anti-apartheid movement see Roger Fieldhouse, Anti-Apartheid: the history of the movement in Britain 1959–1994 (London, 2005).

  50. 50.

    One reference, in the 1945 Labour manifesto, to the party’s intention to establish ‘the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain’ was omitted from the count.

  51. 51.

    Across the period, Liberal manifestos included relatively few words from the Empire–Commonwealth group, and so are omitted from the further analysis, but it is clear that ‘Commonwealth’ was generally preferred to words from the Empire group. It may not be a coincidence that the Liberals, as apparently the party least concerned with Empire/Commonwealth, were also the most enthusiastically pro-European in 1961–1963.

  52. 52.

    Philip M. Williams, Hugh Gaitskell: a political biography (London, 1979), pp. 676–679.

  53. 53.

    David Clayton, ‘Buy British: the collective marketing of cotton textiles, 1956–1962’, Textile History, 41 (2010), 217–235 at 223.

  54. 54.

    P. Harnetty, ‘The Indian cotton duties controversy, 1894–1896’, English Historical Review, 77 (1962), pp. 684–702.

  55. 55.

    Stuart Ward, The untied kingdom: a global history of the end of Britain, forthcoming, Chap. 2.

  56. 56.

    J.L. Reading, ‘Participation of Commonwealth commercial concerns in the British Industries Fair’, 28 Jun 1955, Minutes and meetings of the Board of Directors, British Industries Fair Limited (BIF), TNA, BT54/11; see also Minutes of meeting with Commonwealth representatives, 17 Jun 1955.

  57. 57.

    T.E. Rees, ‘B.I.F. International’ memo., 5 Dec 1955; Minutes, 13 Jan 1956, Minutes and meetings of the Board of Directors, BIF, BT54/11.

  58. 58.

    Neil Rollings, British business in the formative years of European integration, 1945–1973 (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 75, 96–113; Alan S. Milward and George Brennan, Britain’s place in the world: a historical enquiry into import controls 1945–1960 (London, 1996); Catherine Schenk, Britain and the Sterling Area: from devaluation to convertibility in the 1950s (London, 1994).

  59. 59.

    Rollings, British business, p. 24.

  60. 60.

    Labour Party, Britain belongs to you (no. 4), 1959, http://pebs.group.shef.ac.uk/britain-belongs-you-no4.

  61. 61.

    John W. Young, Britain and European unity, 1945–1992 (Basingstoke, 1993), p. 77, citing Robert J. Lieber, British politics and European unity: parties, elites and pressure groups (Berkley, CA, 1970), p. 207.

  62. 62.

    ‘British attitudes to the EEC 1960–1963’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 5 (1966), pp. 49–61; Anthony King ed., British political opinion 1937–2000: the Gallup polls (London, 2001), pp. 262–263.

  63. 63.

    Peter Minoprio to Michael Fraser, ‘Common Market Publicity’, 6 Sep 1962, CPA, CRD 2/43/2.

  64. 64.

    645.H.C., Deb. 5s., 3 Aug 1961, col. 1665.

  65. 65.

    See, for example, R. Hugh Corbet ed., Britain, not Europe: Commonwealth Before Common Market (London, 1962).

  66. 66.

    For Douglas Jay’s attempt, see Douglas Jay and Roy Jenkins, The Common Market debate (London, 1962), pp. 4–5.

  67. 67.

    Matthias Haeussler, ‘The popular press and ideas of Europe: The Daily Mirror, the Daily Express, and Britain’s first application to join the EEC, 1961–1963’, Twentieth Century British History, 25 (2014), pp. 108–131 at pp. 119–121.

  68. 68.

    For the ways in which this role was rhetorically constructed, or imagined, see David M. McCourt, ‘What was Britain’s ‘East of Suez role’? Reassessing the withdrawal, 1964–1968’, Diplomacy & Statecraft, 20 (2009), pp. 453–472.

  69. 69.

    732.H.C. Deb. 5s., 20 Jul 1966, col. 649.

  70. 70.

    Philip Howard, ‘Colt workers defy union ruling’, The Times, 11 Jan 1968, p. 1; ‘Not sold on ‘Buy British’ campaign’, The Times, 12 Jan 1968, p. 15. For business criticism of the Maxwell campaign see also Joe Hyman, ‘Harmful effects’, The Times, 13 Jan 1968, p. 9.

  71. 71.

    Executive Committee minutes, Jan. 1968; ‘Backing Britain—WI members offer practical help’, NFWI press release, 6 Feb 1968, both Women’s Library, London, National Federation of Women’s Institutes (NFWI) papers, 5FWI/A/3/058; ‘Backing Britain’, Home and Country, Mar 1968, p. 92.

  72. 72.

    P.F.D. Tennant to Lady Anglesey, 30 Jan 1968, NFWI, 5FWI/A/3/058.

  73. 73.

    Bernard Donoughue, Downing Street diary volume two: with James Callaghan in No. 10 (London, 2008), p. 287 (entry for 13 Feb 1978).

  74. 74.

    Andrew Thompson, ‘The language of imperialism and the meanings of empire: imperial discourse in British politics, 1895–1914’, Journal of British Studies 36 (1997), pp. 147–177 at p. 147.

  75. 75.

    David Edgerton, Warfare state: Britain, 1920–1970 (Cambridge, 2006); Edgerton, ‘War, reconstruction’, p. 36; David Davis, ‘Sell, not buy British—CBI chief’, The Times, 30 Jan 1968, p. 18.

  76. 76.

    L.S. Amery, The forward view (London, 1935), p. 243; James Vernon, Hunger: a modern history (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 104–114.

  77. 77.

    See David Thackeray, ‘Home and politics: women and Conservative activism in early twentieth century Britain’, Journal of British Studies, 49 (2010), pp. 826–848.

  78. 78.

    For the Consumers’ Association see Hilton, Consumerism in twentieth century Britain, Chaps. 6–9.

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank David Higgins and Stuart Ward for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this chapter.

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  1. Department of History, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

    David Thackeray & Richard Toye

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  1. Department of History, University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom

    David Thackeray

  2. Department of History, University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom

    Andrew Thompson

  3. Department of History, University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom

    Richard Toye

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Thackeray, D., Toye, R. (2018). What Was a British Buy? Empire, Europe and the Politics of Patriotic Trade in Britain, c.1945–1963. In: Thackeray, D., Thompson, A., Toye, R. (eds) Imagining Britain’s Economic Future, c.1800–1975. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71297-0_7

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