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The Politics of Water in Post-War Britain pp 55–84Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

The Great Flood of 1953

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Abstract

On the night of 31 January 1953, the combination of a spring tidal surge and a fierce wind-bearing storm caused immense floods throughout eastern England. In total, 307 people lost their lives on land: the scale of the disaster was worsened by the widespread destruction of housing, as well as manufacturing and transport infrastructure. The subsequent outpouring of public sympathy and help, channelled by voluntary groups such as the Women’s Voluntary Service, was enormous, but the political controversy about blame and reconstruction, both between the Westminster parties and between local people, landowners and government agencies, revealed a country that was far more uncertain and divided than the scale of charitable giving suggested.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    N. Cawthorne, Shipwrecks: Disasters on the High Seas (London: Arcturus Publishing, 2005), pp. 110–12.

  2. 2.

    D. Summers, The East Coast Floods (London: David and Charles, 1978), pp. 69, 77, 81; M.G. Harland and H.J. Harland, The Flooding of Eastern England (Peterborough: Minimax Books, 1980), p. 26.

  3. 3.

    P.R. Smith, The 1953 Essex Flood Disaster: The People’s Story (Stroud: The History Press, 2012), pp. 9–12.

  4. 4.

    Smith, People’s Story, pp. 112, 114–5. On Canvey’s topography and twentieth-century population growth, see P. Sousounis, R. Brito, and N. Ma, ‘Coastal Flooding in the United Kingdom, 1953 and Now’, Air Worldwide, 21 February 2013, http://www.air-worldwide.com/Publications/AIR-Currents/2013/Coastal-Flooding-in-the-United-Kingdom,-1953-and-Now/, accessed 3 February 2015.

  5. 5.

    R. Flaxman with D. Parkin, Wall of Water: Lowestoft and Oulton Broad during the 1953 Flood (Lowestoft: Rushmere, 1993), pp. 16, 23,26, 32.

  6. 6.

    S. Leese and J. Baker, Black Saturday: Children’s Eyewitness Accounts of the Flood, Sutton-on-Sea 1953 (Lincolnshire: SBK Books, 2004), p. 40.

  7. 7.

    H. Grieve, The Great Tide: The Story of the 1953 Flood Disaster in Essex (Chelmsford: Essex County Council, 1959), pp. 146–7.

  8. 8.

    Institution of Civil Engineers, Conference on the North Sea Floods of 31 January/1 February, 1953 (London: Institution of Civil Engineers, 1954), pp. 5–6, 143, 156, 213.

  9. 9.

    P.J. Baxter, ‘The East Coast Big Flood, 31 January-1 February 1953: A Summary of the Human Disaster’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Series A 363, 1831 (2005), p. 1295.

  10. 10.

    M. Pollard, North Sea Surge: The Story of the East Coast Floods of 1953 (Lavenham: Dalton, 1978), pp. 25–6.

  11. 11.

    Grieve, Great Tide, pp. 151–4.

  12. 12.

    N.R. Storey, Norfolk Floods: An Illustrated History of 1912, 1938 and 1953 (Wellington: Halsgrove, 2012), pp. 81–2.

  13. 13.

    Grieve, Great Tide, pp. 568, 686, 588.

  14. 14.

    NAUK HLG 50/2490, Standard Emergency Region no. 4 meeting, minutes, 2 February 1953.

  15. 15.

    Pollard, North Sea Surge, p. 38; Baxter, ‘Human Disaster’, tables 1–2, p. 1303.

  16. 16.

    A. Carlsson-Hyslop, ‘Storm Surge Science: The London Connection 1928–1953’, in J. Galloway (ed.), Tides and Floods: New Research on London and the Tidal Thames from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century (London: Institute of Historical Research, 2010), p. 45.

  17. 17.

    NAUK T 225/339, Mitchell to Owen, 4 February 1953.

  18. 18.

    Bankoff, ‘English “Lowlands”’, pp. 4, 15, 21–3.

  19. 19.

    D. Barker, Harvest Home: The Story of the Great Floods of 1947 (London: HMSO, 1948), pp. 22–9, 35–7, 70–9.

  20. 20.

    NAUK HLG 107/138, Wood to Tetlow, 2 February 1953, Jackson to MHLG Regional Office, 4 February 1953, Nicol to Warren, 25 February 1953, Wilson to Maxwell-Fyfe, n.d., but filed in February 1953.

  21. 21.

    A. Hall, ‘The Rise of Blame and Recreancy in the United Kingdom: A Cultural, Political and Scientific Autopsy of the North Sea Flood of 1953’, Environment and History 17, 3 (2011), p. 390.

  22. 22.

    Lord Mayor of London, The Sea Came In: The History of the Lord Mayor of London’s National Flood and Tempest Distress Fund (London: The Mansion House, 1959), pp. 37, 115.

  23. 23.

    Essex Record Office, Chelmsford (hereafter ERO) D/Z 35/32, Lord Mayor’s National Flood and Tempest Distress Fund, memorandum of guidance no. 2, 27 February 1953.

  24. 24.

    NAUK MAF 250/97, Civil Defence review, ‘Eastern Region: paper on flood disaster, January 31-February 1 1953‘, n.d., but filed in 1953.

  25. 25.

    Smith, People’s Story, p. 115.

  26. 26.

    Grieve, Great Tide, pp. 444–5. 541.

  27. 27.

    Women’s Royal Voluntary Service Suffolk, Report on Help Given by East Suffolk WVS in Flood Relief Work after the Storm and Tempest of the Night of January 31st-February 1st, 1953 (WVS: Ipswich, 1953), p. 3.

  28. 28.

    Sir Winston Churchill, ‘Flood Disasters’, H. of C. Debs., vol. 511 col. 1457, 19 February 1953.

  29. 29.

    ‘Ministry Bar Take-Over of Houses’, Daily Mail, 3 February 1953; ‘Commons Storm – Over a Leaflet’, Daily Mail, 4 February 1953; ‘Macmillan Accused of “Incorrect Statement”’, Daily Mail, 5 February 1953.

  30. 30.

    NAUK PREM 11/413, Ministerial Committee on Emergencies, minutes, 4 February 1953.

  31. 31.

    Harold Macmillan diary, 4 February 1953: Catterall, Cabinet Years, p. 211.

  32. 32.

    Herbert Morrison, ‘East Coast Flood Disaster’, H. of C. Debs., vol. 510, col. 1665, 3 February 1953.

  33. 33.

    ‘MPs Urge an All-Britain Plan for Sea Bulwarks’, Daily Mirror, 3 February 1953; ‘A Job For the Nation’, Daily Mail, 3 February 1953.

  34. 34.

    NAUK HLG 50/2515, MHLG Circular 52/54, ‘Economies in local government services: water supply, sewerage and sewage disposal, private street works, coast protection and miscellaneous services’, 27 June 1952.

  35. 35.

    N. Rosenberg, Economic Planning in the British Building Industry 1945–49 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1960), pp. 31–2; C. Flinn, ‘“In Spite of Planning”: Reconstructing Britain’s Blitzed Cities, 1945–54’, Oxford Brookes University PhD Thesis, 2011, pp. 12, 71–3, 82, 89–95, 100–101.

  36. 36.

    Hall, Blame and Recreancy, p. 391.

  37. 37.

    Harland and Harland, Flooding, p. 33.

  38. 38.

    Harold Macmillan diary, 2 February 1953: P. Catterall, The Macmillan Diaries: The Cabinet Years, 1950–1957 (London: Macmillan, 2003), p. 210.

  39. 39.

    H. of C. Debs., vol. 512, col. 2067, Ernest Marples, oral answers, ‘Coast protection schemes (grants)’, 17 March 1953.

  40. 40.

    H. of C. Debs, vol. 510, col. 2181, Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, ‘East Coast Flood Disaster’, 6 February 1953.

  41. 41.

    HM Treasury, 1951–52 Civil Estimates and Estimates for Revenue Departments (London: HMSO, 1951), Class VI, 8, I6, MAF vote, p. 98; HM Treasury, 1952–53 Civil Estimates and Estimates for Revenue Departments (London: HMSO, 1952), Class VI, 8, I6, MAF vote, p. 86; HM Treasury,1953–54 Civil Estimates and Estimates for Revenue Departments (London: HMSO, 1953), Class VIII, 1, MAF vote, p. 32.

  42. 42.

    Calculations carried out using the Retail Prices Index measure of inflation, using calculators at http://www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/relativevalue.php, accessed 16 February 2015.

  43. 43.

    See ERO D/UCt M2/16/23, Clacton UDC, Sea Defence Committee minutes, 13 September 1952, 18 October 1952, 15 November 1952, 18 April 1953, 25 July 1954, 7 October 1959, 12 September 1960.

  44. 44.

    NAUK CAB 134/438, IPC memorandum, ‘Report on capital investment in 1949‘, 16 July 1948. On the role of the IPC, which tried to bring government financial and physical planning into balance with each other, see M. Chick, Industrial Policy in Britain 1945–1951: Economic Planning, Nationalisation and the Labour Governments (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 10–11.

  45. 45.

    NAUK CAB 134/440, IPC minutes, 10 February 1949, IPC memorandum, ‘Report on capital investment in 1950–52’, 12 May 1949.

  46. 46.

    NAUK CAB 134/441, IPC memorandum, ‘Report on capital investment in 1951 and 1952‘, 24 April 1950.

  47. 47.

    NAUK CAB 134/442, IPC minutes, 9 January 1951.

  48. 48.

    Harold Macmillan diary, 3–4 February 1953: Catterall, Cabinet Years, p. 211; see Harold Macmillan, ‘East Coast Flood Disaster’, H. of C. Debs., vol. 510 col. 1851, 4 February 1953.

  49. 49.

    NAUK HLG 50/2490, Macmillan to Churchill, 4 February 1953.

  50. 50.

    NAUK CAB 134/442, IPC memorandum, ‘Civil investment in 1952 and 1953‘, December 1951.

  51. 51.

    Baxter, Human Disaster, p. 1295.

  52. 52.

    Cmd. 9165 (Waverley Report), Report of the Departmental Committee on Coastal Flooding (May 1954), pp. 10–11. See the opinions of one of the committee’s members on this question at J. A. Steers, ‘The East Coast Floods, January-February 1953’, The Geographical Journal 119, 3 (1953), pp. 292–3.

  53. 53.

    Central Advisory Water Committee (Heneage Report), Land Drainage in England and Wales, Report of the Land Drainage Legislation Sub-Committee (London: HMSO, 1951), e.g. pp. 4, 9, 39.

  54. 54.

    Summers, East Coast Floods, pp. 41, 46.

  55. 55.

    NAUK HLG 50/2490, Ministry note for Secretary, 2 February 1953, Secretary’s memorandum, ‘Tour of flooded areas’, 3 February 1953, Edwards to Allen, 10 February 1953.

  56. 56.

    NAUK MAF 135/266, MAF memorandum to River Boards, Drainage Boards and County Agricultural Executive Committees, ‘Flooding and food production’, 29 April 1953.

  57. 57.

    Barker, Harvest Home, p. 84.

  58. 58.

    The latter figure is from NAUK T 225/339, ‘East coast floods, February 1953’, monthly progress report, June 1957.

  59. 59.

    NAUK T 225/339, Cabinet Home Affairs Committee, minutes, 7 February 1953, NAUK T 223/416, Cabinet Home Affairs Committee, minutes, 27 February 1953, Treasury memorandum, ‘Comptroller and Auditor General’s report on civil appropriation accounts’, June 1953, Boyd-Carpenter to Butler, 29 June 1953.

  60. 60.

    NAUK T 223/417, Petch to Couzens, 26 February 1953.

  61. 61.

    The word ‘drastic’ was George Brown’s, at H. of C. Debs., vol. 513, col. 1248, ‘Coastal Flooding (Emergency Provisions) Bill’, second reading debate, 1 April 1953. Sir Thomas Dugdale, the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, set out the powers at ibid ., cols. 1239–41.

  62. 62.

    NAUK MAF 255/860, Drafting notes on amendments, Coastal Flooding (Emergency Provisions) Bill, clause 1, page 1, line 13, clause 1, page 2, line 3, clause 1, page 2, line 34, clause 3, page 4, line 6, and clause 4, page 7, line 19, all April 1953.

  63. 63.

    NAUK MAF 135/266, Coastal Flooding Bill, report stage, notes on amendments, April 1953. MAF memorandum to flood-affected river boards, ‘See defence reconstruction and improvement works’, draft, April 1953.

  64. 64.

    NAUK MAF 250/96, Wilson, Van der Berghs & Jurgens Ltd., to Fisher, Ministry of Food, 10 March 1953.

  65. 65.

    Grieve, Great Tide, p. 841.

  66. 66.

    NAUK MAF 135/321, Maher to Duke, 6 October 1953, Lincolnshire River Board and MAF meeting, minutes, 10 July 1953.

  67. 67.

    NAUK MAF 222/235, Sea Defence Reconstruction Committee minutes, 10 June 1953.

  68. 68.

    NAUK MAF 222/298, Duke to Johnson, 20 July 1953.

  69. 69.

    NAUK MAF 222/279, Gardner memorandum, 28 July 1953.

  70. 70.

    Summers, East Coast Floods, p. 82.

  71. 71.

    NAUK MAF 135/321, Johnson memorandum, 18 November 1953, Duke to Gardner, 27 March 1954, Draft Statutory Instrument, ‘Coastal Flooding (Emergency Provisions)’, n.d., but filed in 1954.

  72. 72.

    ERO C/DC/11/Fd45/12, Essex River Board to Mills, 25 July 1957.

  73. 73.

    NAUK HLG 50/2490, Macleod memorandum, ‘The situation at Harwich’, 16 February 1953, Secretary’s meeting with officials, ‘Long-term problems’, 18 February 1953, Beddoe to Symon, 26 February 1953.

  74. 74.

    ERO C/DC/11/Fd 13, Flooded areas rehabilitation conference, Chelmsford, Essex, minutes, 13 February 1953, Essex County Council meeting on flood disaster, minutes, 18 February 1953.

  75. 75.

    Bankoff, ‘English “Lowlands”’, p. 33.

  76. 76.

    Summers, East Coast Floods, pp. 36–7. On the Railway Executive’s role, e.g., between the Rivers Ware and Waveney inland from Great Yarmouth, see NAUK MAF 135/265, MAF memorandum, ‘New Cut between Reedham and Haddiscoe’, n.d., but filed in May 1953, and on the Air Ministry’s worries about (and arrangements for) security at its radar stations, see AIR 2/12184, Air Ministry to superintending engineers, 29 May 1953.

  77. 77.

    NAUK MAF 222/298, Johnson to Duke, 23 July 1953.

  78. 78.

    NAUK T 225/339, Ministerial committee on emergencies, minutes, 12 February 1953.

  79. 79.

    NAUK T 225/339, Official committee on emergencies, minutes, 12 February 1953.

  80. 80.

    NAUK T 225/339, Ministry of Housing and Local Government draft memorandum on flood damage, February 1953.

  81. 81.

    ‘Flood Row Over Churchill: I Never Said That’, Daily Express, 11 March 1953.

  82. 82.

    NAUK PREM 11/413, Ministerial Committee on Emergencies, minutes, 11 March 1953, Cabinet minutes, 19 March 1953.

  83. 83.

    ERO D/2/35/12, Driberg to Chuter Ede, 17 March 1953.

  84. 84.

    NAUK CAB 129/60, Macmillan memorandum to Cabinet, ‘Repair of flood damage: expenditure by local authorities’, 14 March 1953, Maxwell Fyfe draft statement, ‘Flood damage’, 16 March 1953; NAUK CAB 128/26, Cabinet minutes, 17 March 1953.

  85. 85.

    A. Carlsson-Hyslop, ‘An Anatomy of Storm Surge Science at Liverpool Tidal Institute, 1919–1959: Forecasting, Practices of Calculation and Patronage’, University of Manchester PhD Thesis, 2010, p. 237.

  86. 86.

    ERO C/DC 11/Fd54/1, Essex County Council finance committee, minutes, 21 June 1955, 21 January 1956.

  87. 87.

    Carlsson-Hyslop, ‘Storm Surge Science’, p. 239.

  88. 88.

    NAUK MAF 135/280, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries memorandum to Waverley Committee, no. 34, ‘Financial and organisational responsibility’, n.d., but filed in 1953.

  89. 89.

    ibid ., Maher to Duke, 21 October 1953.

  90. 90.

    E. Penning-Rowsell, C. Johnson and S. Tunstall, ‘“Signals” From Pre-Crisis Discourse: Lessons from UK Flooding for Global Environmental Policy Change?’, Global Environmental Change 16, 4 (2006), p. 331.

  91. 91.

    ERO D/UCt M2/16/23, Clacton UDC, Sea Defence Committee minutes, e.g. 26 July 1954, 11 November 1954.

  92. 92.

    NAUK MAF 135/280, MAF evidence to Waverley, ‘Gaps in responsibility for sea defence’, n.d., but filed in 1953.

  93. 93.

    Cmd. 8923, Interim Report of the Departmental Committee on Coastal Flooding (July 1953), pp. 4–7; ‘Full Flood Warning Plan Ready for High Tides’, Daily Mail, 28 August 1953.

  94. 94.

    NAUK HLG 107/138, MHLG Circular 52/53, ‘Flood warning system’, 27 August 1953.

  95. 95.

    See, e.g., ERO C/DC/11/Fd21/Pt I, Home Office Circular 153, ‘Flood warning system’, 27 August 1953, Canvey Island Urban District Council to Lightburn, 9 September 1953.

  96. 96.

    ERO C/DC/11/Fd21/Pt I, Essex County Council, ‘Flooding Warning System: general instructions to duty officers’, October 1953, Steventon to Lightburn, 12 October 1953, Essex River Board, meeting on flood warning system with local authorities, minutes, 25 August 1953.

  97. 97.

    ERO C/DC/11/Fd21/Pt II, see, e.g., Lauder to Pegram, 13 February 1954, Pegram to Berridge, 19 October 1954 (and further correspondence relating to Dagenham’s flooding plans).

  98. 98.

    NAUK MAF 222/1388, MAFF memorandum to flood-affected river boards, ‘Flood warning system’, 31 December 1962, MHLG/ MAFF Joint Circular, ‘Liaison between planning authorities and river boards’, 27 September 1962, Rumble, Clerk of Canvey Island council to MAFF, 12 August 1963.

  99. 99.

    NAUK HLG 50/2877, Circular 9/54, ‘Civil Defence (Mutual Aid) Regulations, 1949‘, 10 February 1954, County of Lincoln, also Lindsey warning and evacuation plans, 3 March 1954.

  100. 100.

    NAUK HLG 107/139, Nottinghamshire Constabulary to Sydenham, 23 January 1956, Lincolnshire Constabulary to MHLG, 13 August 1954, 7 May 1956.

  101. 101.

    Cmd. 9165 (Waverley Report), Report, pp. 13, 18–20.

  102. 102.

    NAUK HLG 51/1158, MHLG memorandum to river boards, 3 June 1954.

  103. 103.

    NAUK MAF 222/1388, Advisory committee on oceanographic and meteorological research, memorandum on functions, n.d., but filed in 1963.

  104. 104.

    NAUK HLG 50/2877, Maher, MAFF, to Browne, MHLG, 28 September 1955, MHLG memorandum, ‘Jurisdiction of river boards: progress report’, n.d., but filed in 1955.

  105. 105.

    NAUK MAF 222/1388, Blake to Crowe, 6 June 1963, MAFF, MoT meeting with Essex CC and the Essex River Board, minutes, 17 September 1963.

  106. 106.

    NAUK HLG 50/2877, MHLG Circular 44/54, ‘Coast protection’, 3 June 1954, Owen, Town Clerk, Aldeburgh, to MHLG, 14 March 1956, Aldeburgh Borough Council and Norfolk and Suffolk River Board meeting, minutes, 31 October 1956.

  107. 107.

    Gandy, Fabric of Space, pp. 185–6.

  108. 108.

    S. Gilbert and R. Horner, The Thames Barrier (London: Telford, 1984), p. 26.

  109. 109.

    NAUK HLG 50/2877, Waverley Report, Departmental committee on coastal flooding, draft, March-April 1954, paras. 85–92.

  110. 110.

    NAUK MT 81/106, Report of the Thames Technical Panel on the Waverley proposals, 1954.

  111. 111.

    NAUK DEFE 7/1522, MHLG circular 3/60, ‘Technical possibilities of a Thames Flood Barrier’, 2 March 1960, MHLG to Gough, 18 February 1959, Wright to CDS, 24 February 1959.

  112. 112.

    NAUK DEFE 7/1522, Chiefs of Staff Committee memorandum to the Joint Planning Staff, ‘The Thames barrier’, 10 December 1954, Green to Powell, 5 January 1955, Powell to Symon, 6 January 1958.

  113. 113.

    R.W. Horner, ‘Current Proposals for the Thames Barrier and the Organization of the Investigations’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 272 (1972), p. 179.

  114. 114.

    Gilbert and Horner, Thames Barrier, pp. 34–6, 41–51.

  115. 115.

    NAUK HLG 120/1378, Hermann Bondi report, ‘A London flood barrier’, 21 July 1967.

  116. 116.

    M. Kendrick, ‘The Thames Barrier’, Landscape and Urban Planning 16, 1–2 (1988), p. 61.

  117. 117.

    Carlsson-Hyslop, ‘Storm Surge Science’, pp. 50–1.

  118. 118.

    NAUK HLG 50/2489, Stirk, Secretary, Kent River Board to MHLG, 16 October 1954, Bew, Clerk, Essex River Board to Wilkinson, 19 October 1954, Radcliffe, Clerk, Middlesex CC, to MHLG, 9 November 1954, Roberts, Clerk, LCC, to MHLG, 16 February 1955.

  119. 119.

    NAUK HLG 50/2489, MHLG memorandum, ‘Co-ordination of flood defences in the Thames’, n.d., but filed in 1954.

  120. 120.

    Gilbert and Horner, Thames Barrier, p. 141.

  121. 121.

    Hall, ‘Blame and Recreancy’, pp. 390, 394–6.

  122. 122.

    F. Furedi, ‘From the Narrative of the Blitz to the Rhetoric of Vulnerability’, Cultural Sociology 1, 2 (2007), pp. 239–40.

  123. 123.

    Smith, People’s Story, p. 118. Similar discourses had been notable in 1947: see Barker, Harvest Home, p. 25.

  124. 124.

    NAUK MAF 250/99, Ministry of Food Conference on food supply and distribution, report, 31 March 1953.

  125. 125.

    Women’s Royal Voluntary Service Suffolk, Report on Help, p. 4.

  126. 126.

    M.P. Escobar and D. Demeritt, ‘Flooding and the Framing of Risk in British Broadsheets, 1985–2010’, Public Understanding of Science 23, 4 (2014), table 2, p. 459. On the Brown Government’s successful ‘de-politicisation’ of the 2007 floods, see M. Wood, ‘Paradoxical Politics: Emergency, Security and the Depoliticisation of Flooding’, Political Studies 64, 3 (2016), esp. pp. 707, 713.

  127. 127.

    Baxter, ‘Human Disaster’, p. 1294; D. Kynaston, Family Britain, 1951–57 (London: Bloomsbury, 2009), p. 258.

  128. 128.

    NAUK MAF 250/97, Civil Defence review, ‘Eastern Region: paper on flood disaster, January 31-February 1 1953‘, n.d., but filed in 1953.

  129. 129.

    S.R. Weart, The Discovery of Global Warming (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003), pp. 43–4.

  130. 130.

    J.W. Hall, P.B. Sayers, M. Walkden and M. Panzeri, ‘Impacts of Climate Change on Coastal Flood Risk in England and Wales: 2030–2100’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Series A 364, 1841 (2006), table 8, p. 1045; Baxter, ‘Human Disaster’, p. 1294.

  131. 131.

    S. Lavery and B. Donovan, ‘Flood Risk Management in the Thames Estuary: Looking Ahead 100 Years’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Series A 363, 1831 (2005), p. 1460.

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    Glen O’Hara

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O’Hara, G. (2017). The Great Flood of 1953. In: The Politics of Water in Post-War Britain. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-44640-4_3

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