Tumultuous twenties a decade of change
REGION REELED AS INDUSTRIES STRUGGLED TO RECOVER AFTER WARTIME STRIFE
THE 1920s. A decade when the after-effects of the First World War would be keenly felt.
Society, industry and culture all underwent change in an era which is sometimes called the ‘Roaring Twenties.’
If for some this was the decade of post-war ‘bright young things,’ jazz and new, daring fashions, it also brought great hardship to areas of the industrial North East.
Britain’s star was dimming and the country’s 19th-century industrial techniques had long since peaked and were no longer appropriate in a competitive world.
British technology had been in decline since well before 1914.
Post-war Europe was in chaos and a return to the Empire days of before simply did not happen.
The North was badly affected as once-thriving industries of ship building and coal never recovered from the slump they experienced at the end of 1920. The middle of the decade saw widespread industrial action, including two police strikes, a national rail strike, two national coal strikes, a two-month shipbuilding strike, a twomonth engineering strike, and the nineday General Strike in which nearly two million workers withdrew their labour. Here in the North, soup kitchens were set up to feed starving families at a time before the inception of the welfare state.
Once-thriving industries of ship building and coal never recovered from the slump they experienced at the end of 1920
One of the contradictions of the decade, however, was that while there was economic depression, daily living standards for many were slowly on the up.
Steam power was gradually replaced by electricity, and transport became petrol-engine powered.
At home, some families were acquiring basic wireless sets while, in 1924, John Logie Baird created Britain’s first television transmitter.
The were some notable events here in the North East during the decade.
The region gained a powerful new physical symbol in the shape of the Tyne Bridge, opened by King George V in I928.
In sport, Newcastle United won their second FA Cup in 1924, which made the front page of the Sunday Sun (pictured inset) and then three years later, the Magpies won what still stands as their last league title.
Toon fans could celebrate with newly-produced Newcastle Brown Ale, first brewed in that same year, 1927.
In 1929, the massive North East Coast Exhibition held in Newcastle was intended to showcase the industrial talent and energy of the whole region at a time of economic hardship.
Days after the exhibition closed, the Wall Street Crash in New York unleashed a wave of economic chaos which would deliver a host of problems during the troubled 1930s.