Why Were Towns Such As Jarrow Particularly Badly Hit By The Depression?

Why were towns such as Jarrow particularly badly hit by the depression?

Jarrow is a town situated in the North East of England, about 10 miles from Newcastle. Jarrow remained a small town until the introduction of heavy industries like coal mining and shipbuilding. Charles Mark Palmer established a shipyard - Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company Limited - here in 1852 and became the first armour-plate manufacturer in the world. Palmers were also accountable for the first modern cargo ship, as well as a number of notable warships. In this essay I will examine the reasons why small industrial towns such as, Jarrow, were devastated by the great depression.

After the First World War Britain were already facing economic difficulties. One main problem was that a small number of large traditional industries (shipbuilding, coal, iron and textiles) were employing vast percentages of certain region’s work force; this meant that even small changes in these industries could have disastrous effects on people lives and significantly affect employment rates. This is exactly what happened when each Britain’s staple industries went into decline for a few key reasons:

British goods were expensive and Britain found themselves losing their market to foreign competition from countries such as: USA Germany and Japan who were producing goods, cheaper and more efficiently than Britain.
The reason for foreign competition gaining the upper hand on Britain are that these countries were producing goods at a much cheaper rate and transport was cheaper. Moreover the return to the Gold Standard made British goods far more expensive on the world market. Also foreign countries were enforcing protectionism policies on all foreign goods which meant there were high taxes placed on imports which made it ...

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British goods were expensive and Britain found themselves losing their market to foreign competition from countries such as: USA Germany and Japan who were producing goods, cheaper and more efficiently than Britain.
The reason for foreign competition gaining the upper hand on Britain are that these countries were producing goods at a much cheaper rate and transport was cheaper. Moreover the return to the Gold Standard made British goods far more expensive on the world market. Also foreign countries were enforcing protectionism policies on all foreign goods which meant there were high taxes placed on imports which made it harder for Britain to sell her goods.

All of these factors together resulted in a huge slow down of the British economy. In 1933 British export earnings fell to just under £400m compared with £800m 10 years before. This then resulted in a rise in unemployment, figures rose from 1.25m in 1928 to an astronomical 3m in 1933.

Furthermore the British staple industries were all connected to one another, and relied on each other to survive, a good example of this is if we think about the decline of shipbuilding industry and the affects it had on Britain’s other traditional industries. To make a ship you need steel and coal, if there a fewer ships being built less steel and coal are needed thus resulting in less profit for all three industries and the laying-off of employees.

As the number of skilled workers being made redundant in these industrial areas was climbing there was an increasing call for skilled workers in the new light industries of the South East & Midlands. This then attracted the young people of the industrial towns to the South in search of prosperity leaving them bleak and largely uninhabited.

These industrial towns were all built around one particular industry e.g. textiles. This meant that most of the town would be employed by that one textile factory. When that factory was losing money or shut down most of the town would be left unemployed and there were very few other job opportunities available for those people left redundant. This is what happened around most of the industrial towns throughout Britain.

In conclusion I feel that the main reason why towns like Jarrow were so badly affected by the great depression is that these towns were all built around a particular industry. This meant that when the factory closed down most of the town were left unemployed with no local job opportunities therefore falling into extreme poverty and living in appalling conditions.

Andreas Chace