The Effects of the Depression in Britain in the Early 1930’s

The Effects of the Depression in Britain in the Early 1930’s

At the beginning of the 1930’s just like America Britain had a major

depression which affected almost everyone and everything in the

country. But some people were affected worse than others depending on

what industry they worked in. In most cases people who worked in the

old industries were affected worst because the old industries like

Shipbuilding, Textiles, Coal mining and Steel making suffered

survirly. Ship building in particular was hit because if no one wanted

to buy or sell goods abroad then ships had very little use so few new

ones were made and so lots of people lost jobs. This then affected the

steel industry because if there wereno ship to build then there was

very little use for steel and so less steel was made and even more

workers lost their jobs. So it seemed that shipbuilding was the cause

of all the depression in the old industry as coal mining was another

one that was affected by there being no ships as the ships ran on coal

so no coal was sold and again more workers became unemployed and also

German and polish coal was cheaper so they faced foreign competition.

Then there was textiles which were also affected by foreign

competition as while Britain had been at war other countries had

introduced man made fibres which were better and so countries did not

want Britain’s textiles and there was no ship to transport the goods

so that was another problem. The textile industry dropped by 40%

because of the man made fibres. Britain went into a depression because

of the huge spending during the war. Britain had taken loans from

America to help during the war and after when Britain went into

depression then Britain could not apy back the loans which was a big

part in why America had a depression.

Because of the depression people decided to save there money instead

of spend it incase they became unemployed they had something to bounce

back on.