Lesson 8: Modern Britain
In this lesson you will read of Britain's remarkable recovery, of its share in the lead in science and tecnnology, of the reforms of the government of Margaret Thatcher, its holding on to the Faulklands, and its granting of separate governing powers to Wales and Scotland in its Devolution program.
A Remarkable Recovery
The later 50's and early 60's resulted in a boom time for Britain with increasing prosperity, rising wages, and a manageable economy; as Harold Macmillan was to state in l957, "most of our people have never had it so good." British technology was still tops. In August, l956, at Calder Hall, Britain initiated full-scale use of nuclear fuel to produce electricity.
A new era in transatlantic passenger service began in October, l957, when two De Havilland Comet 1V's completed the journey from Britain to the U.S. in under six hours. An end to the centuries-old transatlantic service of the great passenger liners quickly followed.
In l959, England developed the hovercraft to cross the English Channel on a cushion of air. The same year saw the production of the Bristol Britannia, the first large turboprop aircraft to be used in commercial aviation. Protests against the building of nuclear weapons, however, produced the famous annual Aldermaston Marches, beginning in l958.
When the government abandoned its plans to produce a nuclear missile, it turned to the U.S. to fill the gap in its defenses and adopted the Polaris missile, promoting Labour leader Harold Wilson to remark that the new independent British deterrent was "neither independent nor British nor a deterrent."
Heavy industry, in which Britain had led the world for so long, continued its decline. It was a source of great irony that one of her most loyal allies in the war, her former colony of Australia, was partly responsible for the great decline in Britain's steel industry. Australia's sale to Japan of nearly 6 million tons of iron ore from the Hamersly Range deposits in l964 allowed a major expansion of the Japanese steel industry, making her an industrial superpower. In l967, Britain was forced to devalue the pound in an attempt to check inflation and improve the trade deficit.
One year later, Britain converted to the decimal system, ending the age-old system in which 240 pennies equaled one pound. Thus the nation joined most of the world's system of decimal coinage. It also launched the QE 2 as a successor to the passenger liner Queen Elizabeth. British prestige was heightened by the successful round-the-world voyage of Francis Chichester in his Gipsy Moth in l967, and by the first flight of the Concorde supersonic jet in l969, the year that a British woman (Anne Jones) triumphed at Wimbledon. In l970, Tony Jacklin became the first British golfer to win the U.S. Open in 50 years.
Something of a miracle occurred just when the world's oil producing nations doubled the cost of their product: Britain herself became a major oil producer. Since l962, she had been conducting seismic prospecting for oil and natural gas in the North Sea, and full-scale activities had begun in l964, the first oil find coming five years later. Great expansion of the oil fields then took place in the l970's so that in l979, the country's oil production exceeded its imports for the first time. Britain's ports also adapted to the new container vessels, spelling the end for such great traditional ports as Liverpool, Glasgow and East London.
Continuing violence between Catholics, committed to union with Eire; and Protestants, committed to retaining their British identity, led to the Government imposing direct rule over Northern Ireland, but hopes for peace were shattered on "Bloody Sunday" when British troops opened fire on protesters at Londonderry (January 30, l972). The IRA brought their violence to Britain, killing a leading Conservative MP in March.
In l974, the whole of Britain felt itself under siege from a vicious bombing campaign. Violence continued almost unabated. In l985 the Anglo-Irish Agreement was an attempt to end it, with both Britain and the Irish Republic agreeing to confer over the problems and to work together against terrorism. It took the outrage of the Inniskillen bombing in l998, however, to shock both sides into realizing that governments could do little; peace had to come from the initiatives of the people themselves. In the meantime, England had been undergoing a period of domestic crises that ultimately led to its complete transformation.
