Britain didn’t have a roaring ’20s, it had a roaring ’30s – here's why

Talk of a “roaring ’20s” for the UK following the pandemic is wide of the mark, writes author and analyst Bernard Connolly – would-be economic historians should look to the 1930s for a better comparison.

Launch of HMS Devonshire in Plymouth in 1927
Shipbuilding in Plymouth in 1927
(Image credit: © WATFORD/Mirrorpix via Getty Images)

Widespread references to “the Roaring ’20s” in Britain following the end of an earlier pandemic indicate an almost total ignorance of economic history. A little – a very little – knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing.

There was strong growth in Britain in the second quarter of 1920 and, to a lesser extent, in the third quarter of that year. But an extremely sharp recession began in the autumn of 1920. Real (after-inflation) GDP in Britain is estimated to have fallen by 23% between the third quarter of 1920 and the second quarter of 1921, and it did not regain its previous high until the second quarter of 1924 – four years later. Even at the cyclical peak (for the level of GDP) in the first quarter of 1930, GDP was only 16% higher than in the second quarter of 1920, almost ten years earlier. The 1920s was a period of deflation, depression and persistent mass unemployment in Britain.

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Oxford-educated economist Bernard Connolly is the author of The Rotten Heart of Europe: The Dirty War for Europe’s Money