AD 1900-2000 Modern

England began the period full of confidence in its historic role. The impact of two World Wars, social divisions, the transformation of cities and countryside under the twin pressures of population growth and technological change meant that this did not last. With the devolution of Scotland and Wales in the 1990s, the status of England became a real question.

World War I (1914-18) revealed the gulf between the officer class and ordinary soldiers. Social tensions erupted in the 1920s, with massive unemployment and poverty in industrial areas, and affluence, with increasing car and house ownership, in the middle-class Midlands and South-east. In spite of austerity and the bombing of London and the manufacturing cities, World War II (1939-45) with its coalition government led by Churchill, generated a spirit of national solidarity. Welfare reforms during and after the War, especially the establishment of the National Health Service (introduced 1946), and a programme of council house building transformed life for many.

The 1950s saw the rise of the consumer society, with more people able to afford cars, consumer goods and holidays abroad. In the ‘swinging sixties’, England won the World Cup at football and exported its pop culture worldwide. Economic crisis and social unrest were developing, however, and from the 1970s financial crises, industrial unrest and racial tensions surfaced. People began to worry about the environment and the effects of urban blight and the car. By the end of the century global warming and fuel supply had become major issues.