The seminar takes place on 30 April 2024, between 5:30 and 6.30 p.m. It is fully ‘hybrid’, which means you can attend either in-person in London at the IHR, or online via Zoom. Details of how to join the discussion are available here.

In 1945 the experimental social research organisation Mass-Observation studied the general election campaign as it played out in the London constituency of Fulham East. Historians who have made use of this study have tended to draw upon the Mass-Observers’ original conclusions, found in the organisation’s ‘file reports’. Reflecting wider national trends, Fulham East ‘swung to Labour’ in 1945, and these summarised conclusions have been relied upon to better understand the basis for the Labour Party’s success at the election more broadly.

Beyond any issues with the use of Fulham as a ‘representative’ case study, my master’s research showcased the limits of treating Mass-Observation’s 1945 investigation as a neutral, data-gathering exercise. It did so by returning to the original field notes from the investigation, paying attention to the ordering and framing of the questionnaire used by Mass-Observation as part of its investigation, as well as the intersubjective dynamics of the interview encounter, and suggesting how this may have shaped the responses elicited and the subsequent impression garnered of popular political attitudes.

Building on this, my doctoral project seeks to provide a more contingent account of the Labour Party’s relationship with working-class voters in the mid-twentieth century. These new research questions have led me towards a more straightforward reading of this material and the explanations it offers of the basis for Labour support. At the same time, by ‘reading against the grain’ in the field-notes from the 1945 investigation, important new insights can be gained into the basis for Labour’s successful class politics in Fulham East.

Mass-Observation’s investigation of the 1945 general election involved five volunteers attending party-political meetings in Fulham, noting down overheard conversations and carrying out interviews with local voters. My master’s research focused especially on these interview field-notes, and suggested that conclusions of apathy (reached by the Mass-Observers and subsequently reproduced by historians) could instead stem from the alienating, off-putting dynamics of the interview encounter.

Returning to this material as part of my doctoral research has involved taking greater interest in other parts of the investigation, particularly party-political meetings, the recorded speeches and audience reception of Labour politicians (albeit shedding light on the views of a more ‘activist’ demographic). This has also involved a more straightforward reading of the questionnaire replies gathered by the Mass-Observers, for instance paying greater attention to the number of working-class interviewees who rooted their partisanship and support for Labour in the party’s perceived class credentials.

My research has shown how the questionnaire used by Mass-Observation in Fulham in 1945 implicitly assumed a high standard of political engagement. At times, the Mass-Observers appear to have explicitly tested local residents’ political knowledge and awareness of the campaign. The Mass-Observation investigation can therefore be seen as encouraging (even if unintentionally) a particular, exacting set of criteria for potential voters.

Nevertheless, by reading ‘against the grain’ in this material, paying attention to those instances where interviewers expressed (annotated) frustration with recorded responses (‘this only emerged after a great deal of ferreting’), it is possible to detect where interviewees spoke in different terms. In some cases, this involved resisting the high standards implicit within the questionnaire, and instead asserting the appropriate limits of political engagement. In other cases, interviewees could express an alternative idea of politics and the basis for political partisanship, offering a more inclusive model. Whereas the questionnaire privileged factual, terminological knowledge, interviewees repeatedly referenced their (implicitly classed) experience as the basis for their party allegiance.

When placed alongside the Mass-Observers’ recordings of party-political meetings in Fulham, it becomes clear that the Labour Party was aligned with these more inclusive ideas of politics and the basis for political participation and partisanship, rooted in classed experience. This is perhaps best epitomised in the speech at Fulham Town Hall given by the visiting Labour speaker (and prominent national party figure) Ernest Bevin. As part of this speech, Bevin referenced the ‘conditions of the working man today’, including the struggle of the male breadwinner to provide for his family members and dependents, a description that was met with ‘heartfelt hear hears’ by labourers in the audience. In turn, Bevin stated that ‘Labour stands for the common man and it is the language the common man understands’.

It is hard to tell, in these instances, who exactly was mirroring whom. Nevertheless, this example suggests how reading ‘against the grain’ can provide new ways of understanding the significance of the election campaign, and can supplement and enhance the insights gained through a more conventional reading of this material, revealing instances of convergence between popular and party-political ideas which shed fresh light on the basis of Labour’s success among working-class voters in Fulham in 1945.

RG

The seminar takes place on 30 April 2024, between 5:30 and 6.30 p.m. It is fully ‘hybrid’, which means you can attend either in-person in London at the IHR, or online via Zoom. Details of how to join the discussion are available here.

Over the past few years I’ve worked as a researcher on the BBC Radio 4 series Prime Ministers’ Props, presented by Sir David Cannadine and produced by Melissa Fitzgerald. By the end of the third series we’ll have discussed how fifteen different prime ministers, for various reasons, became associated with a prop (usually a physical object, hobby or nickname) in the public conscience.

The show has tried to provide listeners with an accessible and engaging introduction to many of the UK’s nineteenth- and twentieth-century prime ministers. We’ve covered the obvious stories of Thatcher’s handbag, Wellington’s boot and Churchill’s cigar, as well as lesser known premiers (and their props) such as Anthony Eden and his Homburg hat and Lord Rosebery and his racehorses.

One of our favourite episodes this series is about the cars used by Clement Attlee, Labour prime minister between 1945 and 1951, and his wife, Violet Attlee, to tour the country during the 1945, 1950, 1951 and 1955 elections. During each campaign Violet drove Clement (I’ll refer to both by their first names in this blog) throughout England and Scotland in their family car.

Touring in the family car, with Violet at the wheel, was an active electioneering strategy. The Attlees hoped to present themselves to the public as an ‘unostentatious’ middle-class family, in contrast to the chauffeur-driven Winston Churchill, who until 1955 was leader of the Conservative party.

The episode has also been one of the most interesting to research, as identifying the cars driven by the Attlees at each election has proved surprisingly complex. Frustratingly as far as the 1945 election is concerned, the matter remains unresolved. It has also been a heartening experience, as it has put us in touch with politicians, historians, curators, archivists and car experts, all of whom have generously offered their expertise and displayed a common enthusiasm for solving an unexpected historical mystery.

Confirming the cars used by the Attlees at the 1950, 1951 and 1955 elections was relatively straightforward, thanks to press, photo and video archive of the elections. In February 1950 Clement and Violet were pictured leaving Downing Street for that month’s election tour in a 1937/8 Hillman 14. The Coventry Evening Telegraph reported that the Attlees arrived at a rally at Coventry Central Hall ‘driving their Hillman 14’. And a British Pathé newsreel captured Violet driving a Hillman 14 on a last-minute visit to their Walthamstow constituency on election day.

During the October 1951 general election the Attlees toured the country in a new, slightly smaller, ‘beige’ Humber Hawk, probably that year’s MKIV model. Press reports and photographs confirmed this, as well the registration of the car: KYX 690. As a sign of how central the Attlee family car was to their campaign, in one picture, Clement can be seen speaking to his Walthamstow constituents from in front of the car, with Violet knitting at the wheel.

The Humber Hawk was used again at the 1955 election, when Violet drove Clement throughout their nine-day election tour at characteristic speed. The Huddersfield Daily Examiner reported that ‘KYX 690’ was driven by Violet ‘with considerable dash’ and that ‘police escorts sometimes had difficulty keeping up with her’.

This was the last election that Clement fought prior to his elevation to the peerage as Earl Attlee in December 1955. Earlier that month he had retired as leader of the Labour party, when newsreel footage captured him departing the Palace of Westminster in a new family car – a Hillman Minx (probably a MKVII model).

Over the following four years Violet, or Lady Attlee as she was now formally known, was involved in multiple crashes in the Minx, including a fatal accident in September 1959, when a passenger in another car died. Violet was cleared of any responsibility in a widely reported court case, after which she continued to drive Clement in their new Fiat 600, and then an Austin Cambridge until her death in 1964.

Identifying the car used by the Attlees during the 1945 election has been a more frustrating story. This was particularly because we wanted to include precise details of the ‘small car’, or ‘smart little car’, that Violet is reported to have driven into Buckingham Palace on 26 July 1945, when Clement accepted an invitation from George VI to form the post-war Labour government.

As well as a paucity of visual or written contemporary sources revealing details of the Attlee family car in 1945, the task has been compounded by an array of conflicting historical or contemporary accounts. There are plenty of pictures of Churchill in his custom Humber limousine during the 1945 election, but none that we have so far discovered of the Attlees in their car.

The only car that the Attlees are pictured next to during the election is a two-door Morris 8 series 1. This picture was taken on 26 July 1945 before Violet drove Clement to Buckingham Palace to ‘kiss hands’ with the King. The picture is hardly conclusive though, as their actual car might have been parked on the opposite side of the street. We know that Clement’s brother owned a Morris 8, and that the Attlees’ first family car in the 1920s was a ‘bullnose’ Morris Oxford. But the association of Sir William Morris with Oswald Mosley and British Fascism during the early 1930s, and Morris’s fiercely anti-union business practices, makes a Morris an unlikely car brand for the leader of the Labour party.

Some writers have used images of Attlee in official government-allocated cars before and after the 1945 election to suggest that the family car in 1945 was a Humber Pullman or an Austin Six. One account suggests the Attlees owned an Austin Seven, which may have been based on a 2015 BBC recreation of the election. Anthony Eden recalled ten years after the 1945 election that the Attlees had driven a Standard Eight. And another account suggests the Attlees drove a ‘Hillman Standard Eight’, a car that never existed.

In his interviews with Violet and Clement’s second daughter, Felicity Attlee, the author and historian Francis Beckett was told that the family car around that time was a Hillman Minx. However, a lack of any other evidence to confirm this and factoring in the potential that Felicity was blurring her memories with the family’s later Hillman Minx, raises doubt as to whether this was the case.

Amidst all of this contradictory information, the closest we’ve got to confirming the 1945 car was Violet’s own recollection in an interview for Time in 1950, which suggested that she drove the same ‘vintage Hillman’ during the 1945 election as she did in 1950. This would indicate that the 1945 Attlee family car was a Hillman 14. However the interview also suggests the car used by the Attlees ‘back in the 1930s’ was ‘a trim 1936 Hillman sedan’, and the Hillman 14 was not manufactured until September 1937. Maybe the Time journalist misreported the year of manufacture, or Violet mis-remembered it. Either way the smoking gun (or car) remains elusive.

Ultimately, when scripting the show we had to settle for saying that Violet drove Clement to Buckingham Palace on 26 July 1945 in their ‘family car’. If you have any information to confirm otherwise, please get in touch.

Dr Martin Spychal

‘Clement Attlee’s Family Car’ will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 8 November 2023 at 09:45. It is also available to stream on iPlayer

We’d like to thank the following for their help identifying the Attlee family cars (in alphabetical order): 3^rd Earl Attlee; Francis Beckett; Andy Bye (Rootes Archive Centre Trust); Thomas Chidwick (Queen Mary University London); Florence Dall (Queen Mary Archives and Special Collections); Prof. Peter Hennessy (QMUL); Dr Luca Hoare (Haynes Motor Museum); Dr Lyndsey Jenkins (QMUL); Nick Kinnie (Haynes Motor Museum); Steve Lewis (Post Vintage Humber Car Club); Steve Mytton (Haynes Motor Museum); Dr Philip Salmon (History of Parliament); Nick Thornhill; Debbie Smith and all the staff at Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives.

Further reading:

J. Bew, Citizen Clem: A Biography of Attlee (2017)

F. Beckett, Clem Attlee (2000)

T. D. Burridge, Clement Attlee, a political biography (1985)

J. Hannam, ‘Attlee [née Millar], Violet Helen, Countess Attlee (1895–1965)’, DNB (2018)

K. Harris, Attlee (1982)

N.T. Symonds, Attlee: A Life in Politics (2010)

R. Whiting, ‘Attlee, Clement Richard, first Earl Attlee (1883–1967)’, DNB (2004)

Seventy years ago yesterday the results of the 1945 General Election were declared. Although the poll had been held on 5 July, the results were only announced on the 26^th because of the time needed to return the ballots of service men and women from overseas. The result – a Labour landslide – had a dramatic impact on British politics. The new government led by Clement Attlee introduced legislation to extend the welfare state (including the creation of the NHS) and to nationalise many British industries. This programme defined British politics until 1979. The election result was a considerable shock to many political commentators at the time, few expected wartime leader Winston Churchill to lose so decisively, including Churchill himself.

For many of the MPs interviewed for our oral history project, the 1945 general election was a significant event in their political lives. For the generation born before the Second World War the election not only defined the political landscape that they grew up in but – as the first general election held in ten years – stood out for many as a major event in their developing political consciousness.

In some ways our interviewees’ reaction to 1945 mirrored that of the wider country. There was shock, from those of all political views but especially from those on the right, that Churchill had lost the election. Our interviewees were ‘absolutely stunned’ (Robert Maclennan, later leader of the SDP), or ‘astounded’ (Sir Edward du Cann, future Chairman of the Conservative party) that Churchill had been ‘rejected’. Several who would later become Conservative MPs were serving in the army as the votes were cast, which gave them a different perspective. The future peer Peter Carrington was unsurprised at Attlee’s victory because he knew how the men in his squadron felt about the election. Sir Philip Goodhart, later MP for Beckenham, remembered the split between officers and men when the results were announced:

Having been commissioned, I went to the regimental depot in Winchester when the war came to an end, and there was the election result some weeks’ later. When the result came through the whole of the depot echoed to unceasing chants of: “move to the left in threes, left turn”. This happy view was not reflected in the officers’ mess.

Some Conservative MPs remember that they soon consoled themselves by criticising the government’s mistakes, for Patrick Ground (MP for Feltham & Heston, 1983-1992) ‘they soon became a laughing stock in our household’.

For those on the left of British politics, they remembered the excitement around the election victory, as well as the impact that it had on their political consciousness. John Cartwright, Labour MP for Woolwich East (1974-1983) is one example:

I remember 1945 very sharply – the Labour landslide of 1945 – and the sense this was a new start, a new beginning, something very dramatic and unusual, and that the world would never be quite the same again. That really had an impact on me I think because I would be, what? 12 I suppose…There wasn’t any politics in the war in any sort of meaningful way, so it was a sudden release of the tensions in 1945.

Ivor Richard, MP for Baron’s Court (1964-1974) also enjoyed his first experience of an election, playing truant from school to see what was happening:

For many MPs across the political spectrum the 1945 election was the first time they remembered having an active involvement or interest in politics. For some this was through school, for example David Mudd, Conservative MP for Falmouth and Camborne (1970-1992) remembered both organising and standing in his school’s mock election (under a ‘patriotic’ banner and using the slogan ‘don’t be muddled, be Mudd-led’!) Dick Taverne, Labour MP and Liberal Democrat peer, remembered being one of only three boys in his school pleased with the result of the election.

Others took an active part in politics for the first time. Peter Pike, Labour MP for Burnley (1983-2005) remembered that his aunt told him, aged 8, that he should go in to parliament because of his interest in politics. The Labour MP and journalist Richard Leonard acted as a teller at his local polling station, aged just 14 he was delighted to be mistaken for someone old enough to vote. Labour, SDP and Liberal Democrat Bill Rodgers remembered how heckling the Tories led to a surprising invitation:

One of our interviewees – the former Labour Chancellor Denis Healey – was old enough to stand in his first election in 1945, in the safe Conservative seat of Pudsey and Otley. He may not have won the seat, but his standing was indicative of the result across the country, reducing the Conservative majority from over 11,000 in 1935 to just 1,651.

EP

You can also read about the 1945 election in Devon on our ‘From the Grassroots’ website, also using extracts from oral history interviews.

For more on our oral history project, visit our website or read some of our oral history project blogposts.