Ahead of next Tuesday’s Parliaments, Politics and People seminar, we hear from Rebecca Goldsmith, of Jesus College, Cambridge. On 30 April she will discuss Mass-Observation and popular politics at the 1945 general election.
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.
(Robert) Michael Maitland Stewart, Labour MP for Fulham East, 1945-55, and Fulham, 1955-79 (NPG)
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.
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