Leicester 1918 - 1939
Leicester in 1918 looked very different from the Leicester of the 21st century. While the city centre would look familiar now, there was little housing beyond the red brick terraced streets that surround the city centre. The suburban housing estates at Saffron Lane, Coleman Road, Braunstone etc. were being planned but hadn't been built.
The city centre was criss crossed with tram tracks and the traffic was a noisy hurly burly of pedestrians, cyclists, horses, carts, cars, trams, buses, and lorries.
The 'Spanish Flu' (influenza) was rife. Between June 1918 and March 1919 it’s estimated that 1,600 adults and children died of influenza and its associated illnesses during three outbreaks in Leicester. Globally, it is estimated that 50,000,000 people died. Hear more about this on the Medicines and Maladies page.
Gradually, soldiers returned from around the world and tried to settle back into former jobs and lives. This wasn't easy for everyone and you can read more about the situation, and listen to memories, on EMOHA's WW1 pages.
In 1919, Leicester achieved city status having petitioned the Home Office several times since 1889. Leicester argued that this was a restoration of city status rather than a new grant. You can read more about this moment of civic pride here.
From the 1920s onwards new council and private housing started to appear on the edges of Leicester. From the 1930s, slum clearances removed the worst of the old housing from the city centre and started the process of making sure everyone had somewhere decent to live. Gradually, electricity started to be introduced to even the smallest houses, replacing gas mantles and candles.
Moving into the 1920s and 1930s there was a gradual rise in living standards for some. The General Strike of 1926 affected other areas more than Leicester (see General Strike page), but the depression of the 1930s, following the Wall Street crash in 1929, meant local hardship and poverty for many. Leicester remained a relatively wealthy city due to its diverse industries, but many people remembered the 'means test' and struggling to survive. It was argued that the individual experience of poverty and unemployment in Leicester was aggravated by the City's general prosperity.
The National Health Service (NHS) wasn't introduced until after the Second World War. Before then people either had to pay for doctors, nuses and midwives, or find their own solutions through home remedies or local people who helped with births and deaths. Health professionals battled with a variety of maladies, such as tuberculosis, without the help of penicillin, which became available to the public in 1946.
In the 1930s, Leicester was recognised as one of the wealthiest cities in Europe, when measuring average family income, which would have been little consolation to those who had no money or work. However, for those who could afford it, a range of new household gadgets and appliances became available, while the rise of car ownership prompted the creation of a new Council publicity department to attract tourists to Leicester. In June 1938, the front cover of the Leicester and County Chamber of Commerce Monthly Journal claimed that 'Leicester Clothes the World' and many local companies had an international outlook as they did business across the globe.
