Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T02:54:12.424Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Which? craft in Post-War Britain: The Consumers' Association and the Politics of Affluence*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Lawrence Black
Get access

Extract

Consumption has recently acquired key importance in re-interpreting post-war British politics. Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska has argued the Conservative construction of a popular alliance in opposition to rationing and controls was crucial to their electoral recovery after 1945 and in securing an advantage among women voters. A wealth of evidence indicates Labour, by contrast, had scant purchase on affluence in the later 1950s. It was not only, as Amy Black and Stephen Brooke would have it, “Labour's befuddlement at the problem of women and gender,” but that it was ambivalent, if not hostile, towards the goods, lifestyles and values associated with consumerism and the people obtaining and exhibiting them. Other factors blur differentiation between the parties. Both were affiliated to the world of production—through their business and trade union links. Richard Findley has contended the Conservative abolition of resale price maintenance (RPM, whereby manufacturers fixed retail prices) in 1964, aroused electorally deleterious opposition from manufacturers and backbenchers. And while Labour consumerists were rare commodities, as is argued here, Labour revisionism made an important contribution to the Consumers' Association (CA).

This focus on consumerism corrects the neglect of it by narratives like political consensus or historians' consuming passion with production and work. It arises from rethinking Britain's much vaunted “decline” as, for example, the transition to a post-industrial society. In Matthew Hilton's hands how the consumer “interest” was variously articulated and gendered becomes a means to unlock modern citizenship and the configuration of private and public spheres.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , Spring 2004 , pp. 52 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Versions of this paper have been delivered at the Pacific Coast Conference on British Studies, Sonoma State University (2003); Organized Consumers in 20th Century Europe, St Hilda's College, Oxford (2003) and The History of Consumption: Interdisciplinary Perspectives conference, Sussex University (2001); the Universities of Calgary, Lethbridge, Bristol, Glamorgan and Institute of Historical Research, London. Particular thanks to Matthew Hilton for comments and also to Peter Mellini and Albion's referees; thanks to Richard Sheldon and Zoe Doye for sources and to Michael Young, James Douglas, and Jim Northcott for correspondence.

References

1 Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Ina, Austerity in Britain: Rationing, Controls and Consumption, 1939–55 (Oxford, 2000), ch. 5Google Scholar; Black, Amy, Brooke, Stephen, “The Labour Party, Women and the Problem of Gender, 1951–66,” Journal of British Studies 36 (1997): 450CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Findley, Richard, “The Conservative Party and Defeat: the Significance of Resale Price Maintenance for the General Election of 1964,” Twentieth Century British History 12, 3 (2001): 327–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Black, Lawrence, The Political Culture of the Left in Affluent Britain, 1951–64: Old Labour, New Britain? (New York, 2003)Google Scholar. Tiratsoo, Nick, “Popular Politics, affluence and the Labour Party in the 1950s,” in Contemporary British History 1931–61, eds. Gorst, A., Johnmann, L., Lucas, W. Scott (London, 1991)Google Scholar.

2 Hilton, Matthew, “Consumer Politics in Post-War Britain,” in The Politics of Consumption: Material Culture and Citizenship in Europe and America, eds. Daunton, Martin, Hilton, Matthew (Oxford, 2001)Google Scholar, and Hilton, Matthew, “The Fable of the Sheep, or, Private Virtues, Public Vices: The Consumer Revolution of the Twentieth Century,” Past and Present 176, 1 (2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 See Cross, Gary, An All-Consuming Century (New York, 2000), p. 1Google Scholar.

4 For an overview, Daunton, , Hilton, , “Material Politics: An Introduction,” in Politics of Consumption. Klein, Naomi, No Logo (New York, 1999)Google Scholar; Parr, Joy, Domestic Goods: The Material, the Moral and the Economic in the Postwar Years (Toronto, 1999)Google Scholar a study of Canada; Cohen, Lizabeth, A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York, 2002)Google Scholar; Hine, Thomas, I Want That! How We All Became Shoppers (New York, 2002)Google Scholar. Osier, David, Labour Party pic (Edinburgh, 2002)Google Scholar. I greatly benefitted from an advance read of Hilton, Matthew, Consumerism in Twentieth-Century Britain: The Search for a Historical Movement (Cambridge, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 See Swagler, R., “Evolution and Application of the term consumerism: themes and variations,” Journal of Consumer Affairs 28, 2 (1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Scott, Rosemary, The Female Consumer (London, 1976), pt. IIGoogle ScholarPubMed.

6 Benson, John, The Rise of Consumer Society in Britain, 1880–1980 (London, 1994), p. 234Google Scholar. Mort, Frank, Cultures of Consumption: Masculinities and Social Space in Late Twentieth-Century Britain (London, 1996)Google Scholar.

7 See recently, Lent, Adam, British Social Movements since 1945: Sex, Colour, Peace and Power (Basingstoke, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Grant, Wyn, Pressure Groups and British Politics (Basingstoke, 2000), pp. 214–15Google Scholar.

8 Which? (Winter 1958): 3; (Spring 1958): 3; (Winter 1959): 35. Which? went monthly in April 1959. Fulop, Christina, The Consumer Movement and the Consumer (London, 1977), p. 38Google Scholar.

9 CA Council minutes (20 January 1959), Consumers' Association Archive, London (hereafter cited as CAA). Sim, Foo Gaik, IOCU on the Record: A Documentary History of the International Organisation of Consumer Unions (Yonkers, 1990)Google Scholar. The Consumer Movement: Lectures by Colston E. Warne, ed. Morse, Richard (Manhattan, Kan. 1993), p. 200Google Scholar. In Consumers' Movement Archive, Kansas State University.

10 Thorelli, Hans B., Thorelli, Sarah V., Consumer Information Handbook: Europe and North America (New York, 1974), p. 19Google Scholar. Elmhirst also donated to CU's forerunner, Consumers' Research, Morse, , Consumer Movement, pp. 27, 61Google Scholar.

11 Abrams in Casper Brook, “The Discriminating Consumer,” paper to British Institute of Management 14th Annual Conference (November 1959), p. 15, CAA A27. CA, Twelfth Annual Report of the Consumers' Association (1969), pp. 4, 11Google Scholar. Which? and Consumers' Association (London, 1965), p. 5Google ScholarPubMed.

12 Roberts, Eirlys, “CA's part in the design of Products” (29 June 1966)Google Scholar, CAA A27. Which? (September 1960): 205.

13 Daily Express (12 and 14 April 1962). Legal advice from Neville Faulks Q.C. and Brook's memo in CA Council Minutes (14 May 1962). Daily Mirror (“They take the small British car for a ride”—11 January 1962) also argued Which? was unfair to British cars, see Healy, M., “Reactions to the Car Supplement” CA Council minutes (12 February 1962)Google Scholar.

14 CA Council minutes (15 October 1962). Young, , Daily Mail (23 November 1962)Google Scholar.

15 Which? (August 1961): 206. Young, Michael, The Chipped White Cups of Dover—a discussion of the possibility of a new progressive party (London, 1960), pp. 5, 11Google Scholar.

16 “CA News,” Which? (July 1959): 63Google Scholar. CA helped establish a Centre for Consumer Ergonomics at Loughborough University in 1970. “The Taste-makers,” Sunday Times (25 May 1963).

17 Which? (August 1959): 99. Marwick, Arthur, The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy and the United States c. 1958–c.1974 (Oxford, 1998)Google Scholar.

18 Which? (Autumn 1958) and “Slimming Foods” (June 1961): 136–39.

19 CA council minutes (14 February 1962); Which? (November 1962). CA, Contraceptives (London, 1963)Google ScholarPubMed. Transcript of interview with Roberts, p.21. CAA A26. Good Food Guide (1963–64): vi. Abrams, Mark, The Teenage Consumer (London, 1959), pp. 7–9Google Scholar.

20 Goldman, Peter, “Consumerism—Art or Science?” Journal of the Royal Society of Arts (August 1969): 3Google ScholarPubMed. RICA, Informative Labelling: The Swedish System (London, 1963)Google Scholar. Barbara Castle (Transport Minister 1965–68, who introduced seat belts, breathalysers, and speed limits) on Nader, Focus (September 1966): 18. Nader, Ralph, Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-in Dangers of the American Automobile (New York, 1965)Google ScholarPubMed. “Consumer Research in Sweden,” Which? (Autumn 1957): 31Google Scholar. For Canadian parallels, Parr, Domestic Goods, ch. 4.

21 “Consumer Research in Sweden,” Which? (Autumn 1957): 31Google Scholar. Crosland, C. A. R., The Future of Socialism (London, 1956)Google Scholar. Galbraith, J. K., The Affluent Society (London, 1958)Google Scholar. Harris, R., Seldon, A., Advertising and the Public (London, 1959), p. 226Google Scholar.

22 Shopper's Guide (Spring 1958). CA council minutes (28 October 1956, 17 November 1957). Laski donated £500 to CA's start-up.

23 Briggs, Asa, Michael Young: Social Entrepreneur (Basingstoke, 2001)Google Scholar. Mitchell, Jeremy, “The Consumer Movement and Technological Change,” International Social Science Journal 25, 3 (1973): 358Google Scholar.

24 “The How and Why of Which?,” Domestic Equipment Trader (January 1964): 31Google Scholar. Fletcher, Paul, “When we were very young,” Which? (October 1967): 290–91Google Scholar.

25 CA Marketing Division, “Results of Monthly Omnibus Questionnaires” (January 1971), p. 66. CAA A11. Crosland, in “Proceedings of Consumer Assembly,” London (3 November 1967), p. 18Google Scholar. CAA A67. Roberts, Eirlys, Which? 25: Consumers' Association 1957–82 (London, 1982), p. 59Google Scholar.

26 CA Council minutes (17 November 1957, 13 February 1958).

27 Josephine Clifford-Smith (Membership secretary), “Inquiries by CA members and the public” (2 January 1962) in CA Council minutes (8 January 1962). Draft for New Society, “Who Reads Which?” (26 October 1962), p.1 CAA A27.

28 See CU's collection, Consumers Union reviews classical recordings (Indianapolis, 1973)Google Scholar and McKellar, Susie, “‘The Beauty of Stark Utility’: rational consumption in America—Consumer Reports 1936–54,” in Utility Reassessed: The Role of Ethics in the Practice of Design ed., Attfield, Judy (New York, 1999)Google Scholar.

29 “Beer,” Which? (August 1960): 167–69Google Scholar. “Racing Correspondents,” Which? (March 1960): 60–61Google Scholar.

30 “Hire Purchase Enquiry”; Douglas Houghton, MP (General Secretary, Inland Revenue Staff Federation), “How to Reduce your Income Tax,” Which? (Spring 1958). Tench, DavidThe Law for Consumers (London, 1962)Google Scholar, Cole, H., Diamond, A., The Consumer and the Law (Manchester, 1960).Google ScholarPubMedThe Times (10 April 1980).

31 Which? (October 1965): 287. Mitchell was later SSRC secretary and National Consumer Council director.

32 “Which? and Advertisers,” Which? (March 1966): 67Google Scholar.

33 “Eirlys Roberts Writes,” Which? (June 1968): 163Google Scholar. CA, Sixth Annual Report (1962-63), p. 14. Labour Party, Report of a Commission of Enquiry into Advertising (London, 1966), p. 201Google Scholar.

34 Houlton, Elisabeth, Which? Put to the Test (Aims of Industry Study No. 15, 1967), pp. 3, 12Google Scholar. Roberts, Eirlys, Consumers (London, 1966)Google Scholar. Thorelli, and Thorelli, , Consumer Information Handbook, p. 18Google Scholar, estimates for 1971 that 28% of CA's income went to promotion and 23% to research and testing. Dunstan, R., “Which? Hunt,” Twentieth Century 176, 4–77, 1 (1968–1969): 14Google Scholar.

35 “Accounts for 1961/62,” CA council minutes (4 June 1962). CA, Fifth Annual Report (1961-62), p. 3, showed more was spent on producing and distributing Which? through 1960–62 than on testing. Twelfth Annual Report (1968–1969), p. 11Google ScholarPubMed.

36 CA, “Notes for CA speakers” (September 1970), p. 11. CAA A65. “Membership Promotion,” pp. 11–12. CA Council Minutes (4 June 1962, 14 May 1962—Legal advice from Neville Faulks, Q.C.).

37 Alderson, Stanley, “Buy the Improved Which?,” The Manager (July/August 1959): 472–73Google Scholar. “The Press Greets CR,” Which? (Winter 1958): 20Google Scholar.

38 Levin, Bernard, The Pendulum Years: Britain and the Sixties (London, 1970), p. 321Google Scholar.

39 Healy, , “Reactions to the Car Supplement,” CA Council minutes (12 February 1962)Google Scholar.

40 “Which? Layout and Design,” CA Council minutes (14 May 1962)

41 Funding came via the Women's Advisory Committee of the British Standards Institution. Song in Transcript of interview with Joan Meier, pp. 172–73 CAA A13: “Can't you see them arguing—When the first lab report comes in?—If brand ‘A’ comes out too bad—Topic and Town might lose that ad.” On relations with Shopper's Guide and Commarket, Joan Meier to Brook (9 January 1963) and discussion documents, CAA A27. Franks, Sarah, “Selling Consumer Protection: Competitive Strategies of the Consumers' Association, 1957 to 1990” (M. Phil, diss., University of Oxford, 2000), pp. 35–46Google Scholar.

42 Lund, Gilda, You and Your Shopping (London, 1961)Google Scholar. Notably, , Gundrey, Elizabeth, Your Money's Worth: A Handbook for Consumers (Harmondsworth: 1962)Google Scholar. The Consumer (Summer 1956): 13–16Google ScholarPubMed. CAA A29.

43 Which? (October 1959): 123. Public Attitude Surveys Report, “A Postal Survey conducted among subscribers to Which? magazine concerning attitude to resale price maintenance” (August 1961). CAA A14.

44 CA, “Notes for CA speakers,” p. 7. Poll, Gallup, Enquiry into Which? (July 1962), p. 3bGoogle Scholar, CAA A31 reckoned members were three times as likely as Britons as a whole to be upper or middle class. Mitchell, Jeremy, “Results of Questionnaire sent to members of the Consumers' Association in November 1964,” pp. 12–13, 15Google Scholar. CAA A27. Which? (December 1959): 178.

45 “The Press Greets CR,” p. 20. Paper “C” and CA council minutes (13 September 1959). Brook, C., “Where are we going?,” p. 14Google ScholarPubMed, CA council minutes (2 February 1959).

46 Wilmott, Peter, Young, Michael, Family and Class in a London Suburb (Harmondsworth, 1960), pp. 117–18Google Scholar. Rodnight, Emer, “Attitudes to spending Money on Consumer Goods and Services: A Small-scale Psychological Survey” (February 1965), pp. 5, 9, 15, CAA A14Google Scholar.

47 Clifford-Smith, “Inquiries.” Discussion, Extraordinary Council meeting minutes (23 February 1959). Crosland, C. A. R., The Conservative Enemy (London, 1962), p. 65Google Scholar.

48 Roberts, , Consumers, p. 81Google ScholarPubMed. Goldman, , “Art or Science?,” pp. 4–5Google ScholarPubMed. Transcript of interview with Goldman, p. 10 CAA A26. Roberts, , Which? 25, pp. 99–101Google Scholar.

49 Which? (July 1961): 174–75; (July 1967): 209–14; (March 1968): 93 “Au Pair girls,” Which? (January 1969): 19–21Google Scholar. Weight, Richard, Patriots: National Identity in Britain 1940–2000 (London, 2002), p. 488Google Scholar.

50 Roberts, , Which? 25, pp. 15, 45Google Scholar. Hoggart, Richard, The Uses of Literacy (Harmondsworth, 1958), p. 97Google Scholar. “Results of Monthly Omnibus Questionnaires” (January 1971), p. 55Google Scholar.

51 Rosemary McRobert (CA Deputy Director in the 1980s) in the Consumer Council's Focus, quoted in Which? (September 1966): 275, Which? (October 1966): 307. “Results of Monthly Omnibus Questionnaire” (January 1971), p. 4Google Scholar.

52 Which? (January 1969): 3.

53 Brook, , “300,000 bewildered buyers club together,” Sunday Citizen (23 June 1963)Google Scholar. Goldman, , “Art or Science?,” p. 5Google ScholarPubMed. Roberts, Eirlys, “David and Goliath,” Observer (9 June 1963)Google Scholar.

54 Roberts, , Which? 25, pp. 8–9Google ScholarPubMed. Disparaging tendencies remained—1980s CEO Shelia Mckecknie told CA staff that 40% of new shareholders receiving dividend checks from the British Gas privatization, thought they were bills and tried to pay them. Correspondence, ex-CA employee (7 January 2001).

55 Hilton, “Fable of the Sheep.” CA Council Minutes (8 February 1960). Harbury, Colin, Efficiency and the Consumer (London, 1958)Google Scholar. Gundrey, Elizabeth, Help (London, 1967), p. 5Google Scholar. See also Parr, , Domestic Goods, p. 96Google Scholar.

56 “Consumer Bulletin” (July 1956), p. 1Google ScholarPubMed. CAA A27. Which? (December 1966): 371.

57 “The Press Greets CR,” Which? (Winter 1958): 20Google Scholar.

58 The study's progress can be traced in CA council minutes. Brook “Where are we going?” (2 February 1959) reported it “well in hand”; (8 February 1960) saw CA try to “dissuade” Millar; but by (14 March 1960) it was assumed Millar would publish it on his own.

59 Millar, Robert, The Affluent Sheep (London, 1963), pp. 194–96Google Scholar.

60 “Results of Monthly Omnibus Questionnaires” (January 1971), p. 66Google Scholar. Which? (April 1968): 128.

61 Young, , Chipped White Cups, p. 10Google Scholar. “Draft programme for First half Year,” in ABC committee minutes (28 October 1956). Brook, Casper, “Research Routine,” p. 9Google Scholar in CA Council minutes (25 June 1958). See the covers of the 1st, 2nd, and 4th editions of Which?.

62 “Cumulative Index, 1957–66,” Which? (December 1966): 398–400Google Scholar. Tomlinson, Jim, “Economic growth, economic decline,” in The British Isles since 1945, ed. Burk, Kathleen (Oxford, 2003), pp. 80–81Google Scholar.

63 See Bowden, Sue, Offer, Avner, “Household appliances and the Use of Time: The United States and Britain since the 1920s,” Economic History Review 47 (1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zmroczek, Christine, “Dirty Linen: Women, Class and Washing Machines, 1920–1960s,” Women's Studies International Forum 15 (1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

64 Marplan, R. 5226 “Why People Join Consumers Association” (September 1966), p.9Google Scholar. CAA A14. Which? (August 1961): 207.

65 Scott, , Female Consumer, pp. 159–67Google ScholarPubMed. Hilton, Matthew, “The Female Consumer and the Politics of Consumption in Twentieth-Century Britain,” Historical Journal 45, 1 (2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

66 “Speaking engagements met by CA” (Oct. 1961—Mar. 1962), CA Council minutes (14 May 1962).

67 “Over to catch the drivel of some bitch—who's read nothing but Which” in “Vers de Société,” Larkin, Philip, Collected Poems (London, 1988), p. 181Google Scholar.

68 Robertson, Andrew, “The Campaigners,” Twentieth Century 176, 4 - 177, 1 (1968–1969): 10–11Google Scholar. Adrian, Leslie, Consuming Interest, from The Spectator (London, 1961)Google Scholar, and “RPM is the Shopper's Enemy,” New Outlook: A Liberal Magazine 21 (July 1963)Google Scholar.

69 “The Press Greets CR,” Which? (Winter 1958): 20–21Google Scholar.

70 C. E. Harrison (FBI President) to Sir Arthur Fforde (Chair, BBC Governors), 14 February 1962, CA council minutes (4 June 1962).

71 Houlton, , Which? Put to the Test, p. 13Google Scholar. “A Magnifying Glass on Faults,” Garage and Motor Agent (13 January 1962). Similarly for CU, see Morris, Ruby Turner, CU: Methods, Implications, Weaknesses and Strengths (New London, Conn., 1971), pp. 54–56Google Scholar.

72 Martin, John, Smith, George W., The Consumer Interest (London, 1968), pp. 194–95Google Scholar.

73 Hoggart, Richard, A Measured Life: Part 3—An Imagined Life (New Brunswick, 1994), p. 63Google Scholar. The suggestion that a dry battery on a fire was a good soot cleaner required 100,000 postcards to be sent to prevent subscribers following the advice, Roberts, , Which? 25, p. 38Google Scholar. “Rover 110,” Which? (June 1963): 189.

74 Which? (Winter 1958): 21. CA, “Notes for CA speakers,” p. 9. Transcript, interview Alistair Macgeorge, pp. 135–37. CAA A13.

75 Which? (Winter 1958): 3. “Eirlys Roberts Writes,” Which? (June 1966): 179Google Scholar. Healy, “Reactions to the Car Supplement” CA Council minutes (12 February 1962). Transcript of interview with Jennifer Jenkins, p. 128. CAA A13.

76 Crosland, in Roberts, “CA's part in the design of Products.” Brook, Casper, “Which?—the catalyst,” The Manager (July 1961), pp. 540–42Google Scholar. Sainsbury introducing Goldman, “Art or Science?,” p. 1. Gales, K., Smith, T. M. F., “A Pilot Study of the Impact of Which?” (LSE, May 1961), p. 11, CAA A27Google Scholar.

77 “The How and Why of Which?,” pp. 10, 31. Mitchell, Jeremy, “Testing for Which?: Some Statistical Problems,” Applied Statistics 12, 2 (1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Casper Brook, “Research by Consumers,” Economics Section, British Association for the Advancement of Science, Annual Meeting (1961), CAA A27. Which? (March, April 1963).

78 Williams, Francis, “Which? paper do you read?,” New Statesman (19 January 1962)Google Scholar.

79 Final Report of the Committee on Consumer Protection, Cmnd. 1781 (July 1962), para. 388. Thorelli, and Thorelli, , Consumer Information Handbook, pp. 14–15Google Scholar.

80 Draft, “Who Reads Which?,” p. 7. Paper “C,” CA council minutes (13 September 1959). Houlton, , Which? Put to the Test, p. 13Google Scholar.

81 Interview, Jim Northcott, 14 February 2001. Mitchell, , “Results of Questionnaire” (1964), pp. 12Google ScholarPubMed. Poll, Gallup, Which?: Final Report (May–September 1962), p. 2. CAA A14Google Scholar.

82 Crosland, “The Constitution of CA” (21 January 1964), Crosland Papers, LSE, 4/1.

83 For example Maurice Healy came to CA from the Minister's Office at the Board of Trade. CA council minutes (9 January 1958) Thorelli, and Thorelli, , Consumer Information Handbook, p. 14Google Scholar.

84 CA Council minutes (7 July, 5 August, 3 November 1958).

85 Notes of informal Council meeting, Oaklands Park Hotel, Weybridge, (14–15 October 1961), p. 13. “Weybridge File,” council papers. Rodnight, , “A Small-scale Psychological Survey,” p. 22Google Scholar. Transcript, interview with MacGeorge, p. 133.

86 British Association of Consumers (November 1956), CAA A27.

87 CA Council minutes (17 November 1957). Also “Weybridge File” notes, p. 12. Gaitskell attended CA's 1958 Christmas party, council minutes (5 January 1959). Young was co-funder of Abrams, Mark, Rose, Richard, Must Labour Lose? (Harmondsworth, 1960)Google Scholar.

88 Good Food Guide (1965–66): 6; Which? (August 1966): 259; CA Council minutes (14 December 1964). Borrie was Director General of the Office of Fair Trading, 1976—92, Labour's Social Justice Commission chair, 1992–94, and succeeded Rodgers as ASA chair in 2002. Morse, , The Consumer Movement, p. 201Google Scholar.

89 Report of Rodgers-Brook meeting (16 December 1958), CA Council minutes (5 January 1959).

90 Dora Gaitskell was a “simple lifer” of sorts, like Laski—“whom no one…thought of as having any domestic interests whatever,” Roberts, , Which? 25, p. 25Google ScholarPubMed. CA had a certain immunity to worldly trappings—as Young expressed distaste for Hollywood's “unreal world of wealth and trivial emotions,” Labour Party Research Department (LPRD), Rd. 43, “Enjoyment of Leisure” (February 1947).

91 Director's letter 11, CA minutes (9 March 1960). “Nominations for Ordinary membership,” CA council minutes (12 February 1962). TUC, Annual Report (1958), pp. 292–93.

92 Correspondence, James Douglas (8 January 2003). Ramsden, John, The Making of Conservative Party Policy: The Conservative Research Department since 1929 (London, 1980), ch. 10Google Scholar. Young, Ken, “Orpington and the ‘Liberal Revival’,” in By-Elections in British Politics, eds., Cook, Chris, Ramsden, John (London, 1997), p. 171Google ScholarPubMed. Goldman, Peter, Some Principles of Conservatism (London, 1961), Transcript, interview with Goldman, p. 2Google Scholar.

93 See Morse, Consumer Movement, ch. v.

94 Rodgers-Brook meeting (16 December 1958). Young in CA Council minutes (30 July 1962).

95 Transcript of interviews with Elizabeth Ackroyd, Maurice Healy. CAA, A13, pp. 65, 113.

96 “Weybridge File” notes, pp. 1–2. It was noted the Liberals were against a state subsidy. CA, Evidence Submitted to the Departmental Committee on Consumer Protection (March 1960), pp. 15–16Google Scholar, CAA A31. Cmnd.1781, para.851.

97 Focus (January 1971): 1, 23–24Google Scholar.

98 Crosland, C. A. R., Socialism Now (London, 1973), p. 87Google Scholar. The extent of Heath's neo-Thatcherism is discussed in Green, Ewen, “Thatcherism: An Historical Perspective,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 9 (1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

99 Focus (September 1970): 14. Thorelli, and Thorelli, , Consumer Information Handbook, p. 167Google Scholar.

100 Labour Party, Fair Deal for the Shopper (London, 1961), p. 6Google Scholar. See Smith, Martin, The Consumer Case for Socialism (London, 1986), pp. 6–8Google Scholar.

101 Northcott, Jim, Value for Money? The Case for a Consumers' Advice Service (London, 1953)Google Scholar. The pamphlet ridiculed advertisers claims and was encouraged by Hugh Gaitskell, Northcott to Gaitskell (15 March 1952), Hugh Gaitskell Papers, University College London, F8 and interview, Northcott.

102 See Labour Women's Conference (1958), pp. 15–17Google Scholar; (1959), p. 45; (1963), pp. 29–30. Also Labour Women (February 1958).

103 Burton to Gaitskell (24 February 1956), Gaitskell Papers, C310. Labour Women's Conference (1970), p. 27Google Scholar.

104 Boggis, F. D., “Which? Way,” Co-operative Party Monthly Newsletter (September 1963)Google Scholar, and Brook, Casper, in RICA, British Co-Operatives: A Consumers' Movement (London, 1964), pp. 3, 31–32Google Scholar.

105 PEP, “When will the consumer wake up?,” Planning 89 (29 December 1936), p. 2Google Scholar; “The Needs of the Consumer” Planning 36 (23 October 1934), p. 4Google Scholar; “The Outlook for Consumers,” Planning 63 (3 December 1935): 3Google Scholar. “Consumer Protection and Enlightenment,” Planning 441 (25 April 1960)Google Scholar.

106 Freedman, L., Hemingway, G., Nationalisation and the Consumer, Fabian Research Series, 139 (1950), p. 3Google Scholar. LPRD, R. 176, “A Consumer Advisory Service” (November 1952). Correspondence, Young, 19 March 2001.

107 Young, Michael, “Economic Planning and Nationalisation,” in Fabian Society, Czechoslovakia: Six Studies in Reconstruction (London, 1948)Google Scholar; idem., Small Man, Big World: A Discussion of Socialist Democracy (London, 1949), p. 9; Wilmott, Peter and Young, Michael, Family and Kinship in East London(1957; reprint Harmondsworth, 1986)Google Scholar. Freedman and Hemingway, Nationalisation.

108 See recollections of the cramped, sloping Which? offices at Great Street, St. James, Mitchell, Jeremy, “A Triptych of Organisation: CA, SSRC, NCC,” in Dench, Geoff, Flower, Tony, Gavron, Kate, eds., Young at Eighty: The Prolific Public Life of Michael Young (Manchester, 1995), p. 10Google Scholar.

109 Shils, Edward, “On the Eve,” Twentieth Century (May 1960): 452Google Scholar. Bell, Daniel, “Introduction,” in Young, Michael, Social Scientist as Innovator (Cambridge Mass., 1983), p. ixGoogle Scholar.

110 Young, , Chipped White Cups, pp. 19–20Google Scholar. Crosland, , The Conservative Enemy, p. 66Google Scholar. Smith, Trevor, Young, Alison, “Politics and Michael Young,” in Dench, , et. al., Young at Eighty, p. 138Google Scholar notes the irony of Shirley Williams being the incumbent Fabian Chair.

111 “Customers write…Shop Assistants Write,” Which? (November 1967): 356–57Google Scholar. See also Usherwood, Barbara, “‘Mrs Housewife and Grocer’: the advent of self-service shopping in Britain,” in All the World and Her Husband: Women in Twentieth-Century Consumer Culture, Andrews, Maggie, Talbot, Mary M., eds. (London, 2000)Google Scholar.

112 Which? (October 1967): 292–93. Liberal Party, Shopping: Better Buys (1961), and Consumer Protection (1962); Labour, Fair Deal; Goodhart, Phillip, Douglas, James, Mclaughlin, Patricia, Wood, John, Bemrose, Max, MacArthur, Ian, Choice: A Report on Consumer Protection (Conservative Political Centre, London, 1961)Google Scholar; Haynes, M., Advertising on Trial: The Case for the Consumer (Bow Group, London, 1961) For CA's view of these Which? (December 1961): 307Google Scholar.

113 “Proceedings of Consumer Assembly,” pp. 22—23, 28, 34, 38. At 1975's National Consumer Congress Young argued “Governments now know that elections are consumers' elections,” Wraith, Ronald, The Consumer Cause (London, 1976), p. 6Google Scholar.

114 Report of IOCU, 3rd Conference, Oslo (June 1964), pp. 133–37. CAA A21. Briggs, Young, p. 285.

115 Briggs, Young, p. 285. Unpublished Draft for New Society, “Cool Customers” (December 1963), p. 1. Casper Brook, “Development and Problems of Consumers' Association,” LSE Seminar on Problems in Industrial Administration (2 February 1960), p. 1, CAA A27.

116 Marwick, , Sixties, p. 802Google Scholar. Summerfield, Penny, “Mass-Observation: social research or social movement?,” Journal of Contemporary History 20 (1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

117 Marwick, A., “Middle Opinion in the Thirties: Planning, Progress and Political ‘Agreement,’,” English Historical Review 79 (1964)Google Scholar. Aldridge, Alan, “The Construction of Rational Consumption in Which? magazine: The More Blobs the Better?,” Sociology 28, 4 (1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Conekin, Becky, Mort, Frank, Waters, Chris, eds., Moments of Modernity: Reconstructing Britain, 1945–64 (London, 1999)Google Scholar.

118 Hilton, and Daunton, , “Material Politics,” p. 25Google Scholar; “Consumer Politics,” p. 257; and “The Female Consumer,” p. 128. Young, Michael, Marieanne Rigge, Mutual Aid in a Selfish Society (London, 1979), p. 22Google Scholar.

119 Hilton, Matthew, “The polyester-flannelled philanthropists: the Birmingham Consumers' Group and affluent Britain,” in An Affluent Society? Britain's “Golden Age” Revisited, eds., Black, Lawrence, Pemberton, Hugh (Aldershot, 2004)Google Scholar, and Consumerism in Twentieth-Century Britain. Morris, , CU: Methods, Implications, pp. 52–53Google Scholar.

120 Transcript, interview with Goldman, p. 3. Clarke, Peter, The Cripps Version (London, 2002), pt. sixGoogle Scholar. “The Woman Behind a Hard Look at Cars,” Topic (20 January 1962).