Britain Under Threat showcases the vital role which civil defence played in the lives of the British people during the turmoil of the twentieth centuryDr Charlie Hall,
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One of the defining characteristics of total war is the erosion of the distinction between the home front and the frontline. During the twentieth century, when total war reached its zenith, civilians became direct targets and new technologies threatened enormous destruction, not just on the conventional battlefield but in Britain itself. As a result, an entirely new wing of government was brought into being, responsible for civil defence, and tasked with protecting Britain and its citizens from these new and terrifying threats.
Comprising over 100,000 images from hundreds of government files at The National Archives (UK), this collection explores civil defence in Britain from 1914 to 1989. This period spans the two world wars, the increasingly fraught interwar years, and the Cold War. It also covers the advent of new technologies which changed the face of warfare and which posed a particular risk to civilian lives—chemical weapons, bomber aircraft, ballistic missiles, and the atomic bomb. In responding to these dangers, civil defence took on a broad and diverse remit, encompassing everything from building air raid shelters and distributing gas masks to stockpiling medical supplies and issuing propaganda.
The files here are drawn from a number of government departments—the Home Office, the Ministry of Information, the Air Ministry, and many others—but it is not only official voices which can be heard within the sources. The responses of ordinary members of the public to the threat of attack, and to the measures put in place to protect them, come across strongly throughout. The material also reveals the true diversity of twentieth-century British society, exploring how civil defence was experienced differently along lines of social class, gender, religious identity, ethnic background, age, and disability.
As a result, this collection goes far beyond the confines of traditional military history. In fact, studying civil defence offers a unique window into many aspects of British life between 1914 and 1989. It sheds light on social dynamics, group psychology, design and mass production, concepts of home and family, public relations and propaganda, and government intervention. It likewise facilitates exploration of discourses of citizenship, fear, and other emotional responses, as well as the history of everyday life. In these ways, and in many others besides, this collection offers students and researchers a major insight into the changing social, political, cultural and ethical landscapes of modern Britain.
The evolution of British Civil Defence planning, policy, and propaganda
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During the Cold War, expectations of what a nuclear attack on Britain would look like remained speculative at best. As such, civil defence officials relied heavily on experiments and mock scenarios to test their policies. One such exercise, codenamed “Hard Rock”, was planned for 1982. It was cancelled in the face of widespread opposition from peace groups and local councils.
Between 1914 and 1989, warfare changed considerably. The island geography which had long kept Britain safe from marauding continental armies offered no protection against the new threat of aerial attack. Civil defence therefore became a top government priority. Moreover, the nature of the threat faced by Britain also evolved ubstantially across the 75 years covered by this collection. Military technological developments advanced at a rapid pace and the emergence of chemical weapons, long-range bombers, ballistic missiles, and the atomic and hydrogen bombs forced the civil defence establishment to continually adapt.
A key component of civil defence was government communication to its citizens. The public needed to understand the nature of the threat, measures they could take to minimise risk, how they would be warned of an impending attack, what to do and where to go when the warning sounded, and how they could contribute to civil defence and rescue efforts more widely. This collection explores how these communication efforts changed over time, from First World War posters, to Second World War pamphlets and propaganda films, to Cold War television adverts.
British civil defence in this period was not a story of unmitigated success. Captured throughout this collection are the range of criticisms levelled at various aspects of civil defence, as well as the authorities’ attempts to address them. Examples include the lack of sufficient, sanitary, and safe shelter provision at the height of the Blitz, the increase in crime and accidents caused by the blackout, the failure to get the public to take civil defence seriously, and even the view that investment in Cold War civil defence made nuclear war more likely.
Civil defence policy can tell us a huge amount about the social and cultural perspectives of the time in which it was formulated. For example, the widely-held belief that the working classes, and especially certain ethnic groups among them, were more likely to experience panic and develop a “mob mentality” in the face of aerial bombardment directly shaped shelter policy during the Second World War. On the other hand, many civil defence organisations actively recruited, and (eventually) offered equal pay to, women, helping to break down long-standing gender barriers.
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