1945 General Election: The results in Scarborough and Whitby constituency were as follows. Nationally, Labour enjoyed a landslide victory.
|
|
Vote in Scarborough and Whitby |
% of the vote in Scarborough and Whitby |
% of vote compared with last election (1935) |
|
Conservative |
20,786 |
50.9 |
Down 3% |
|
Liberal |
10,739 |
26 |
Down 13% |
|
Labour |
9,289 |
22.7 |
Up 16% |
Housing
At the end of the war there were nearly 2,500 applications for housing, just under 900 of which were from applicants with no current home of their own, often lodging in rooms with friends or family. The Council’s entire stock of houses and flats was only 1,495. An analysis in March 1945 found an increase to 3,000 applicants, 2,000 of whom had no home to call their own. Six hundred of this 2,000 were servicemen or ex-servicemen. By the summer of 1945 Councillor Simpson was lamenting “the growing feeling of hopelessness among people”. In the period 1945-47, the waiting lists remained stubbornly in the region of 3,000. It was, therefore, decided to build a new housing estate at Eastfield. Building began in 1950.
Education
A monument to the wartime spirit of social justice in Britain, and a landmark in the history of English education, was the 1944 Butler Education Act. It arose, in part, from a feeling that ordinary people deserved the greater opportunities in life afforded by a good education. The Act provided for free secondary, as well as primary, education in state schools and extended the school leaving age from 14 to 15, with a commitment to 16 when practicable. Depending on performance in an exam at the age of eleven (the Eleven Plus), pupils would be transferred from primary schools to either a grammar, secondary modern or technical school. The senior schools in Scarborough’s elementary schools (Gladstone Road, Central etc.) became Secondary Moderns. The Girls’ and Boys’ High Schools became free, selective grammar schools.
Hospital
There was some local disappointment that the town’s prestigious new voluntary hospital (on Scalby Road) was taken over by the National Health Service in 1948. But Scarborough Hospital was in debt, like many of the voluntary hospitals, to the tune of £28,000 by 1947. The Minister of Health, Nye Bevan, was determined to nationalise the country’s hospitals to ensure uniformly high quality.
Fire Brigade
Early in 1947 the decision was taken to proceed with the promised denationalisation of the wartime fire service. It was decided by government to consolidate smaller brigades into larger units. Before the war there were 1,440 brigades. There would now be 147. Much to local displeasure, Scarborough failed to regain its independent fire service. The Scarborough service was put under the authority of the North Riding County Council.
Police
Politicians concluded from the experience of war that the country would benefit from consolidating reforms in policing. The Police Act of 1945 directed that the Scarborough Borough Police be absorbed by the North Riding of Yorkshire Constabulary. It would therefore, as with education and the Fire Service, be under the control of the North Riding County Council in Northallerton.
