BBC History - UK (2022-01)

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Britain in 1921

Flappers drank

alcohol, smoked

cigarettes,

partied hard –

and challenged

stereotypes

of femininity

TRAILBLAZERS OF 1921

The radical reformer

In September 1921, 30 councillors

from Poplar – including GEORGE

LANSBURY, a radical social reformer

• were imprisoned for their roles in
  resisting central government taxes.
  Poverty was rife in this East End
  borough, and Poplar’s councillors
  argued that rates should be spread
  equally across the London boroughs.
  From prison, Lansbury wrote to the
  home secretary, Edward Shortt: “I am
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  treated as such.”
  After almost six weeks, the
  councillors were released and
  parliament passed a new bill to alter
  the rates. Lansbury went on to serve
  as leader of the Labour party between
  1932 and 193 5.

Edwardian period, these young

women came of age during the

postwar period.

The stereotypical flapper wore

her hair bobbed, her hemline short

and her waistline dropped. She

drank alcohol, smoked cigarettes,

attended outrageous parties and

danced to jazz. In short, she

challenged accepted norms of

femininity. As a result, she was

soon perceived as a threat,

arousing fears of sexual immorali-

ty and the Americanisation of

British culture.

Thanks, in part, to the rise of

the flappers, the 1920s will always

be remembered as a party decade.

Modern popular culture has

certainly bought into this image,

with TV series such as Peaky Blinders glam-

ourising a golden age in which Britain

apparently “roared”. Countless column

inches have been dedicated to the Bright

Young Things – a set of young socialites who

partied hard, and became a media obsession

in the process.

The 1920s was indeed a decade when

nightclubs boomed and jazz culture, import-

ed from the USA, swept British cities. A key

moment in the birth of Britain’s jazz age

arrived on 27 August 1921, when the govern-

ment relaxed the wartime Defence of the

Realm Act restrictions, loosening regulations

on the sale of alcohol. The early 1920s saw

Night on the tiles

Young Britons, eager to let their

hair down following the

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Palais de Danse, shown in an

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Licence to party

Nightclub owner Kate Meyrick

(seated, centre) at a welcome

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Slipper Club to mark her release

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jailed a number of times for

serving alcohol without a licence