The Effect of the 1930's Depression on Britain and Wales. (WJEC)

The Depression of the 1930's (often known as the Great Depression) started with the Wall Street Crash on October the 24th 1929. It was the main cause of the Depression. It affected Germany worst because they were already in a lot of debt after the Treaty of Versailles had made them pay over £10,000,000.

It affected Britain as well though. By 1932 3 million people were unemployed in Britain alone and the government was spending a lot of money on unemployment benefit and the dole. Britain was probably worse hit than it should have been because its economy had been declining since the end of the First World War. Coal mines were being shut in places like the Rhonda valley and Merthyr because it was easier and cheaper to  buy it off of places such as Poland and the USA because, whilst Britain was at war, they had invested in methods to modernise their industry, for example they started using machines to mine coal instead of men. Also the countries who won the First World War could take it off Germany, for free, as reparations. As well as these Oil was replacing the use of coal in many ways, for example ships started using Oil as fuel instead of coal. The Iron and Steel industries were also in decline for many of the same reasons. Poland and America were both making it cheaper than Britain could…