Britain's 10 worst recessions ever

If the media's constant talk of "recession", "credit crunch" and "downturn" is depressing you, bear in mind that our ancestors have had it much worse. Here Times Money looks at ten of the grimmest decades in British history – when economic troubles often coincided with bloodshed and famine...

270s: The Roman Empire, including Britannia, was in turmoil for 50 years from the 230s, seeing a succession of up to 30 emperors. Pressure from the Persians to the East and “barbarians” to the North combined with civil war and the emergence of breakaway Latin states to cause a massive breakdown in security and communications which disrupted trade and forced a shift from an open mercantile system to more localised and feudal economies characteristic of the Middle Ages. The 270s were years of debased coinage – with minimal silver content – and hyperinflation.

410s: The Roman withdrawal from Britannia began around the turn of the fifth century, when troops were pulled back to protect the Empire’s heartlands from barbarian attack. By 410, the Emperor Honorius told leaders in the province that Rome could no longer provide for its defence or government. The following years saw the start of the Dark Ages, a period of scant historical documentation. Archaeological evidence indicates significant economic disruption with the Anglo-Saxon invasions.

870s: By the end of the eighth century the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms established on the ruins of Roman Britain were themselves under threat from sea-borne invaders – the Vikings. These raiders and traders from Scandinavia began by pillaging monasteries close to the coast, but soon consolidated their grip, with Danes controlling much of what is now England by the 860s. Alfred "the Great" of Wessex (871-899) stood fast against the Viking threat, pushing the newcomers back and securing the future of an English identity. For his subjects, however, the 870s were years of conflict and shortage.

1340s: The 1340s continued a period of economic decline across Europe and saw the collapse of the Florentine Bardi and Peruzzi banks, which had over-extended credit to England‘s Edward III, among others, with wide repercussions. The downturn brought steep inflation and was accelerated by bad harvests and costly wars – among them the Hundred Years War, which saw new taxes on wool to fund the country’s military spending on a futile conflict with France. Worse, the Black Death, an epidemic which reached England by June 1348, killed up to one third of the population.

1440s: England was still reeling from the aftermath of the Black Death in the 1440s, with many villages abandoned and fields lying fallow. Meanwhile, the country’s soldiers in France were being steadily pushed back towards the coast. In these circumstances, a wider European “bullion famine” – caused in part by increased trade with the East – fed sharp deflation in prices which hit farmers and merchants hard. On the up side, the peasant classes had harnessed depopulation to loosen the bonds of feudalism, become more mobile and demand – and get – better pay and conditions.

1640s: The "English Civil War" of 1642 to 1651 was more properly a series of conflicts across the British Isles. These came after the "Eleven Year Tyranny" of Charles I, during which the impoverished monarch ruled without parliament – levying an unpopular "ship money" tax for defence of the kingdom against a non-existent foreign threat. The subsequent wrangles between Crown, Parliament and other factions saw the death of around 190,000 people in England, a possible 60,000 in Scotland and 618,000 in Ireland. Internal and foreign trade suffered, meanwhile – to the advantage of the Dutch. 

1790s: The close of the 18th century was a nervous time for the British Government. The loss of the country's North American colonies in the American Revolutionary War of 1775 to 1783 had battered confidence and bulked the national debt. Revolution in France, meanwhile, led to the execution of Louis XVI in 1793 and fed radical thought across Europe. A troubled economy saw high food prices and popular unrest, and two "panics" in 1793 and 1797. The former was the result of enormously overextended credit and began, interestingly, with a run on banks in Newcastle.

1840s: In the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, Britain’s exports were hit by competition from the continent as other nations raced to industrialise. By the 1830s and 1840s textile workers were being laid off en masse. Population growth heightened the problem of unemployment, while the workhouses – introduced in 1834 – provided an inadequate, sometimes cruel, safety net. The Corn Laws, meanwhile, kept food prices high. Hunger was at its worst by far in Ireland – then a constituent kingdom of Britain – where a million died and further million emigrated as a result of the Potato Famine.

1930s: Britain’s economy was blighted during the 1920s and 1930s by the Great Depression – a global economic hangover of the First World War. This hit demand for exports and sparked mass unemployment in the industrial North of England – as described by George Orwell in his classic The Road to Wigan Pier. Around half the population lived on a bread-based diet deficient in key nutriets and many suffered from malnutrition and illnesses linked to poverty. The start of the Second World War in 1939 brought death to families, but also food and employment.

1970s: In the 1970s, the economy was at its most troubled since the Great Depression – with oil prices quadrupling on the back of the Yom Kippur War, inflation hitting 24 per cent in 1974 and share prices tumbling 75 per cent in the bear market of 1974 and 1975. Unemployment topped one million in 1972, scarring Industrial communities across the North. News from overseas offered scant comfort – financial turmoil across the West, plus Watergate, America's failure in Vietnam and a spate of terror attacks, such as the Munich massacre and Iran hostage crisis.

By Mark Bridge

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Comments

[e]

I am amazed that the Times/Mark Bridge would post the offensive response (July 22, 16.41.49) from Silent (no more) Bob. It is little wonder that the Britain of today is in so much trouble with mentally unstable people such as this individual. This person is a psychopathic excuse for a human being.

[No Nonsense]

"Silent (no more) Bob" has to be the lamest internet alias ever. Typical, pathetic Red rant

[James]

The recession in the early ninties DID effect the South East, massively. I worked in the IT industry and was out of work for two and a half years,as a consequence I lost my house !!!!. After years of paying obscene amounts in PAYE and NI ( somebody had to pay for the subsidies pumped into the nationalised industries ) a grateful government gave me 40 pounds a week. If it hadn't been for my family I would have literally starved. So no whinging northeners please.

[Mark]

To Silent (no more) Bob (dinosaur),

Oh dear oh dear, would love to see how 'Old' Labour under the awful Foot and successors would have dealt with the changes that had to be made in the 1980s. Looks like history is repeating itself as someone is going to have to pick up the mess inherited from another Labour administration although Gordon will no doubt cling on to power, like the disfunctional lunatic he, is until 2010.

[H Powell]

D SMith. Who are you calling a moron?

[D Smith]

Wales doesn't have recessions then? You moron...

[Silent (no more) Bob]

and the 1980s were what exactly?
The most devastating recession/depression for every region outside of the south east since the 1930s but no mention. Are we trying to rewrite history to portray Thatcher in a good light? They better put fences round her grave because I for one will be dancing on it when she finally makes her way to down to hell were she will be made most welcome by the one she made the pact with

[H Powell]

Why call it "Britain's" worst recession's when most of these refer as usual to England? No mention of Wales at all!

[Sam]

surely the 1920s were worst than the 1930s??