North East Seminar Series 2022
The north-south divide in Roman Britain, and the levelling down of the fifth century CE
Professor Bryan Ward-Perkins, University of Oxford
Thursday 24 February 2022
A divided Britain, in the distribution of its wealth, is not new: it shows up very clearly in the archaeological evidence from the Roman period, with sophisticated industries and wealthy rural settlements heavily concentrated in the south-east. Furthermore, a government intervention that might have helped level up the north - the presence of the army along Hadrian's wall - had little impact beyond the immediate area where the soldiery was based. It was only in the fifth century, as Roman Britain disintegrated, that the two economic regions converged, but this was through a catastrophic collapse of the economy of the south-east.
Railways: the long and tortuous road to a revolutionary public infrastructure
Professor Andrew Odlyzko, University of Minnesota
Thursday 28 April 2022
Railways were the great and revolutionary technology of the 19th century. They absorbed a lion's share of fixed investments, and inspired new ways of viewing the world, with their acclaimed ‘annihilation of time and space’. Their development was a long process, with long and slow evolution punctuated by momentous events, such as the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1825, and the three large British railway manias. Especially noteworthy are the many delusions, in technology, finance, and business case, that drove the expansion of the railway system. Many are similar to those observed in recent times.
Unpacking long-term regional decline: the North East’s ‘regional problem’ and its ‘London problem’
Professor Peter Scott, University of Reading
Thursday 26 May 2022
This paper examines the causes of the North East’s relative decline from 1918 to the late twentieth century. The North East’s regional problem was based on poor nodality regarding inland transport infrastructure, making it problematic for ‘factory industries’ and contributing to its domination by the coal - iron and steel – shipbuilding nexus. It also had what might be called a ‘London problem’ – being subject to economic policies devised primarily to ensure the prosperity of London and its hinterland, which often had negative impacts on the region. These included Britain’s 1925 return to the gold standard at pre-war parity and the government’s decision to provide only minimal regional assistance during the inter-war era.
London’s priorities continued to disadvantage the North East in the post-war decades. These included stop-go aggregate demand policies in the 1950s-early 1980s, which included severely restricting investment in housing and transport infrastructure compared to other western nations. Even post-war ‘location of industry’ policies primarily served London, with expenditure on London New Towns and other London industry decentralisation initiatives being substantially greater than regional policy expenditure for all declining regions. Meanwhile, restrictive housing policies acted as a brake on net out-migration, averaging only 0.7 percent per year over 1954/55 to 1963/64 (Northern region) despite limited local job opportunities. These problems were masked by government assistance to firms setting up in the region in search of `good labour availability’ (cheap labour), though these proved extremely vulnerable to the shift to lower tariffs and higher national unemployment from the 1970s, further eroding wages and relative GDP.