1930

Slum Clearance Act requires local authorities to begin demolishing and re-housing tenants in 'slum' housing

Atlas Film Company produces Workers Topical News newsreels

1931

Economic depression leads to Labour government's resignation, replaced by coalition government

Photographer Bill Brandt moves from Paris to London

American filmmaker Robert Flaherty comes to Britain

1932

Oswald Mosley founds the British Union of Fascists

Hitler's National Socialist Party gains significant votes in German elections

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World published

1933

The Labour affiliated Socialist Film Council produces its first film

Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany, leads to influx of artists, intellectuals and refugees to Britain

Empire Marketing Board abolished, John Grierson heads the newly established GPO Film Unit

Communist affiliated Kino and the Workers' Film and Photo League established

Artists International Association (AIA) founded

1934

Hitler becomes Führer of Germany

Alberto Cavalcanti and William Coldstream employed by the GPO Film Unit

Britain's first photo-reportage magazine Weekly Illustrated established, publishes Bill Brandt's photographs

1935

Stanley Baldwin elected as Conservative Prime Minister

Hitler imposes Nuremberg Laws; Jews no longer regarded as German citizens

Alberto Cavalcanti directs Coalface for the GPO Film Unit

John Grierson establishes left-wing journal World Film News

Basil Wright directs Song of Ceylon

Paul Rotha becomes director of productions at Strand Films

1936

Mass unemployment and extreme poverty in the North-East leads to the Jarrow to London march; it is photographed by Humphrey Spender and reported sympathetically in cinema newsreels

Public Order Act passed to control political marches and movements

Start of Spanish Civil War

John Grierson leaves the GPO Film Unit and establishes the Film Centre, an advisory and co-ordinating body for the documentary film movement

Bill Brandt’s first book The English at Home published

First major exhibition of Surrealist Art held in Britain

1937

George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier published

Mass-Observation begins researching the 'anthropology of ourselves'; Humphrey Spender starts photographing Bolton and Blackpool

Euston Road School founded

Wolfgang Suschitzky starts work for Strand Films, he later works for British Transport Films

1938

The Women's Voluntary Service for Civil Defence established

Britain on war footing in anticipation of war in Europe

Pioneering photojournalism magazine Picture Post first published

AIA organises Realism-Surrealism public debate

Graham Bell, William Coldstream and Julian Trevelyan become involved in Mass-Observation

Julian Trevelyan
The Potteries circa 1938
© Estate of the Artist
large image and caption

1939

Britain and France declare war on Germany; mass conscription of servicemen, evacuation of children from towns and cities begins

Irish Republican Army (IRA) begins bombing campaign in Britain

GPO Film Unit mutates into the Crown Film Unit and produces work for the Ministry of Information

Cyril Arapoff begins working in the film industry, employers include Strand Films, Crown Film Unit, and the National Coal Board Film Unit

Bill Brandt starts photographing for the Bourneville Village Trust