6 min read
1934: An important year in Oxford’s history?
This blog post was written and researched by Peter Cann.
Peter Cann is the author of Little Edens, a play performed at MOX in 2023.
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Last year the Museum of Oxford hosted a production of a play, Little Edens. It was about a rent strike that took place in Florence Park, East Oxford, in 1934. It was a bitter dispute involving more than 500 tenants complaining about the conditions of the new estate and rents. It drew support from all quarters of the city, including Oxford University. The builder of the estate, a Tory councillor, evicted tenants who refused to pay their rent.
I am the author of the play and live on the estate. In researching and writing it I realised that change was in the air at that time. Britain was suffering from the Great Depression after the Wall Street Crash of 1929. Millions were out of work in the industrial areas of the country, especially South Wales, Tyneside and Scotland. But there was work here in Oxford, at the new Morris car factory and the Pressed Steel factory next door that made the body parts for the cars. Thousands of unemployed workers made their way south, or east in the case of South Wales. Some walked and died in the attempt.
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