Myths and Memory

Abstract

‘The treatment of devaluation as if it were tantamount to hauling down the flag is really very silly’, wrote the Westminster Bank’s economic advisor, R. J. Clark in 1968. Yet, one cannot escape the impression that, on the occasion of the different currency crises that since the gold standard abandonment of 1931 invested the British economy during the twentieth century, the debate went well beyond the decision to produce ‘a change in the price of sterling in terms of other currencies. A technical change made for technical reasons’. The troubles with the pound during the twentieth century, particularly after the Second World War, have attracted the attention of political economists, political, international, and economic historians. Rather than reviving one of the most debated issues in British historiography, this chapter seeks to understand whether the memory of the 1931 abandonment of the gold standard—the ‘mother’ of all currency crises of the twentieth century—played a role on the occasion of other (loosely defined) currency crises. The focus of this chapter is on the 1967 devaluation. In line with this book’s aim to reflect on how and by whom financial crises have been remembered, and what use has been made of the memory of financial crises, this chapter will be looking at the actors remembering and using the events of 1931 in the 1960s, particularly within the Labour party.