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Immoral Traffic: Mobility, Health, Labor, and the “Lorry Girl” in Mid-Twentieth-Century Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2013

Julia Laite
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Abstract

The story of the lorry girl and the lorry driver, the roads they traveled on, and the responses toward them allows for some telling insights into a strange kind of “immoral traffic” in 1930s and 1950s Britain. Whether seeking employment or adventure, leaving the “distressed areas” or absconding from an approved school, the lorry girl was linked to anxieties about women's mobility, unemployment, venereal disease, and delinquency. At the same time, the figure of the lorry driver, both romanticized and marginalized, showed that deviant and commercialized sexuality could be linked to the economic and social inequality of both men and women. Concerns about lorry jumping and hitchhiking in this period also reveal a different kind of narrative in the development of British roadways, which not only were tied to both the health and efficiency of the nation but also were spaces of sexual danger and sites of social delinquency.

Keywords

hitchhikingmotorwaysroadstransporttransportationprostitutionamateur prostitutionlorry driverslorry girlslorriesabscondersapproved schoolsdelinquencyunemploymentmobilitymigration
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 52 , Issue 3 , July 2013 , pp. 693 - 721
Copyright
Copyright © The North American Conference on British Studies 2013 

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References

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33 Report of the New Scotland Yard A4 Branch, 16 May 1938, TNA, MEPO 2/8401.

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42 Ibid.

43 Church of England Advisory Board for Moral Welfare Work to S. W. Harris, 17 November 1936, TNA, MH 55/1371.

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45 British Social Hygiene Council (BSHC) to Minister of Transportation, 19 September 1935, TNA, MH 55/1371. For more on the “problem girl” and venereal disease, see Davidson, Dangerous Liaisons, 114–18.

46 Church of England Advisory Board for Moral Welfare Work to S.W. Harris, 17 November 1936, TNA, MH 55/1371.

47 Ibid.

48 For more on the difficulties of contact tracing and continuity of treatment, see Davidson, Roger, “Searching for Mary, Glasgow: Contact Tracing for Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Twentieth-Century Scotland,” Social History of Medicine 9, no. 2 (1996): 195–214CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

49 Report of Dorothy Peto, 19 April 1943, TNA, MH 102/895. This report also noted that “it is almost a matter of routine to examine an absconder for VD on her return to a School,” supporting Pamela Cox's arguments that compulsory venereal disease treatment continued long after the “voluntary” model had been established for certain vulnerable or marginal groups. Cox, “Compulsion, Voluntarism, and Venereal Disease.”

50 Though this did not translate into a fall in incidents, and the medical community remained concerned that antibiotics provided a false sense of security that actually increased the rate of infection. Davidson, Dangerous Liaisons, 246–48.

51 Minutes of a meeting held by the Approved Schools Central Advisory Committee, Home Office, 13 January 1954, TNA, HO 45/24986.

52 See Julia Laite, Common Prostitutes and Ordinary Citizens.

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57 Stanley C. Jones to R. I. Guppy (Assistant Undersecretary of State), 16 October 1951, TNA, HO 45/24986.

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72 The Times, 17 August 1936, 11G.

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75 Scott and Reid, “The White Slavery of the Motor World,” 311.

76 BSHC, “Lorry Drivers and a Matter of Health,” 2.

77 BSHC to Minister of Transportation, 19 September 1935, TNA, MH 55/1371.

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80 Ibid., 9.

81 Minutes of a Departmental Conference held at the Home Office on 23 October 1935, TNA, MH 55/1371.

82 Ibid.

83 Ibid.

84 Burke Report reprinted in Shiels, “The Transport Worker and the Lorry Girl,” 6–9; for more on the growing culture of safety and transport in interwar Britain, see Esbester, Mike, “Reinvention, Renewal or Repetition? The Great Western Railway and Occupational Safety on Britain's Railways, c.1900–c.1920,” Business and Economic History Online 3 (2005)Google Scholar.

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86 BSHC, “Lorry Drivers and a Matter of Health,” 1.

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88 Undated minute on lorry drivers, TNA, MH 55/1371.

89 Summary of police returns, January to June, 1935, TNA, MH 55/1371.

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96 Quick Smith, Lorry Drivers’ Wages.

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98 The Times, 12 April 1958, 7F.

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101 Hollowell, “The Lorry Driver,” 192.

102 Charlesworth, British Motorways, 6.

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105 Hall, Prostitution, 36. In these comments, she included the use of taxi and private cars by prostitutes, the practice of “gutter crawling” by motorist customers, as well as the use of “lorry jumping.”

106 E. T. Burke, City of Salford VD scheme Annual Report, 1934, 1.

107 For these schemes to relieve the depressed areas, see Merriman, Driving Spaces, 28.

108 For the motor car, popular culture, gender, and sexuality, see Pugh, Martin, We Danced All Night: A Social History of Britain between the Wars (London, 2008), 252–55Google Scholar; Sean O'Connell, The Car in British Society, 43–76.

109 Report of the Committee on the Social Welfare of Girls in London, 9 December 1929, TNA, HO 45/14242.

110 Feldman, “Migrants, Immigrants and Welfare,” 79–104.

111 For an examination of mobility, gender, and sexual danger in rail stations, see Bieri, Sabin and Gerodetti, Natalia, “‘Falling’ Women-Saving Angels: Spaces of Contested Mobility and the Production of Gender and Sexualities within Early Twentieth-Century Train Stations,” Social and Cultural Geography 8, no. 2 (2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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113 Ibid., 66.

114 Cooper, “Lorries and Lorry Driving,” 76. See also Report of H Division, 26 June 1958, TNA, MEPO 3/9715.

115 Report of X Division, 23 August 1936, TNA, MEPO 3/9713.

116 Cooper, “Lorry Drivers and Lorry Driving,” 69.

117 For the social importance of cafés, see Merriman, Driving Spaces, 185.

118 The Times, 17 August 1936, 11G.

119 Merriman, Driving Spaces, 185.

120 Bugler, “The Lorry Men,” 181.

121 Ibid., 184.

122 Sculle, Keith A, “Review of The World Beyond the Windshield: Roads and Landscapes in the United States and Europe,” Material Culture 42, no. 2 (2010): 79Google Scholar.

123 Emsley, “Mother, What Did the Policemen Do When There Weren't Any Motors?,” 357–81.

124 E. T. Burke, Memorandum on “Road Transport and VD,” Municipal Clinic, Salford, 29 August 1935, TNA, MH 55/1371.

125 Robinson, Assistant Minister of Transportation, to E. T. Burke, 30 August 1935, TNA, MH 55/1371.

126 Report of the Long-Distance Road Haulage Committee, as cited in the Report of the Royal Commission on Transportation, 89–90. This lack of government intervention extended to car manufacturing, private motoring, and motorists as well, on which more work has been done. See, for instance, Plowden, William, The Motor Car and Politics, 1896–1970 (London, 1971)Google Scholar.

127 Memorandum on “Road Transport and VD,” Municipal Clinic, Salford, 29 August 1935, TNA, MH 55/1371; Report of the Commercial Motor Users Association as cited in London, 3AMS/B/05/03, box 053, WL.

128 Minutes of a Departmental Conference held at the Home Office, 23 October 1935, TNA, MH 55/1371.

129 Summary of replies received to Home Office Circular of the 15 November 1935 addressed to 26 Chief Constables and the Metropolitan Police, TNA, MH 55/1371.

130 To E. T. Burke from the proprietors of the Woodly Transport Café (Stone), 14 August 1935, TNA, MH 55/1371.

131 Daily Mirror, 2 May 1939.

132 Report of X Division, 23 August 1936, TNA, MEPO 3/9713.

133 Summary of replies received to Home Office Circular of the 15 November 1935 addressed to 26 Chief Constables and the Metropolitan Police, TNA, MH 55/1371.

134 Burgess, J. A., MD (Medical Officer, Stoke-on-Trent), “Venereal Disease and the Transport Worker,” Health and Empire 11, no. 1 (1936): 11Google Scholar.

135 Ibid. For more on these “cinemotors” and venereal disease, see Davidson, Dangerous Liaisons, 141–42.

136 This recommendation was made to the Home Office in 1935, “but apparently nothing was done about it.” Dorothy Peto, Report of the A4 Women's Branch, 16 May 1938, TNA, MEPO 2/8401.

137 Jackson, Louise, Women Police: Gender, Welfare and Surveillance in the Twentieth Century (Manchester, 2006), 138–64Google Scholar; “Girl absconders from Approved Schools soliciting American soldiers in the streets and spreading venereal disease,” 19 April 1943, TNA, MH 102/895.

138 G. T. Earle Ltd. Cement Manufacturers, Hull, Lorry Driver's Instruction Book (c.1947), 1, 2, 7.

139 Mort, Frank, “Striptease: The Erotic Female Body and Live Sexual Entertainment in Mid-Twentieth Century London,” Social History 32, no. 1 (2007): 29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

140 Cooper, “Lorries and Lorry Driving,” 70.

141 For more on the social, political, and economic consequences of postwar mass consumerism, see, for instance, Cohen, Deborah, Household Gods: The British and Their Possessions (London, 2006)Google Scholar; Gurney, Peter, “The Battle of the Consumer in Post-war Britain,” Journal of Modern History 77, no. 4 (2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Matthew Hilton, Consumerism in Twentieth-Century Britain: The Search for a Historical Movement (2003).

142 Bugler, “The Lorry Men,” 183.

143 For more, see Laite, Julia, “Historical Perspectives on Industrial Development, Mining, and Prostitution,” Historical Journal 52, no. 3 (2009): 739–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar. There is a large epidemiological and sociological literature on the relationship among truck drivers, long-distance road haulage, and commercial sex in these areas. See AidsWatch, “HIV/AIDS Intervention in Truck Driver Population in Southern Africa: A Review of Literature and BCC Materials,” where the authors write: “Truck drivers are highly mobile and spend long hours on the road away from their families. Their need for entertainment and female companionship, coupled with relative solvency compared to the rest of the population, makes them very likely to use the services of commercial sex workers in stop-over towns near major transportation routes. These truck stop towns have developed an entire infrastructure of networks and services meeting the business and recreation needs of truck drivers, including gas stations, inspection points, lodges, bars and brothels, and a high population of commercial sex workers.” http://www.aidsmark.org/ipc_en/pdf/sm/hr/mwmp/HIV-AIDS%20Intervention%20in%20Truck%20Driver%20Populations%20in%20South%20A.pdf (accessed 28 October 2011).

144 For more on the concept of agency and resistance within residential reform schools, see Wills, “Resistance, Identity and Historical Change in Residential Institutions,” 215–34.

145 Ibid.

146 Report of the Royal Commission on Road Transport, 1930, 13.