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Inflation and cost of living in England over the ten years 1953-1962

At the end of every year, my father summarised the family's monthly outgoings for that year and entered them into his account book which has survived and is a genuine primary source. It serves as a useful and accurate indication of the annual increases in the cost of living in England. This page concentrates on years 1953-1962 but does include other years.

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By the webmaster based on her father's account book records, further research and contributions from others who lived at the time

Pages in the old account book

The following image is a thumbnail for the years 1953-1962 of my father's account book. Extracts in text form are below, but for the complete information, tap/click the thumbnail.

Yearly accounts of expenditure over ten years for 1953-1962. Tap/click for a larger, legible version

Problems with calculating an accurate value for inflation

It was indeed straightforward to put expenditures in 1953 side-by-side with expenditures in 1962 and calculate how much more money my father needed or spent in 1962 compared with in 1953. However, as I looked down the itemised list, I realised that this figure could not be generalised for other families because so many changes could be due to circumstances other than inflation. For example:

• We were a family of three: my father, my mother and me (a child at the time), and although prices per unit of the same items might be the same for other families, there are always economies in scale.

• Mortgages. Repayments like those on our house remained constant throughout the lifetime of the mortgage because they had been set up on a fixed rate. So there was no change in the ten years, giving an apparent inflation of zero. Other families may have set their mortgage up at a different time at a different fixed rate or a variable one.

• Heating expenses. In the early 1950s most people heated with coal fires, but by the late 1950s it became increasingly common for families to convert to central heating. Ours ran from oil, which was the cheapest fuel at that time, and then from gas after oil prices were increased fourfold. Other families may have used different fuels.

• Travel. My father changed his job during the ten-year period and this necessitated different travel costs independent of the rate of inflation.

• House repairs need attention intermittently and at haphazard rates. So there is no way of knowing how other families might have been affected.

• Furnishings costs and holiday costs are haphazard depending on whims, necessity and availability of money. In the early 1960s many families were taking advantage of the relatively new package holidays abroad which were a considerable expenditure.

• Items like a car and a television were not parts of our lives in 1953, but they were becoming increasingly popular during the following years.

These are just examples. My conclusion was that my father's account book could be used to calculate inflation of particular items of expenditure over specific periods but that the time and effort required to tease out the appropriate data would be significant and probably not worth the effort.

Yet there were a few exceptions:

Some reasonably accurate measures of inflation 1953-1962

I saw no reason why the percentage changes of general rates (now council tax), water rates and electricity in our household would be much different from those in any other house. So they would serve to give a reasonable estimate of inflation for the ten year period of 1953 to 1962. The calculation is shown in the following table. In summary:

CATEGORY	COST IN 1953	COST IN 1962	INFLAT­ION
General rates	£38-18-0	£50-02-0	36%
Water rates	£4-14-10	£ 4-10-0	-4%
Electricity	£6-14-3	£21-9-10	32%

Inflation in the cost of electricity

The calculation gives the percentage inflation in electricity costs in the ten-year period of 1953-1962 as 32%. Although there were different suppliers and some families would have used more electricity than others, it is probably safe to give a figure of around 30%.

Inflation in rates/council tax 1953-1962

The calculation gives the percentage inflation for general rates in the ten-year period of 1953-1962 as 36%. Bearing in mind that sizes of houses are different, it is probably safe to give a figure of 30-40%.

Inflation in the costs of water

The cost of water apparently decreased slightly over the ten-year period of 1953-1962, so slightly that it may have been the 'noise in the system'. I remember that water was regarded then as essential, so that people didn't have to pay for it by how much they used.

Other indicators of inflation

Housekeeping costs (ie for food and cleaning) could be somewhat generalisable across households, although households did vary in size, and tastes in food and available money would have varied from one household to another. Yet here is the data for what it is worth for my father's family.

	COST IN 1953	COST IN 1962	INFLAT­ION
House keeping	£218-8-0	£417-10-0	~50%

So, based on my father's figures, a reasonable estimate for the inflation in the costs of food and other household items between 1953 and 1962 was about 50%. No wonder there were strikes for more pay!

Costs of common items in 1961

The following box gives the costs of living for a student in 1961. You may like to compare the costs of the incidental items with their costs today to work out a value for inflation between then and now.

Wages and inflation (1950-1955)

More examples of inflation

There is much more about inflation which may interest you:

Rents and incomes

Shop prices and inflation

House prices and earlier house prices

Postal rates

Travel

Cigarettes and smoking

Coal in the early 1900s

Heating a house by coal

Heating a house by gas

Electric clothes dryer

Eating out

Bank notes

Electric clothes dryer

Domestic bomb shelter for WW2

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