Welsh Journals

The Journey to work to and from Sivansea in 1951 by G. HUMPHREYS MOST PEOPLE WORKING IN BRITAIN today have to undertake a journey to get to their place of work. Recently the distance involved in this daily journey has tended to increase, and more people are now travelling further from their homes to their employ- ment. The implications and repercussions of this development are highly significant in the social and economic life of Britain but are seldom widely enough realised. For example the distance people are now prepared to travel allows industry to locate further away from the homes of those it proposes to employ, fostering the growth of dormitory towns dependent upon work provided elsewhere for their continued economic viability. As a corollary, acceptance of the increased travelling times and distances involved has resulted in communities becoming much less self contained and less depen- dent upon the work available in the immediate vicinity. Because of these developments many of the old industrial centres in Britain have changed quietly and in some cases almost unknowingly into dormitory settlements. The extra time involved in the longer journey to work has in many cases been at the expense of leisure hours and pursuits. This has contributed at both the regional and the local level to the lessening of community spirit apparent in South Wales as a whole and in Swansea in particular. It must not be thought, however, that the extended journeys are a completely new phenomenon. Even ten years ago the 1951 Census figures show that there were well established journey-to-work patterns in Britain. Some comments on these general features have already been published, but they have been based on national and regional analyses. The purpose here is to indicate the implications of the extended journey to work at the local level using Swansea as a local example. In describing the extent and direction of the movements involved, some indication is provided of the amount of information available for local authority areas in the 1951 Census Usual Workplace and Residence Volume, and of the way in which this information can be used. One of the most interesting features of the Swansea journey- to-work pattern in 1951 was the net outflow of workers every day. Only 4,607 travelled in as opposed to 10,013 travelling out. Such a situation was almost unique in Britain since nearly every other large town acted as a focal point for workers living in the