please empty your brain below
It would be interesting to adjust for inflation to see what the true increases (or decreases) are.

Tristan Miller | Homepage | 16.11.10 - 12:16 a.m. | #

According to this inflation calculator, £1 in 1947 is worth about £30 today.

That's a 3000% increase... which suggests that almost everything in my table is an increase well above the rate of inflation.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 16.11.10 - 12:28 a.m. | #

So basically, things that were free remained free (except for the Foundling Hospital Museum), and things that cost money increased massively (except the United Services Museum)?

Josh | 16.11.10 - 12:29 a.m. | #

If I understand the inflation calculator right you just need to divide the 2010 price by 30 to be able to compare to the 1947 price (or multiply the 1947 price by 30). So Dickens House (5p in 1947 is 150p in 2010, so the "real" increase is from £1.50 to £6)

Uroskin | Homepage | 16.11.10 - 1:23 a.m. | #

Didn't the Museum of London arrive at Barbican via the Guildhall after Lancaster Gate? I've a feeling the collection may have also been located somewhere in West London (Kensington Gardens perhaps?), but can't be sure.

Marc | 16.11.10 - 7:12 a.m. | #

To put the %age increases another way, the average salary in 1947 was £416.41 (once converted to decimal). In 2009 it was £37, 580.11.

In terms of Baker Street to Piccadilly Circus bus tickets, a 1947 worker would have been able to buy 66,625 of them, whereas the 2009 worker could only afford 18,790.

Source: http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100315071014AA4sFWm

Marc | 16.11.10 - 7:40 a.m. | #

It would be interesting to see tube fare increases since then too. Note that Waterloo to Bank would not have been tube back then, only left British Rail in the 1990s

SELondoner | 16.11.10 - 7:41 a.m. | #

So, Madame Tussauds was a rip-off then, as well as now...

Dominic | 16.11.10 - 8:52 a.m. | #

I've never heard of a local residents Kew discount! However, lots of places offer 2 for 1 vouchers including Kew (usually with a rail ticket.

Nicks | 16.11.10 - 9:55 a.m. | #

Does anyone (other than maybe an unwary tourist or two) pay the full entrance price to Madame Tussauds anyway? I doubt there were voucher offers in 1947 though.

Blue Witch | Homepage | 16.11.10 - 9:57 a.m. | #

I remember that in the late 1980s admission to Kew was still only 20p.

David | 16.11.10 - 10:02 a.m. | #

Putting the "adjusted for inflation" column in to the table would be a help, please.

David | 16.11.10 - 10:03 a.m. | #

I doubt anyone other than tourists pays any kind of entrance fee to Madame Tussauds.

On the basis of earnings, an increase of 9000% is more less the same relative cost.

ian | 16.11.10 - 10:16 a.m. | #

So, Dr. Johnson's house and Madame Tussaud's cost about the same today taking into account wage inflation; rail and river fares are cheaper, the former being an absolute bargain: but everything else is more expensive. The moral of this is don't bother with savings accounts or pension funds, buy gold. In 1947 £10 an ounce, now £850. Exactly keeping up with wage inflation.

RogerB | 16.11.10 - 10:20 a.m. | #

............and at that rate, in just over 100 years time, the taxi will be cheaper than the tube.

Kingston's a long way from Kew - why would its residents get a discount and not, say, Hounslow residents who are much nearer?
As far as I am aware, there are no resident's discounts, but there is a season ticket which is cheaper if you intend to make four or more visits within the year)

Timbo | 16.11.10 - 10:49 a.m. | #

"The moral of this is don't bother with savings accounts or pension funds, buy gold. In 1947 £10 an ounce, now £850. Exactly keeping up with wage inflation."

Now, let me see... didn't we, as a country, used to have gold reserves? And remind me, who sold them? Yep, the last governmint. Ho hum.

Blue Witch | Homepage | 16.11.10 - 11:10 a.m. | #

In 1947 my father was earning about £8 per week and as quite normal in those days my mother was always home when we got in from school.
Nostalgia ain`t what it used to be

[email protected] | 16.11.10 - 11:40 a.m. | #

£37,500 seems to high for the average salary (perhaps the average London salary). The UK average salary is now £25,000

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1293121/Average-annual-salary-drops-2-600-just-months.html

| 16.11.10 - 12:12 p.m. | #

First response as I've just finished reading through the archives having only discovered your blog a week or so ago. Hows about comparing admission charges to the capital's football grounds over a period of time. When I first started watching Chelsea in 1971 I could get in via the schoolboys turnstile for 15p, cheapest ticket now, inclusive of the £1.50 booking fee for having the gall to book online, is £48.50.
Great blog, glad I stumbled across it.

kevin hennessy | 16.11.10 - 1:36 p.m. | #

Ah.. Greg beat me to it. I know not of this "Madame Tussauds" that you speak of, but "Merlin Entertainments Madame Tussauds" trips right off the tongue. ;)

And your £4 Waterloo -> Bank. is if you pay cash. What if you have an Oyster Card...!

geofftech | Homepage | 16.11.10 - 1:49 p.m. | #

As people seem to like this sort of stuff I direct you to these two posts I did last year, which looked at prices in Berry Bros wine store now and in Edwardian times (and I did real terms comparisions):

http://mattysarchive.blogspot.com/2009/06/changing-price-of-alcohol-i.html

http://mattysarchive.blogspot.com/2009/06/changing-price-of-alcohol-part-ii.html

On admissions, I guess the average earnings is a more likely inflator than the CPI as museums are very labour intensive (is that true?)

Matthew | 16.11.10 - 8:08 p.m. | #

A good site to go, to see what prices then translate into todays prices is http://www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/result.php

In 2009, the relative worth of
£0 1s 0d from 1947 is:

£1.45
using the retail price index

£1.48
using the GDP deflator

£4.51
using the average earnings

£5.17
using the per capita GDP

£6.48
using the share of GDP

Big Al | 16.11.10 - 9:35 p.m. | #

One interesting feature of comparisons of this kind is, precisely, that they make us aware of the scale of inflation. If we adjusted them for inflation this would be lost.

Andrew | 16.11.10 - 9:50 p.m. | #

Just to add to Greg's post, this is how to see those different comparisions:

RPI - this is best one really, it shows how expensive these goods/services have become relative to the average good/service bought at the retail level.
GDP deflator - this is similar but includes intermediate goods (and doesn't include imported goods). This is kind of the ground zero of inflation, if it is wrong then just about every other economic statistic is too.
Average earnings - how much an average person in a job would have to work to buy these tickets. This is a good measure of 'affordability', but...
GDP per capita - this has risen more than average earnings because of an increased participation of women in the labour force (offset slightly by more old people and higher unemployment), so might be a better choice for 'household' affordability
GDP - Not particularly relevent here as this obviously also allows for population growth. If you had the number of people visiting the attractions or using the trains and multiplied it by the price you could use this to work out whether the attraction/travel option had increased in importance as a share of the economy

Matthew | 17.11.10 - 9:47 a.m. | #











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