ABSTRACT
The ‘Geddes Axe’ of the early 1920s was the press shorthand for a programme of public expenditure cuts proposed by the Geddes committee, a government-appointed commission of businessmen chaired by Sir Eric Geddes, in the aftermath of the First World War. It was set the task of identifying £100m of cuts, around 10 per cent of central government expenditure for the financial year 1921–22, and reported in early 1922, in order to influence the 1922–23 budget. The press played a crucial role in both the establishment of the Geddes committee and in ministerial and public resistance to the Geddes Axe cuts – and the episode marks the debut of the relationship between the media and austerity in Britain.
