Vanessa Chambers
University of Exeter

‘It's in your stars...’: the newspaper horoscope column and British society during the Second World War

The rise of the newspaper horoscope column in Britain was swift after 1930, and these astrologers and their columns became increasingly popular and influential.  In some cases the horoscope column was the main reason people chose one newspaper over another, and some lived their lives by the forecasts printed in their newspapers.  This paper argues that horoscope columns brought astrology to the forefront of public consciousness as never before.  Its increased popularity during wartime can be considered as a response to the anxiety and uncertainty and the need for people to find order and reason amid chaos, The numbers of people who regularly or occasionally read their horoscopes during the Second World War was enormous (two-thirds of the adult population) and the number of people who actually believed in ‘their stars’ enough to let the forecasts influence how they lived their lives was potentially huge (one in ten of the adult population).  This paper examines the impact of the newspaper horoscope column and, in particular, how the authorities reacted to the increasing influence upon the general public of horoscope columns, and how others considered the possibility of this popular belief being exploited as propaganda material both on the home front and in terms of its potential for black propaganda overseas.

Vanessa Chambers is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Exeter.  Her PhD thesis '”Fighting Chance”: War, Popular Belief and British Society, 1900-1951’, was completed at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, in 2007, and examines the reliance on the supernatural in Britain during the First and Second World Wars.  She recently worked on the Bombing, States and Peoples 1940-45 project at the University of Exeter, examining the impact of bombing in Britain during the Second World War.  She has had articles published in the Journal for the Academic Study of Magic and the Journal of Contemporary History and is currently revising her thesis for publication this year having been awarded a publishing contract with Liverpool University Press.