Great Britain was relatively healthy during the great depression. There are many reasons why the UK was able to so well.

Britain abandoned the gold standard in 1931. This provided the UK with a competitive advantage over similar nations that still had the gold standard. As Britain did not have the gold standard they were able to devalue the pound in order to make their exports cheaper for other countries, so trade increased. In fact the pound devalued by 30% which made British goods a lot cheaper than the products of competing nations. Britain also imposed new tariff laws. These policies helped by protecting domestic industries and allowed them to compete with other countries.

Another advantage that Britain had over her competitors was that she had not borrowed massive amounts of money the finance World War One. Great Britain has used to sale of its foreign assets to generate cash for the war and so it had avoid the trap which many other countries fell into.

However after 1938 the British government followed a policy a massive rearmament in preparation for war with Hitler and Nazi Germany. This was kind of like a policy of “accidental Keynesianism” which drove the British economy out of the great depression. By 1937 unemployment in Britain had fallen to around 1.5million and when war broke out in 1939, unemployment finally ended.