Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T15:40:13.753Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

11 - The political economy of urban utilities

from Part II - Governance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
Robert Millward
Edited by
Martin Daunton
Martin Daunton
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Get access

Summary

AN OVERALL PERSPECTIVE: FROM INVIOLATE PROPERTY TO NATIONALISATION

The growth of the urban infrastructure was the most dynamic element in the British economy from the 1870s to the 1930s. Even if one ignores housing, the investment in public health, local transport, policing, water, electricity and gas was accounting, by the early 1900s, for one quarter of all capital formation in Britain and the local government component of that was nearly as large as the annual investment by the whole of manufacturing industry. The mushrooming of electricity systems, waterworks, tramways, harbours and gasworks was a key element, and the interplay between their economic development and the interests of parliament and town councils is the subject of this chapter. Superficially it appears to be about ideology, and municipal socialism in particular. In practice this had a limited role. Certainly there were fears about the growth of government. In 1900 Lord Avebury listed his objections to municipal trading as:

  1. 1) The enormous increase in debt …;

  2. 2) The check to industrial progress;

  3. 3) The demand on the time of municipal councillors …;

  4. 4) The undesirability of involving Governments and Municipalities …in labour questions;

  5. 5) The fact that the interference with natural laws …[defeats] …the very object aimed at;

  6. 6) The risk, not to say, certainty of loss.

Keywords

political economyurban utilitiesmunicipal socialismLondon governmentBritish economy
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Urban History of Britain , pp. 315 - 350
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, L., ‘Hard choices: supplying water to New England Towns’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 15 (1984).Google Scholar
Ashley, P. C., ‘Municipal trading in Great Britain’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 15 (1900)Google Scholar
Aspinwall, B., ‘Glasgow trams and American politics, 1894–1914’, Scottish Historical Review, 56 (1976)Google Scholar
Avebury, Lord, ‘Municipal trading’, Contemporary Review, 78 (1900)Google Scholar
Awty, B. W., ‘The introduction of gas lighting to Preston’, Transactions of the History Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 125 (1975)Google Scholar
Baugh, G. C., ‘Government grants in aid of the rates in England and Wales, 1889–1990’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research (now Historical Research), 65 (1992)Google Scholar
Broadberry, S. N., ‘Comparative productivity in British and American manufacturing during the nineteenth century’, Explorations in Economic History, 31 (1994).Google Scholar
Brown, J. C., ‘Coping with crisis: the diffusion of water works in the late nineteenth century German towns’, Journal of Economic History, 48 (1988).Google Scholar
Bussel, L., ‘Privatisation: tramways: a guide to policy’, Public Enterprise, 32 (1988).Google Scholar
Byatt, I. C. R., The British Electrical Industry, 1815–1914 (Oxford, 1978).
Cairncross, A., Years of Recovery: British Economic Policy 1945–51 (London, 1985), p..
Chatterton, D. A., ‘State control of public utilities in the nineteenth century: the London gas industry’, Business History, 14 (1972)Google Scholar
Chick, M., ‘Competition, competitiveness and nationalisation’, in Jones, G. and Kirby, M. W., ed., Competitiveness and the State: Government and Industry in Twentieth Century Britain (Manchester, 1991).Google Scholar
Clapham, J., The Economic History of Britain, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1964), p..
Crawford, R., ‘Glasgow’s experience with municipal ownership and operation’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 27 (1906).Google Scholar
Dakyns, A. L., ‘The water supply of English towns in 1846’, Manchester School, 2 (1931).Google Scholar
Daunton, M. J., ‘Urban Britain’, in Gourvish, T. R. and O’Day, A., eds., Later Victorian Britain, 1867–1900 (Basingstoke, 1988)Google Scholar
Dobbin, F., Forging Industrial Policy: The United States, Britain, and France in the Railway Age (Cambridge, 1994)
Donald, R., ‘Success of municipal ownership in Great Britain’, Street Railway Journal, 21 (1903) and 72–6.Google Scholar
Falkus, M., ‘The development of municipal trading in the nineteenth century’, Business History, 19 (1977)Google Scholar
Finer, H., Municipal Trading (London, 1941)
Foreman-Peck, J. M. and Waterson, M., ‘The comparative efficiency of public and private enterprise in Britain: electricity generation between the world wars’, Economic Journal, 95, Supplement (1985).Google Scholar
Garcke, E. L., Manual of Electrical Undertakings and Directory of Officials, vol. 1: 1896 (London, 1896)
Garrard, J., Leadership and Power in Victorian Industrial Towns 1830–80 (Manchester, 1983)
Gibbons, H. J., ‘The opposition to municipal socialism in England’, Journal of Political Economy, 9 (1901).Google Scholar
Hamlin, C., ‘Muddling in bumbledom: on the enormity of large sanitary improvements in four British towns, 1855–1885’, Victorian Studies, 33 (1988–9)Google Scholar
Hannah, L., ‘A pioneer of public enterprise: the Central Electricity Generating Board and the National Grid’, in Supple, B., ed., Essays in British Business History (Oxford, 1977).Google Scholar
Hannah, L., Electricity before Nationalisation: A Study of the Development of the Electricity Supply Industry in Britain to 1948 (London, 1979)
Harris, J., Private Lives and Public Spirit: Britain 1870–1914 (London, 1991), p..
Hassan, J. A., ‘The growth and impact of the British water industry in the nineteenth century’, Economic History Review, 2nd series, 38 (1985)Google Scholar
Hennock, E. P., ‘Finance and politics in urban local government in England, 1835–1900’, Historical Journal, 6 (1963)Google Scholar
Hennock, E. P., Fit and Proper Persons: Ideal and Reality in Nineteenth-Century Urban Government (London, 1973)
Hughes, T. P., ‘British electrical industry lag: 1882–1888’, Technology and Culture, 3 (1962)Google Scholar
Jones, Lewis, ‘The municipalities and the electricity supplies industry in Birmingham’, West Midlands Studies, 13 (1980).Google Scholar
Jones, L. J., ‘Public pursuit of private profit? Liberal businessmen and municipal politics in Birmingham, 1845–1900’, Business History, 25 (1983)Google Scholar
Kellett, J. R., ‘Municipal socialism, enterprise and trading in the Victorian city’, Urban History Yearbook (1978)Google Scholar
Kirby, M. W., The British Coal Mining Industry 1870–1946 (London, 1977), p..
Knoop, D., Principles and Methods of Municipal Trading (London, 1912).
Knox, V., ‘The economic effects of the Tramways Act of 1870’, Economic Journal, 11 (1901)Google Scholar
Lyth, P., ‘A multiplicity of instruments: the 1946 decision to create a separate British European airline and its effects on airline productivity’, Journal of Transport History, 11 (1990).Google Scholar
Maltbie, M. R., ‘Gas lighting in Great Britain, Municipal Affairs, 4 (1900).Google Scholar
Matthews, D., ‘Rogues, speculators and competing monopolies: the early London gas companies, 1812–1860’, London Journal, 2 (1985).Google Scholar
Matthews, D., ‘Laissez-faire and the London gas industry in the nineteenth century: another look’, Economic History Review, 2nd series, 39 (1986)Google Scholar
McKay, J. P., Tramways and Trolleys: The Rise of Urban Mass Transport in Europe (Princeton, 1976)
Millward, R., ‘The emergence of gas and water monopolies in nineteenth-century Britain: contested markets and public control’, in Foreman-Peck, J., ed., New Perspectives on the Late Victorian Economy: Essays in Quantitative Economic History: 1860–1914 (Cambridge, 1991)Google Scholar
Millward, R., and Sheard, S., ‘The urban fiscal problem, 1870–1914: government expenditure and finances in England and Wales’, Economic History Review, 2nd series, 48 (1995)Google Scholar
Millward, R., and Ward, R., ‘From private to public ownership of gas undertakings in England and Wales, 1851–1947: chronology, incidence and causes’, Business History, 35 (1993)Google Scholar
Millward, R., and Singleton, J., eds., The Political Economy of Nationalisation, 1920–1950 (Cambridge, 1995)
Ostergaard, G. N., ‘Labour and the development of the public corporation’, Manchester School, 22 (1954)Google Scholar
Porter, R. P., ‘The failure of municipal ownership in England’, Street Railway Journal, 20 (1902), 216–20.Google Scholar
Robson, W. A., ‘The public utility services’, in Laski, H. J., Jennings, W. I. and Robson, W. A., eds., A Century of Municipal Progress: The Last One Hundred Years (London, 1935).Google Scholar
Shaw, A., ‘Glasgow: a municipal study’, Century, 39 (1890)Google Scholar
Sheail, J., ‘Planning, water supplies and ministerial power in inter-war Britain’, Public Administration, 61 (1983)Google Scholar
Sherratt, W., ‘Water supply to large towns’, Journal of the Manchester Geographical Society, 4 (1888).Google Scholar
Silverthorne, A., London and Provincial Water Supplies (London, 1884), 12, 38.
Smart, W., ‘Glasgow and its municipal industries’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 9 (1985).Google Scholar
Supple, B., ‘“No bloody revolutions but for obstinate reactions”?: British coal owners in their context 1919–1920’, in Coleman, D. and Mathias, P., eds., Enterprise and History: Essays in Honour of Charles Wilson (Cambridge, 1984).Google Scholar
Waller, P. J., Town, City and Nation: England, 1850–1914 (Oxford, 1983)
Williamson, J. G., Coping with City Growth during the British Industrial Revolution (Cambridge, 1990)
Wilson, J. F., Sheard, S. and Millward, R., ‘Trends in local authority loan expenditure in England and Wales, 1870–1914’, University of Manchester Working Papers in Economic and Social History, 22 (1993).Google Scholar
Wilson, J. F., ‘Competition between electricity and gas in Britain, 1880–1980’, International Economic History Association, Pre-Conference on the Development of Electrical Energy (Paris, 1993).Google Scholar
Wilson, J. F., ‘Competition in the early gas industry: the case of Chester Gas Light Company 1817–1856’, Transactions of the Antiquarian Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 86 (1990).Google Scholar
Wright, G.,. ‘The origins of American industrial success, 1879–1940’, American Economic Review, 80 (1990)Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×