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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 February 2009
Urban history progresses through the work of many different types of historian. Some think of themselves as primarily urban historians, the zealots in a novel faith. Others explore problems that happen to have occurred in cities, potential converts by association. Still more have an ambit that is society-wide and ‘pass through’ cities haphazardly, the casual visitors. All have something to say to us. This is especially true in the study of urban politics, where until recently it has been the ‘politics’ and not the ‘urban’ which has been the point of focus. The student of urban politics may be confronted with books on re- ligion, class, values, institutions and political systems, none of which may be primarily urban in orientation. But all of them may be grist to his mill.
1. Dearth of sources make it impossible to explore the political activity of more than a handful of individuals and in any case the size of cities precludes individual analysis.
2. Dale, A. W. W., The Life of R. W. Dale of Birmingham (1899), 250.Google Scholar
3. Leicestershire Mercury, 19 January 1839.
4. Cf. McLeod, H., ‘Gilbert overstates the relationship between urbanization and secularization in nineteenth-century England, and the explanations he offers are largely inadequate.’ Urban History Yearbook 1978, 12.Google Scholar
5. In Churchmen and the Condition of England 1832–1885 (1973).Google Scholar
6. Garrard, J. et al. (eds), The Middle Class in Politics (1978)semicolonGoogle Scholar Crossick, G. (ed.), The Lower Middle Class (1976).Google Scholar
7. Fay, C. R. et al. , Round About Industrial Britain (1952)semicolonGoogle Scholar Briggs, A., Victorian Cities (1963).Google Scholar
8. Paul Sartre, Jean, Nausea (1962 ed., English translation), 23semicolon my emphasis.Google Scholar
9. For a general review of this question see Thomis, M. I., and Holt, P., Threats of Revolution in Britain 1789–1848 (1977).Google Scholar
10. Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class (1963), 9.Google Scholar
11. The most important contribution to this theme is Geoffrey Crossick, An Artisan Elite in Victorian Society Kentish London 1840–1880 (1978), which came too late for comment here, but see the review by Professor Lees below, p. 143.
12. Cf. for example Perkin, H. J., The Making of Modern English Society (1969),Google Scholar and Fraser, D., The Evolution of the British Welfare State (1973).Google Scholar
13. Mercury, Leeds, 17 June 1843Google Scholar semicolon cf. E. Baines, Jr, The Social Educational and Religious State of the Manufacturing Districts (1843), 24–5.
14. However, the evidence for Laqueur's thesis has been subject to criticism.
15. Thompson, op. cit., 13.
16. Read, D., Press and People (1961)semicolonGoogle Scholar Murphy, M. J., Cambridge Newspapers and Opinion 1780–1950 (1977).Google Scholar
17. Another relevant contribution when answering these questions is Peter Bailey's Leisure and Class in Victorian England: Rational recreation and the contest for control 1830–1885 (1978), which came too late for comment in the text. The author points out that the behaviour of individual workingmen could be indiscriminately ‘rational’ or ‘irrational’ (from a middle-class point of view). It reflected ‘the nature of his culture, which was predominantly additive rather than substitutive, and exclusively responsible neither to fashion nor ideology’ (p. 101).
18. Gatrell, V. A. C., ‘The commercial middle class in Manchester c. 1820–1857’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1971), 12–13.Google Scholar
19. Urban History Yearbook 1977, 90–2.
20. Brundage, A., ‘The landed interest and the new poor law’,Google Scholar English Historical Review, lxxxvii (1972), 27–48 semicolonCrossRefGoogle Scholar Dunkley, P., ‘The landed interest and the new poor lawsemicolon a critical note’, E.H.R., lxxxviii (1973), 836–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
21. Lincolnshire Politics 1832–85 (1973).
22. Fraser, D., Urban Politics in Victorian England, 212.Google Scholar
23. Cf. Fraser, D., ‘Voluntaryism and West Riding politics in the mid-nineteenth century’. Northern History, xiii (1977), 199–231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
24. Vincent, J., Poll Books, How Victorians Voted (1967)semicolonGoogle Scholar Drake, M., Introduction to Historical Psephology (Open University Course Units, D301)semicolonGoogle Scholar Davis, R. W., Political Change and Continuity 1760–1885 (1973)semicolonGoogle Scholar Mitchell, J. and Cornford, J., ‘The political demography of Cambridge 1832–1868’, Albion (1978).Google Scholar
25. Dod, C. R., Electoral Facts from 1832–1853, Impartially Stated, ed. Hanham, H. J. (1972).Google Scholar
26. Hennock, E. P., Fit and Proper Persons (1973)Google Scholar.
