This atlas draws together crucial social and economic data on England, Scotland and Wales between 1780 and 1914, and gives a clear guide to the industrial development of Great Britain during the modern period.
Why did slums and suburbs develop simultaneously? Did the capitalist system produce these, and were class antagonisms to blame? Why did the Victorians believe there was a housing problem, and who or what created it? What housing solutions were attempted, and how successfully? These are amongst the central questions addressed by social and urban historians in recent years, and their arguments and analyses are reviewed here. The history of housing between 1780 and 1914 encapsulates many problems associated with the transition from a largely rural to an overwhelmingly urban nation. The unprecedented pace of this transition imposed immense tensions within society, with implications for the urban environment and for local and national government. Housing is central to an understanding of the social, economic, political and cultural forces in nineteenth-century history; this book is an ideal introduction to the topic.
This is an innovative study of middle-class behaviour and property relations in English towns in Georgian and Victorian Britain. Through the lens of wills, family papers, property deeds, account books and letters, the author offers a reading of the ways in which middle-class families survived and surmounted the economic difficulties of early industrial society. He argues that these were essentially 'networked' families created and affirmed by a 'gift' network of material goods, finance, services and support, with property very much at the centre of middle-class survival strategies. His approach combines microhistorical studies of individual families with a broader analysis of the national and even international networks within which these families operated. The result is a significant contribution to the history, and to debates about the place of structural and cultural analysis in historical understanding.
Most of the world’s Extraterritorial Englishes stem historically from southern English dialects - Southern England having been the most densely-habited part of the country. However, the dialects of Southern England remain under-studied. The papers in this volume consider both diachronic and synchronic aspects of the dialects of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Kent, Sussex, Dorset, Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, Gloucestershire and the Isles of Scilly.
This is the second volume of a three-volume study of Scottish social change and development from the eighteenth century to the present day, originally published by John Donald in association with the Economic and Social History Society of Scotland. The series covers the history of industrialisation and urbanisation in Scottish society and records many experiences which Scotland shared in common with other societies, looking at the impact of those changes throughout the spectrum of society from croft, bothy and hunting lodge to mines, foundries and urban poor houses. The series is intended to illustrate the identity and distinctiveness of Scotland through its separate institutions and through areas such as language, law and religion and recognises Scotland as a multi-cultured society, the highland and lowland cultures being only two among several.
This volume represents the first dedicated study of the British Yeomanry Cavalry, delving into the institution’s history from the cessation of hostilities with France in 1815 through to the eve of the First World War in 1914. This social history explores the Yeomanry’s composition and place within British society, as well as its controversial role in policing before and after Peterloo, and its unique contribution to the war in South Africa. Overturning or challenging many enduring myths and accepted truths, this book breaks new ground not just in our understanding of the Yeomanry, but the wider amateur military tradition.
Using a neo-Marxian perspective, Benno Engels examines the absence of urban planning in nineteenth-century England. In his analysis of urbanization in England, Engels considers the influences of property owners, inheritance laws, local government structures, fiscal crises of the local and central state, shifts in voter sentiments, fluctuating economic conditions, and class-based pressure group activity.
This volume reviews the way in which, over the centuries, the evolving human presence in Britain has shaped the British landscape and how, in turn, the British landscape has moulded the development of British communities. From the beginnings of human settlement Britain has represented a final frontier for successive waves of colonists, each bringing its own set of cultural adaptations and its own ethos into the landscape. Over time both landscape and culture have matured from raw frontier to settled centre, moulded by the advent of agriculture, towns, and industry, and by streams of migration both within Britain and from outside. The chapters in this book - by archaeologists, historians, and geographers - present an interdisciplinary and accessible account of that long process. Together they trace the various phases of the story, showing how much of it has only recently been unearthed, and how much remains to be discovered.