Offering a detailed overview of state involvement in the rationalisation and reorganisation of British industry between the wars, this is the first work to address the issues in a comprehensive manner for over 50 years. Utilising a range of primary source material (including papers from the PRO, the Bank of England, the Federation of British Industry and various private archives), Julian Greaves has combined a selection of detailed case studies of selected industries with a broader overview of the national political and industrial situation. The resulting work, which manages to balance analytical depth with breadth of coverage, argues that despite numerous problems and limitations, 1930s' industrial reorganisation policy was reasonably successful in meeting the limited aims of the government.
The Report of the Committee of Inquiry on Small Firms (the Bolton Committee Report) was produced at a time of significant political change. The 1970s in the UK saw the beginning of the end for interventionism and ‘big government’ and the emergence of a new free market, economic liberalism. However, the same period also saw the creation of what became a substantial agenda to intervene in the economy through an extensive range of government initiatives aimed at encouraging and enabling small firms and entrepreneurship. Marking the 50th Anniversary of the publication of the Bolton Committee’s report this book provides researchers with new insights into the tensions between these potentially contradictory political agendas that would come to shape our modern economy. It provides the first in-depth analysis of the origins, operation and outcomes of the Bolton Committee, which is widely seen as responsible for the small firm agenda in the UK. In doing so, new insights are generated not only into the birth of enterprise policy in the UK but into the wider changes in political economy that saw powerful tensions between free market rhetoric and new forms of interventionism in practice. The book will be of interest to scholars and PhD students working in the fields of entrepreneurship, small business management and business history.
At the beginning of the twentieth century Britain was amongst the world leaders in the production of machine tools, yet by the 1980s the industry was in terminal decline. Focusing on the example of Britain's largest machine tool maker, Alfred Herbert Ltd of Coventry, this study charts the wider fortunes of this vital part of the manufacturing sector. Taking a chronological approach, the book explores how during the late nineteenth century the industry developed a reputation for excellence throughout the world, before the challenges of two world wars necessitated drastic changes and reorganisations. Despite meeting these challenges and emerging with confidence into the post-war market place, the British machine tool industry never regained its pre-eminent position, and increasingly lost ground to foreign competition. By using the example of Alfred Herbert Ltd to illuminate the broader economic and business history of the British machine tool industry, this study not only provides a valuable insight into British manufacturing, but also contributes to the ongoing debates surrounding Britain's alleged decline as a manufacturing nation.
Britain’s relationship with China in the nineteenth and early twentieth century is often viewed in terms of gunboat diplomacy, unequal treaties, and the unrelenting pursuit of Britain’s own commercial interests. This book, however, based on extensive original research, demonstrates that in Britain after the First World War a combination of liberal, Labour party, pacifist, missionary and some business opinion began to argue for imperial retreat from China, and that this movement gathered sufficient momentum for a sympathetic attitude to Chinese demands becoming official Foreign Office policy in 1926. The book considers the various strands of this movement, relates developments in Britain to the changing situation in China, especially the rise of nationalism and the Guomindang, and argues that, contrary to what many people think, the reassertion of China’s national rights was begun successfully in this period rather than after the Communist takeover in 1949.
Law and Society in England 1750–1950 is an indispensable text for those wishing to study English legal history and to understand the foundations of the modern British state. In this new updated edition the authors explore the complex relationship between legal and social change. They consider the ways in which those in power themselves imagined and initiated reform and the ways in which they were obliged to respond to demands for change from outside the legal and political classes. What emerges is a lively and critical account of the evolution of modern rights and expectations, and an engaging study of the formation of contemporary social, administrative and legal institutions and ideas, and the road that was travelled to create them. The book is divided into eight chapters: Institutions and Ideas; Land; Commerce and Industry; Labour Relations; The Family; Poverty and Education; Accidents; and Crime. This extensively referenced analysis of modern social and legal history will be invaluable to students and teachers of English law, political science, and social history.
Economic historians have perennially addressed the intriguing question of comparative development, asking why some countries develop much faster and further than others. Focusing primarily on Europe between 1914 and 1939, this present volume explores the development of thirteen countries that could be said to be categorised as economically backward during this period: Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Turkey and Yugoslavia. These countries are linked, not only in being geographically on Europe's periphery, but all shared high agrarian components and income levels much lower than those enjoyed in western European countries. The study shows that by 1918 many of these countries had structural characteristics which either relegated them to a low level of development or reflected their economic backwardness, characteristics that were not helped by the hostile economic climate of the interwar period. It explores, region by region, how their progress was checked by war and depression, and how the effects of political and social factors could also be a major impediment to sustained progress and modernisation. For example, in many cases political corruption and instability, deficient administrations, ethnic and religious diversity, agrarian structures and backwardness, population pressures, as well as international friction, were retarding factors. In all this study offers a fascinating insight into many areas of Europe that are often ignored by economists and historians. It demonstrates that these countries were by no means a lost cause, and that their post-war performances show the latent economic potential that most harboured. By providing an insight into the development of Europe's 'periphery' a much more rounded and complete picture of the continent as a whole is achieved.
This monograph makes a fresh contribution to a longstanding but far from exhausted debate concerning the transition to capitalism in Europe. The work investigates key aspects of this transformation: the changes on the land, the origins of the industrial revolution, the modern rise of population and the growth of markets. It does so from a new perspective, however, by focusing on an area of southern Europe, Catalonia. Catalonia's interest as an area for study lies in its precocity within a southern European context, as one of the few regions on the European periphery to industrialise in comparable ways and at the same time as areas of northern Europe. Population growth was similarly rapid. The study engages critically with several important debates in economic and social history, such as the transition to agrarian capitalism, whether or not sharecropping should be viewed as a backwards form of agricultural production, theories of proto-industrialisation and theories of population change. It also questions claims that the nuclear family of north-western Europe was a superior model for industralisation than the more extended family structures prevalent in southern Europe. Not only could the extended family be as dynamic as the nuclear family when required but, more importantly, attention needs to be paid to other institutions and factors that may have conditioned family forms and decision-making processes. The approach taken by this work is a micro-study of one community, Igualada, an important proto-industrial centre but also situated within the viticultural region. It grew rapidly over the eighteenth century from around 1,700 inhabitants in 1717 to 4,900 in 1787 and around 7,700 by 1830. Only at the micro-level is it feasible for an individual study to reconstruct networks of relationships and patterns of decision-making at the household level. At the core of the book, therefore, is a family reconstitution of 8,700 families, supplemented by a wide body of additional sources, such as landholding contracts, tax records, manorial surveys, inventories, marriage contracts and letters.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century the landed estate represented the largest and most clearly defined type of business organisation in existence in pre-industrial England. Given the need for capital, wayleave rights and a ready supply of coal, iron and other raw materials it is unsurprising that most historians tend to place Britain's formative industrial development on such estates where all these elements were available. Yet despite this consensus, relatively little attention has been paid to the management and accountancy practices of these estates, which have the potential to reveal much about the development of the industrial revolution. In this study the management practice on estates in the north-east of England (c.1700-1780) is examined through the lens of the accounts and supporting documentation. Accounts encompassed every aspect of estate operations from the housekeeper's groceries to the lead and coal mines, and thus provide direct evidence of the underlying management systems over a diverse range of activities. The information flows on estates serve as an excellent medium for testing hypotheses concerning the management of estates and the attitudes of their owners and stewards. Focusing on the surviving accounts of three leading gentry families, Bowes, Ridley and Cotesworth, who came from contrasting social backgrounds, two main issues are addressed. The first concerns the productivity of estates. Were estates managed efficiently as productive investments, and more specifically, to what extent can the landowners and their stewards legitimately be described as capitalists? The second, related, question asks in what ways did accounting aid managerial activity at this early stage of industrial development? These are the central questions this book addresses through examination of the nature and function of accounts within the organisation. By looking in detail at records from this crucial region during the period of transition to an industrial
For most of the twentieth century, the Conservative Party engaged in an ongoing struggle to curb the power of the trade unions, culminating in the radical legislation of the Thatcher governments. Yet, as this book shows, for a brief period between the end of the Second World War and the election of Harold Wilson's Labour government in 1964, the Conservative Party adopted a remarkably constructive and conciliatory approach to the trade unions, dubbed 'voluntarism'. During this time the party leadership made strenuous efforts to avoid, as far as was politically possible, confrontation with, or legislation against, the trade unions, even when this incurred the wrath of some Conservative backbenchers and the Party's mass membership. In explaining why the Conservative leadership sought to avoid conflict with the trade unions, this study considers the economic circumstances of the period in question, the political environment, electoral considerations, the perspective adopted by the Conservative leadership in comprehending industrial relations and explaining conflict in the workplace, and the personalities of both the Conservative leadership and the key figures in the trade unions. Making extensive use of primary and archival sources it explains why the 1945-64 period was unique in the Conservative Party's approach to Britain's trade unions. By 1964, though, even hitherto Conservative defenders of voluntarism were acknowledging that some form of official inquiry into the conduct and operation of trade British unionism, as a prelude to legislation, was necessary, thereby signifying that the heyday of 'voluntarism' and cordial relations between senior Conservatives and the trade unions was coming to an end.
Written by leading international scholars, Twentieth Century Britain investigates key moments, themes and identities in the past century. Engaging with cutting-edge research and debate, the essays in the volume combine discussion of the major issues currently preoccupying historians of the twentieth century with clear guidance on new directions in the theories and methodologies of modern British social, cultural and economic history. Divided into three, the first section of the book addresses key concepts historians use to think about the century, notably, class, gender and national identity. Organised chronologically, the book then explores topical thematic issues, such as multicultural Britain, religion and citizenship. Representing changes in the field, some chapters represent more recent fields of historical inquiry, such as modernity and sexuality.
