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Labour and Society in Modern Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Alastair Reid
Alastair Reid
Affiliation:
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
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Type
Review Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , June 1982 , pp. 489 - 500
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

1 Thompson, E. P., ‘Homage to Tom Maguire’, in Briggs, A. and Saville, J. (eds.), Essays in Labour history (London, 1967), pp. 276–316.Google Scholar

2 Though see Pollard, S., ‘Labour in Great Britain’, in The Cambridge economic history of Europe, vii, part 1, pp. 97–179Google Scholar for an earlier survey which drew on demography, and for detailed studies see Smout, T. C., ‘Aspects of sexual behaviour in nineteenth century Scotland’ in MacLaren, A. A. (ed.), Social class in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1976), pp. 55–85,Google Scholar and Winter, J. M., ‘The impact of the first World War on civilian health in Britain’, Economic History Review, xxx, 3 (1977), 487–507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 References to the importance of the division of labour and authority in the workplace have been particularly prominent in discussions of the ‘labour aristocracy’: see Foster, J., Class struggle and the industrial revolution (London, 1974),CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Gray, R. Q., The labour aristocracy in Victorian Edinburgh (Oxford, 1976).Google Scholar Earlier case studies which recognized the importance of these issues include Hobsbawm, E. J., ‘British gas-workers 1873–1914’, in his Labouring men (London, 1968), pp. 158–78Google Scholar and ‘National unions on the waterside’ in Ibid. pp. 204–30. Lovell, J., Stevedores and dockers (London, 1969)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Hinton, J., The first shop stewards’ movement (London, 1973).Google Scholar

4 For an interesting discussion of the literature on ‘long waves’ see Mandel, E., Late capitalism (London, 1975), pp. 108–46.Google Scholar

5 For a strongly critical statement of the distinctiveness of national developments despite the appearance of ‘waves’ see Lewis, W. A., Growth and fluctuations 1870–1913 (London, 1978), pp. 24–68.Google Scholar Significantly the proponents of the theory have been divided amongst themselves as to whether the ‘waves’ can be explained solely in economic terms or whether political and military factors have also to be included; see Day, R. B., ‘The theory of the long cycle: Kondratiev, Trotsky, Mandel’, Mew Left Review, xcix, (1976), 67–82.Google Scholar

6 From this point of view, Joyce is developing a line of argument suggested by Clarke, P. F. in Lancashire and the New Liberalism (London, 1971).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 For other studies of ‘influence politics’ see Moore, D. C., The politics of deference: a study of the mid-nineteenth-century English political system (Brighton, 1976)Google Scholar and especially the stimulating analysis in Nossiter, T. J., Influence, opinion and political idioms in reformed England: case studies from the North-East, 1832–1874 (Brighton, 1975).Google Scholar

8 The major recent works focusing on the importance of ‘respectability’ in the formation of a significant ‘upper stratum’ and consequently of the working class as a whole are Gray, Labour aristocracy, and Crossick, G., An artisan elite in Victorian society (London, 1978),Google Scholar though see also Tholfsen, T., Working class radicalism in mid-Victorian England (London, 1976).Google Scholar For another argument on the marginal impact of middle-class ‘improving’ ideology on the working class see Stedman Jones, G., ‘Working-class culture and working-class politics in London, 1870–1900;Google Scholar notes on the remaking of a working class’, Journal of Social History, vii, 4 (1974), 460–509.Google Scholar

9 Since the notion of ‘stabilization’ in the 1850s depends largely on an interpretation of early nineteenth-century radicalism (and especially Chartism) as a serious threat to the political system it has been strongly linked to Marxism and, until recently, to the notion of a ‘labour aristocracy’. See E.J. Hobsbawm, ‘Trends in the British labour movement since 1850’ in Labouring men, pp. 316–43, and ‘The labour aristocracy in nineteenth century Britain’ in Ibid., pp. 272–315. Also Foster, Class struggle; Gray, Labour aristocracy; Crossick, Artisan elite; Moorhouse, H. F., ‘The Marxist theory of the labour aristocracy’, Social History, iii, 1 (1978), 61–82;CrossRefGoogle ScholarReid, A., ‘Politics and economics in the formation of the British working class: a response to H. F. Moorhouse’, Social History, III, 3 (1978), 347–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Newby, H., The deferential worker (London, 1977).Google Scholar

11 For Britain see Melling, J., ‘ “Non-commissioned officers”: British employers and their supervisory workers, 1880–1920, Social History, v, 2 (1980), 183–221,CrossRefGoogle Scholar while Crew, D. F., Town in the Ruhr: a social history of Bochum, 1860–1914 (New York, 1979), pp. I45–57 has valuable information on German employers.Google Scholar

12 For a study of industrial relations in the cotton industry see White, J. L., The limits of trade union militancy: the Lancashire textile workers, 1910–1914 (Westport, 1978).Google Scholar

13 Lazonick, W., ‘Industrial relations and technical change: the case of the self-acting mule’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, III (1979), 231–62.Google Scholar

14 Stedman Jones, G., ‘Class struggle and the industrial revolution’, New Left Review, xc (1975). 35–69.Google Scholar

15 This interpretation draws heavily on the ‘rank and fileist’ school: see Hinton, Shop stewards; Burgess, K., The origins of British industrial relations (London, 1975);Google Scholar and Hyman, R., Industrial relations (London, 1975): though on some points Price seems to push the implications of the position further than these earlier authors.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 There is an increasing body of interesting work on the ‘prehistory’ of trade unions which bears on this question, see Dobson, C. R., Masters and journeymen (London, 1980);Google ScholarLeeson, R. A., Travelling brothers (London, 1980);Google ScholarRule, J. G., The experience of labour in eighteenth century industry (London, 1980).Google Scholar

17 For earlier studies on this theme see Habakkuk, H. J., American and British technology in the nineteenth century (Cambridge, 1967);Google ScholarHarley, C. K., ‘Skilled labour and the choice of technique in Edwardian industry’, in Explorations in Economic History, xi, 4 (1973–4), 391–414Google ScholarSamuel, R., ‘The workshop of the world: steampower and hand technology in mid-Victorian Britain’, History Workshop, III (1977), 6–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 The degree to which social theory and social history are currently going through a phase of theoretical reassessment and transformation can be gauged by the intense debate around Thompson, E. P., The poverty of theory (London, 1978),Google Scholar especially the contribution by Anderson, P., Arguments within English Marxism (London, 1980),Google Scholar and by the rapidity and variety of responses to Johnson, R., ‘Thompson, Genovese and socialist-humanist history’, History Workshop, vi (1978), 79–100CrossRefGoogle Scholar and to Stone, L., ‘The revival of narrative: reflections on a new old history’, Past and Present, LXXXV (1979), 3–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Abrams, P., ‘History, sociology, historical sociology’, Past and Present, LXXXVII (1980), 3–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar