Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-12T14:05:09.557Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Voluntary Societies and British Urban Elites, 1780–1850: An Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

R. J. Morris
R. J. Morris
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Whilst it would be wrong to claim that voluntary societies in Britain were new in the period 1780 to 1850, the growth of large industrial and urban populations was accompanied by an increase in the foundation and prosperity of such societies. These societies were diverse in their purpose, form, size and membership. Edward Baines, junior, one of the self-appointed tribunes of the industrial middle class, in 1843 described recent developments as follows:

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , March 1983 , pp. 95 - 118
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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

1 The most comprehensive study so far is by Simey, M. B., Charitable effort in Liverpool in the nineteenth century (Liverpool, 1951);Google ScholarYeo, S., Religion and voluntary organisations in crisis (1976)Google Scholar is a valuable counterpoint to this article. In many ways his study of Reading looks at the end or perhaps the transmutation of the process decribed in its beginnings in this article: see my review, Social History, III, 2 (May, 1978), 263–5.Google Scholar There are many excellent studies of particular sectors of voluntary activity, for example Owen, David, English philanthropy, 1660–1960 (Harvard, 1960);Google ScholarTylecote, M., The mechanics institutions of Lancashire and Yorkshire before 1851 (Manchester, 1957);Google ScholarHarrison, B. H., Drink and the Victorians: the temperance question in England, 1815–1872 (1971);Google ScholarSmith, B. Abel, The hospitals, 1800–1948 (1964);Google ScholarCleary, E. J., The building society movement (1965);Google ScholarLaqueur, T. W., Religion and respectability, Sunday schools and working class culture, 1780–1850 (Yale, 1976).Google Scholar

2 Edward, Baines juniorThe social, educational and religious state of the manufacturing districts (London and Leeds, 1843), pp. 28 and 62.Google Scholar

3 Bottomore, T., ‘Social stratification in voluntary organisations’, in Glass, D. V. (ed.), Social mobility in Britain (1954), pp. 349–82;Google ScholarBabchuck, N. and Booth, Alan, ‘Voluntary association membership: a longitudinal analysis’, American Sociological Review, 34 (1969), 31–45;CrossRefGoogle ScholarCurtis, James, ‘Voluntary association joining: a cross national comparative note’, American Sociological Review, 36 (1971), 872–9;CrossRefGoogle ScholarGoode, Erich, ‘Class styles of religious sociation’, British Journal of Sociology, xix (1968), 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Rimmer, W. C., ‘The industrial profile of Leeds, 1740–1840’, and ‘Occupations of Leeds, 1841–1951’, both in Publications of the Thoresby Society, 50 (1967).Google Scholar For a fuller discussion of both the economy and voluntary societies of Leeds see Morris, R. J., ‘Organisation and aims of the principal secular organisations of the Leeds middle class, 1830–1851’ (Oxford D.Phil., 1970).Google Scholar

5 Mackenzie, E., A descriptive and historical account of the town and county of Newcastle upon Tyne (Newcastle, 1827);Google ScholarOliver, Thomas, A new picture of Newcastle upon Tyne (Newcastle, 1831);Google ScholarMiddlebrook, S., Newcastle upon Tyne: its growth and achievement (Newcasde, 1950);Google ScholarBurn, W. L., ‘Newcastle upon Tyne in the early nineteenth century’, Archaeologia Aelianna, xxxiv (1956), 1–55;Google ScholarMcCord, N., ‘The government of Tyneside, 1800–1850’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, xx (1970), 5–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Edinburgh because of its political history had characteristics of both a metropolitan and provincial urban centre: Smout, T. C, A history of the Scottish people, 1560–1840 (1969), pp. 366–78;Google ScholarSaunders, L.J., Scottish democracy, 1915–1840 (Edinburgh, 1950), pp. 81–96;Google ScholarStark, J., ‘Inquiry into some points of the sanatory state of Edinburgh…’, Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, LXVII (1847), 1–43.Google Scholar

7 Population Growth Rates, 1801–51; Leeds 224%, Newcastle 166%, Edinburgh 135%; Compare Brighton 836%, Bradford 682%, Preston 471 %; Source: B.P.P., 1851 Census of Great Britain, 1852–53, LXXXV, 76–7.Google Scholar

8 Sills, D. L., ‘Voluntary societies’, International encyclopedia of social sciences xvi (1968), 360–1;Google ScholarLittle, K., West African urbanization (Cambridge, 1966), pp. 85–102.Google Scholar

9 DrHunter, , ‘On continued fever in Leeds’, Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, xv (April, 1819). 234–45.Google Scholar

10 First report of the Edinburgh Society for the Suppression of Beggars, instituted 25 January 1813 (Edinburgh, 1814).Google Scholar

11 R. J. Morris, ‘Organization’, pp. 245–337.

12 Leeds Mercury, 12 and 19 March 1842, and Leeds Mercury, 18 June 1841.

13 Report of the committee appointed by the commissioners of police to inquire into the practicality of suppressing the practice of common begging and relieving the industrious poor (Edinburgh, 1812).Google Scholar

14 Report of the ordinary directors of the Edinburgh Lancastrian School Society (Edinburgh, 1813);Google ScholarObservations upon the propriety of establishing a Lancastrian School in Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1811).Google Scholar

15 Harrison, J. F. C., Learning and living, 1790–1960:a study of the English adult education movement (1961), pp. 59–61;Google ScholarJohn, Tidd Pratt, The history of savings banks (1830);Google ScholarHorne, H. O., A history of savings banks (Oxford, 1947).Google Scholar

16 B. H. Harrison, Drink and the Victorians, p. 104.

17 Deane, P. and Cole, W. A., British economic growth, 1688–1959 (Cambridge, 1972), pp. 40–97;Google ScholarJohn, A. H., ‘Aspects of English economic growth in the first half of the 18th century’, Economica, New Series, xxviii (1961), 176–7;CrossRefGoogle ScholarKerridge, Eric, The agricultural revolution (1967), pp. 328–48;Google Scholar S. and Webb, B., The history of trades unionism, 1666–1920 (1919), p. 33;Google ScholarFewster, J. M., ‘Thekeelmen of Tyneside in the 18th century’, Durham University Journal, L (1957), 24–33 and 66–75;Google ScholarThompson, E. P., ‘The moral economy of the English crowd in the 18th century’, Past and Present, L (1971), 76–136;CrossRefGoogle ScholarRose, R. B., ‘Eighteenth century price riots and public policy in England’, International Journal of Social History, iv (1961), 275–9;Google ScholarGenovese, E. F., ‘The many faces of moral economy’, Past and Present, LVIII (1973), 161–8;CrossRefGoogle ScholarThompson, E.P., ‘Patrician society, plebian culture’, Journal of Social History, vii (1974), 382–405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Thompson, E. P., Whigs and hunters, the origins of the Black Act (1975);Google ScholarGeorge, Rudé, The crowd in history, 1730–1848 (New York, 1964), pp. 33–45; E. Mackenzie, Newcastle upon Tyne, pp. 52–3.Google Scholar

19 Mitchell, B. R. and Deane, P., British historical statistics (Cambridge, 1962), pp. 488–9;Google ScholarTucker, R. S., ‘Real wages of artizans in London, 1729–1935’, Journal of the American Statistical Association, xxxi (1936). The decline was clearest in the London figures. The evidence of other series, few of which span all these crucial years, suggests that the expectations of most wage-earners received a sharp check in the 1790s, even if their real wage did not fall below that obtained around 1780.Google Scholar

20 Bythell, D., The hand loom weavers (Cambridge, 1969);CrossRefGoogle Scholar J. Fewster, ‘The keelmen of Tyneside’; Court, W. H. B., The rise of the midland industries, 1600–1830 (Oxford, 1938), p. 202;Google ScholarThompson, E. P., The making of the English working class (1963), pp. 234–68;Google ScholarThompson, E. P. and Yeo, E., The unknown Mayhew (1971);Google ScholarPollard, S., The genesis of modern British management (1965), pp. 160–208;Google ScholarThompson, E. P., ‘Time, work discipline and industrial capitalism’, Past and Present, xxxviii (1967), 56–97;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMyerscough, John,’Recent history of the use of leisure time’, in Appleton, Ian (ed.), Leisure research and policy (Edinburgh, 1974), pp. 3–16.Google Scholar

21 William Paley, Moral and political philosophy, book, 3, part 2, ohs. 1 and 5, in Works (1851), pp. 155–60.

22 Radzinowicz, L., A history of English criminal law, iv (London, 1965), 105–55; E. P- Thompson, ‘The moral economy’.Google Scholar

23 Williams, Gwyn, Artizans and Sans-Cullottes (London, 1968), p. 58;Google ScholarCollins, Henry, ‘The London Corresponding Society’, in Saville, J. (ed.), Democracy and the labour movement (1954), pp. 103–34;Google ScholarDonelly, F. K. and Baxter, J. L., ‘Sheffield and the English revolutionary tradition, 1791–1820’, International Review of Social History, xx (1975), 398–423.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 Thompson, E. P., The making of the English working class (1963), pp. 17–185.Google Scholar

25 Ward, W. R., Religion and society in England (1972);Google ScholarInglis, K. S., Churches and the working class in Victorian England (1963);Google ScholarWickham, E. R., Church and people in an industrial city (1957);Google ScholarSanderson, M., ‘Literacy and social mobility in the industrial revolution in England’, Past and Present, no. 56 (1972), pp. 75–104;CrossRefGoogle ScholarSchofield, R. S., ‘Illiteracy in pre-industrial England’, in Johansson, Egil (ed.), Literacy and society in historical perspective - a conference report, Educational Reports, no. 2 (Umeå University, 1973);Google ScholarFlinn, M. W., Introduction to the report on the sanitary condition of the labouring population oj Great Britain, by Edwin, Chad wick (Edinburgh, 1965), pp. 13–14.Google Scholar

26 Beresford, M. W., ’Prosperity Street and others’, in Beresford, M. W. and Jones, G. R. J., Leeds and its religion (Leeds, 1967), pp. 186–97;Google ScholarYoungson, A. J., The making of classical Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1966).Google Scholar

27 First report of the Leeds Benefit Building and Investment Society (Leeds, 1850). I am grateful to Mr S. K. Walker, Manager of the Leeds Building Society, for showing me the early records of the Society.Google Scholar

28 Prospectus of the proposed botanical and zoological gardens (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1838), Wilson Collection, vol. 6, fo. 1398. This collection is in Newcastle-upon-Tyne Central Library.Google Scholar

29 Hill, Fredric, National education: its present state and prospects (London, 1836), p. 195.Google Scholar

30 Tyne Mercury, a March 1824, Wilson Collection, vol. 2. fo. 336; Crossick, G., ‘The labour aristocracy and its values: a study of mid-Victorian Kentish London’, Victorian Studies, xiv (1976), 301–28 notes the survival of the need for patrons amongst the fiercely independent artizan societies of Kentish London.Google Scholar

31 Report of the public meeting of the Leeds Temperance Society held in the Music Hall, Tuesday 21 January 1836… (Leeds, 1836).Google Scholar

32 Leeds Mercury, 24 November 1849; Horne, C. Silvester, The story of the L.M.S., 1795–1895 (1894).Google Scholar

33 Report of the ordinary directors of the Edinburgh Lancastrian School Society (Edinburgh, 1813); British and Foreign School Society, Manual of the System of Teaching (1816); Leeds Mercury, 14 September 1839; ‘Annual general meeting of the British and Foreign School Society, Newcastle’, in Wilson Collection, vol. iv, fo. 866.Google Scholar

34 For Edinburgh, see above footnote 13; ‘Meeting for the foundation of the Newcastle Society for the Suppression of Vagrancy and Mendicity, 27 January 1831’, Wilson Collection, vol. iii, fos. 689–90.

35 Scottish Missionary and Philanthropic Register, vol. XII (Edinburgh, 1831).Google Scholar

36 Dubois, A. B., The English business company after the Bubble Act, 1720–1800 (New York, 1938), pp. 115–16 and 346–66;Google ScholarEvans, G. H., British corporation Finance, 1775–1850: a study of preference shares (Baltimore, 1936);Google ScholarHunt, B. C., The development of the business corporation in England, 1800–1867 (Havard, 1946);Google ScholarAlbert, William, The turnpike road system in England, 1663–1840 (Cambridge, 1972), PP- 93–119.Google Scholar

37 P.R.O. C548717 (11); E. Mackenzie, op cit., 387.

38 Rev. Seed, T. Alexander, Norfolk Street Weslyan Chapel, Sheffield (Sheffield, 1907); S. Yeo, Religion and Voluntary organization, places major emphasis on chapel-based organizations in late nineteenth-century Reading.Google Scholar

39 Quoted in Croston, James (ed.), The history of the County Palatine and Duchy of Lancaster by the late Edward Baines, 5 vols. (Manchester, 1889), vol. 2, 121.Google Scholar

40 Wilson Collection, vol. 7, fo. 1555; B. H. Harrison,’ Pubs’, in Dyos, H. J. and Wolff, M. (eds.), The Victorian city (2 vols., 1973), 1, 161–90.Google Scholar

41 R.J. Morris, ‘Organization’, p. 95–145; Leeds Mercury, 15 July 1837.

42 T. R. Malthus, An essay on population, (2 vols., Everyman edition, 1958), 11, 38–69.

43 Rev. Thomas, Vaughan, Memorials of the malignant cholera in Oxford in 1832 (Oxford, 1835),Google Scholar ix; Rev. Thomas, Vaughan, On the visitation of prisoners, an assize sermon preached at St Mary's Oxford, 3rd March 1825 (Oxford, 1825).Google Scholar

44 Gardiner, J. M., History of the Leeds Benevolent or Strangers Friend Society, 1789–1889 (Leeds, 1890).Google Scholar

45 First report of the Edinburgh Society for the Suppression of Beggars (Edinburgh, 1814).Google Scholar

46 Seventeenth annual report of the Edinburgh Benevolent or Strangers Friend Society (Edinburgh, 1832).Google Scholar

47 Leeds Mercury, 1832–42, passim: Morris, R. J., ‘The first urban immigrant: the Irish in England, 1830–1851’, The Institute of Race Relations Newsletter, 3 March 1969, 133–8.Google Scholar

48 Leeds Mercury, 9 March and 11 May 1850.

49 Report of the Association for the Relief of the Industrious Labourers and Mechanics (Edinburgh, 1816).Google Scholar In Scotland the voluntary society was even more important, because the Scottish Poor Law, even after its formal establishment in 1844, gave no aid to the able bodied poor. Mitchison, R., ‘The making of the Old Scottish Poor Law’, Past and Present, no. 63 (1974), pp. 58–93;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPaterson, Audrey, ‘The poor law in 19th century Scotland’, in Fraser, D. (ed.), The New Poor Law in the nineteenth century (1976), pp. 171–93.Google Scholar

50 Leeds Mercury, 12 and. 19 March 1842.

51 Rose, M. E., The English Poor Law, 1780–1930 (Newton Abbot, 1971), 192–3.Google Scholar

52 Arnold, R. A., The history of the cotton famine (1864), pp. 104–5, 118–23, 210–11, 313, 355–6, 416–17, 491–8;Google ScholarJones, G. Stedman, Outcast London: a study of the relationships between classes in Victorian society (Oxford, 1971), pp. 291–5.Google Scholar

53 Mowatt, C. L., The Charity Organization Society, 1869–1913 (1961), pp. 5 and 116.Google Scholar

54 Report of the public meeting of the Leeds Temperance Society held in the Music Hall, 21 January 1836 (Leeds, 1836);Google ScholarHudson, J. W., The history of adult education (1851), pp. 92–5; J. F. C. Harrison, Drink and the Victorians, p. 38.Google Scholar

55 Walvin, James, Leisure and society, 1830–1950 (1978), pp. 2–10Google Scholar and 45–57; Bailey, Peter, Leisure and class in Victorian England: rational recreation and the contest for control, 1830–1885 (1978), pp. 35–55;Google ScholarMeller, H. E., Leisure and the changing city, 1870–1914 (1976);Google ScholarKargon, Robert H., Science in Victorian Manchester: enterprise and expertise (Manchester, 1977), pp. 1–85.Google Scholar

56 Fraser, Derek, Urban politics in Victorian England (Leicester, 1976), pp. 25–111 and 2 79–85;Google ScholarFrank Bechhofer and Brian Elliott, ‘Persistence and change: the petite bourgeoisie in industrial society’, Archives Européenes de Sociologie, XVII (1976), 74–99; for a preliminary report on my own work on this aspect of the middle class see Social History Society Newsletter, 1, no. 1 (Spring, 1976) 5.Google Scholar

57 Gramsci, Antonio, Selection from the prison notebooks, edited and translated by Hoare, Q. and Nowell-Smith, G. (1971), pp. 53–60, 132, 160–70.Google Scholar

58 Briggs, Asa, Age of improvement (1959), PP. 162–92;Google ScholarRead, Donald, Peterloo, the massacre and its background (Manchester, 1958).Google Scholar

59 ‘ There can, and indeed must be hegemonic activity even before the rise to power, and one should not count on the material force which power gives in order to exercise effective leadership… In forms and by means, which may be called ‘ liberal’ - in other words through individual, ‘molecular’, ‘private’ enterprise (i.e. not through a p***y programme worked out and constituted according to a plan, in advance of the practical and organisational action)’: Antonio Gramsci, Prison notebooks, pp. 59–60.

60 Wilson, R., Gentlemen merchants: the merchant community in Leeds, 1700–1830 (Manchester, 1971), pp. 102–4;Google ScholarThompson, E. P., The making of the English working class (1969), pp. 517 and 544–5.Google Scholar

61 I prefer to reserve the term ‘ laisser faire’ to refer to a group of doctrines which justified policy (or lack of it) towards a limited range of economic relationships, especially in foreign trade and labour relationships. This element in middle class ideology does not usefully contribute to an explanation of the use of voluntary societies in preference to the state; see also 517 and 544–5.

61 I prefer to reserve the term ‘ laisser faire’ to refer to a group of doctrines which justified policy (or lack of it) towards a limited range of economic relationships, especially in foreign trade and labour relationships. This element in middle class ideology does not usefully contribute to an explanation of the use of voluntary societies in preference to the state; see also Dicey, A. V., Lectures on the relationship between law and public opinion (1905), pp. 62–209;Google ScholarTaylor, A. J., Laisser faire and state intervention in nineteenth century Britain (Economic History Society, 1972), pp. 32–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

62 Fraser, Urban politics, pp. 92–3, 155–60.

63 Anderson, M., Family structure in nineteenth century Lancashire (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 43–52;Google ScholarMayhew, H., London labour and the London poor (4 vols., 1861), 1, 4–61;Google ScholarEngels, F., The condition of the working class in England, translated by Henderson, W. O. and Chaloner, W. H. (Oxford, 1958), pp. 100–2 and 140;Google ScholarWalker, George, The costume of Yorkshire in 1814 (Leeds, 1885), p. 65;Google ScholarLawson, J., Letters to the young on progress in Pudsey (Stanningley, 1887), p. 66;Google ScholarThompson, E. P., “‘Rough music”: le charivari anglais’, Annales, 27e Année (1972), 285–312.Google Scholar

64 Hill, Francis, Georgian Lincoln (Cambridge, 1966), pp. 1–52;Google ScholarDavidoff, Leonore, The best circles: society, etiquette and the season (1963), pp. 13–36;Google Scholar S. Pollard, Genesis of modern management, pp. 160–208; Pallister, Ray, ‘Educational investment by industrialists in the early part of the 19th century in County Durham’, Durham University Journal, LXI (1968), 32–38;Google ScholarBoyson, R., The Ashworth cotton enterprise (Oxford, 1970), pp. 84–140;Google ScholarRimmer, W. G., Marshalls of Leeds, flax spinners, 1778–1886 (Cambridge, 1960), pp. 104–5, 194, 216–17.Google Scholar

65 Shapin, Steve, ‘Phrenological knowledge and the social structure of nineteenth-century Edinburgh’, Annals of Science, xxxii (1975), 219–43;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPollard, S., ‘Nineteenth century cooperation: from community toshopkeeping’, in Briggs, A. and Saville, J. (eds.), Essays in labour history (1960), pp. 74–112;Google ScholarArmytage, W. H. G., Heavens below: Utopian experiments in England, 1560–1960 (1961), pp. 77–167;Google ScholarHarrison, J. F. C., Robert Owen and the Owenites in Britain and America (1969),Google Scholar passim; Ian Donnachie, ‘Orbiston, a Scottish Owenite community 1825–8’, in Butt, J., Robert Owen, prince of cotton spinners (Newton Abbot, 1971), pp. 135–67;Google ScholarGarnett, R. G., ‘Robert Owen and the community experiments’, in S. Pollard and J. Salt, Robert Owen, prophet ofthe poor (1971), pp. 39–64;Google ScholarGarnett, R. G., Cooperation and the Owenite socialist communities in Britain, 1825–45 (Manchester, 1972).Google Scholar

66 See above pp. 106–8 for an example of this in the Leeds committees for the relief of the poor.

67 Johnson, R., ‘Educational policy and social control in early Victorian England’, Past and Present, no. 49 (1970), pp. 96–119;CrossRefGoogle ScholarColls, R., “‘Oh happy English children”: coal, class and education in the North East’, Past and Present, no. 73 (1976), pp. 75–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

68 Eisenstadt, S. N., ‘The social conditions for the development of voluntary association - a case study of Israel’, Scripta Hierosolymitama, iii (1956), 104–25, looks at a similar situation in pre-1948 Israel; the elite withdrew from voluntary associations once they had state power.Google Scholar

69 Engels, Condition of the working classes, p. 313.

70 Prospectus of the proposed botanical and zoological gardens (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1838), Wilson Collection, vi, fo. 1398.

71 Report of the committee appointed by the commissioners of police to inquire into the practicability of suppressing the practice of common begging and relieving the industrious and destitute (Edinburgh, 1812);Google ScholarFirst report of the Society for the Suppression of Beggars instituted 25 January 1813 (Edinburgh, 1814).Google Scholar

72 Leeds Mercury, 2 May 1835.

73 Tyne Mercury, 2 March 1824, Wilson Collection, 11, fo. 336; Cohen, Stanley, Folk devils and moral panics: the creation of Mods and Rockers (1972).Google Scholar

74 Leeds Mercury, 22 Sept. 1832.

75 The Leeds Building and Investment Society, handbill issued 1846.

76 Edward Baines, junior, op. cit, pp. 24–5.

77 Second annual report of the Leeds Friendly Loan Society (Leeds, 1846), p. 9.Google Scholar

78 Anderson, G. L., Victorian clerks (Manchester, 1976);Google ScholarCrossick, Geoffrey (ed.), The lower middle class in Britain, 1870–1914 (1977);Google ScholarGeorge, and Grossmith, Weedon, The diary of a nobody (1892);Google ScholarWells, H. G., The history of Mr Polly (1910); H. G. Wells, Kipps (1905).Google Scholar

79 Clements, R. V., ‘British trades unions and popular political economy, 1850–1875’, Economic History Review, xiv, 2nd series (1961), 93–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

80 Gray, R., The labour aristocracy in Victorian Edinburgh (Oxford, 1976);Google ScholarCunningham, Hugh, The volunteer force: a social and political history, 1859–1908 (1975);Google ScholarCrossick, Geoffrey, An artizan elite in Victorian society: Kentish London, 1840–1880 (1978); T. W. Laquer, Religion and respectability; Robert; Colls, The colliers rant: song and culture in the industrial village (1977).Google Scholar

81 Hudson, J. W., Ph.D., The history of adult education (1851),Google Scholar VII-XII; James Hole, An essay on the history and management of literary, scientific and mechanics institutions (1853), pp. 17–25; Yeo, S., ‘On the uses of “Apathy”‘, Archives Européenes de Sociologie, xv (1974), 279–311;Google ScholarYeo, S., Religion and voluntary organizations (1976); H. E. Meller, Leisure.Google Scholar

82 R. J. Morris, ‘Organization’ provides details of this, pp. 136, 157–61, 201 and 210.

83 Sturt, M., The education of the people (1967); M. E. Rose, op. cit; B. H. Harrison, Drink and the Victorians, pp. 196 ff.Google Scholar

84 J. F. C. Harrison, Learning and living, pp. 214–15; Cleary, E. J., The building society movement (1965).Google Scholar

85 Baines, Edward, National education: an address as chairman of a breakfast of the Congregational Union of England and Wales at Manchester, Friday ii October 1867 (1867).Google Scholar

86 Weber, M., ‘Bureaucracy’, in Gerth, H. H. and Mills, C. Wright (eds.), From Max Weber (1948), pp. 196–44;Google ScholarMacDonagh, O., ‘The nineteenth-century revolution in government-a reappraisal’, Historical Journal, (1958), 1, 52–67;CrossRefGoogle ScholarSutherland, Gillian (ed.), Studies in the growth of nineteenth century government (1972).Google Scholar

87 My thanks to Professor M. Anderson, Dr R. Davidson, Dr N. T. Phillipson and Professor T. C. Smout for valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper, and to those who contributed to discussion when the ideas in this article were first put forward at the Urban History Conference in Leicester in 1973.