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Supplying the masses: retailing and town governance in Macclesfield, Stockport and Birkenhead, 1780–1860

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2011

IAN MITCHELL*
Affiliation:
School of Law, Social Sciences and Communications, University of Wolverhampton, Millennium City Building, City Campus – South Wolverhampton WW1 1LY, UK

Abstract:

Rapidly growing industrial towns in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries often had to find new ways of ensuring that their populations were supplied with the necessities of life. This was likely to involve a significant role for public markets. These might be controlled by the town's governing body or might be in private hands. Macclesfield, Stockport and Birkenhead all grew rapidly in this period, but each had very different forms of governance. The article explores the impact of town governance on the town markets, and on the evolution of retailing more generally in each place.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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References

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