Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T03:35:18.860Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Division and cohesion in the nineteenth-century middle class: the case of Ipswich, 1830–1870

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2009

Philip Hills
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

For a long time historians saw the increased wealth, numbers and power of British manufacturers, merchants and professionals as simply an inevitable part of the process of industrialization. As a result the formation of the class seemed to require no further exploration. More recently interest in the middle class has increased and much closer attention has been given to specific dimensions. It seems evident from this work that any analysis of the middle class faces a number of problems. Firstly, that of definition. There was a wide range of status and income groups within the middle class. What criteria of wealth and occupation should be used, how important is it to fix upper and lower boundaries for the class, how are questions of lifestyle and attitudes to be gauged? Secondly, there were certain divisions within groups who can reasonably be considered middle class by any criteria. Above all, we must note that there was no distinctive middle-class political party and differences were as deeply felt in politics as were antagonisms between Anglicans and Nonconformists in religion. In view of such diversities is it possible to speak of the middle class and, if so, what does class formation and unity consist of? What levels of unity allow or inhibit class power? This is the subject of my overall research, of which only a glimpse can be given here.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History Yearbook , Volume 14 , May 1987 , pp. 42 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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

Notes

1 On this approach to the study of class see Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class (1963).Google Scholar

2 Morris, R. J., ‘The middle class and British towns and cities of the Industrial Revolution 1780–1870’, in Fraser, D. and Sutcliffe, A. (eds), The Pursuit of Urban History (1983), 286.Google Scholar

3 For another approach to the history of the Ipswich middle class, see Wilson, Nicholas, ‘The making of Victorian Ipswich: middle class leadership in a nineteenth-century town’, Suffolk Local History Rev., III (1984).Google Scholar A more extended version is to be published as a local history publication.

4 For example, Howe, A., The Cotton Masters 1830–60 (1984);Google Scholar Koditschek, T. S., ‘Class formation and the Bradford bourgeoisie’ (Ph.D. thesis, Princeton University, 1981);Google Scholar Smith, D., Conflict and Compromise: class formation in English society 1830–1914 (1982);Google Scholar Trainor, R. H., ‘Authority and social structure in an industrialized area: a study of three Black Country towns 1840–90’ (D.Phil, thesis, University of Oxford, 1981).Google Scholar

5 Neale in effect uses this division between active and inactive as a division between classes. See Neale, R. S., ‘Class and class consciousness in early nineteenth century England: three classes or five?’ in Neale, R. S. (ed.), History and Class (1983).Google Scholar For a critique of this approach see Morris, R. J., Class and Class Consciousness in the Industrial Revolution 1780–1850 (1979).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Trainor, Richard, ‘Urban elites in Victorian Britain’, Urban History Yearbook (1985).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Ibid., 4.

8 Suffolk Chronicle, 3 October 1835.Google Scholar

9 On local Chartism see Brown, A. F. J., Chartism in Essex and Suffolk (1982).Google Scholar

10 Suffolk Chronicle, 10 July 1847.Google Scholar

11 In J. Glyde Collection, ‘Materials for a Parliamentary History of Ipswich’ in the Suffolk Record Office (Ipswich).

12 Suffolk Chronicle, 3 September 1836.Google Scholar

13 Seed, J., ‘Unitarianism, political economy and the antimonies of liberal culture in Manchester 1830–50’, Social History, VII (1982);Google Scholar Bradley, I., The Call to Seriousness (1976).Google Scholar

14 Glyde, J., The Moral, Social and Religious Condition of Ipswich (Ipswich 1850, reprinted Wakefield 1971).Google Scholar

15 Morris, R. J., ‘Voluntary societies and the British urban oligarchy 1780–1850’, Historical Journal (1983).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 A. F. J. Brown in his introduction to Glyde, op. cit.

17 Suffolk Chronicle, 27 June 1835.Google Scholar

18 Ibid., 27 April 1833.

19 Alexander's ledgers are in the possession of Barclays Bank plc.