'The Best Chief Constable in the Kingdom?' : Recruitment and Retention Problems in an early English County Constabulary

Book chapter from: Leading the Police: A History of Chief Constables 1835–2017. eds. Stevenson, K., Cox, D., Channing, I.Faculty of Social Science Wolverhampton Universit

Town patriotism and the rise of Labour : Northampton 1918-1939

The thesis seeks to determine the relationship between community feeling and political activity in one interwar town, Northampton. It is argued that localism continued to be an important dimension of social and political experience in this period for businessmen, employers and workers. The development of modern industrial relations and welfare policies in industry gave employers a renewed interest in their location of operations. Depression and decline in the private enterprise economy made municipal intervention important to both the lower middle class and the working class. At the same time central governments expanded the role of local authorities by giving them more mandatory responsibilities and greater funding. A public culture developed in Northampton which stressed service to the common interest and meritocratic leadership. In this context the Labour Party was able to gain some legitimate authority in the town community. Its leaders were accorded a grudging acceptance in the meritocracy. The ethos of public and political life was reflected in neighbourhood and workplace experience. Most Northamptonians defined their social identity in terms of citizenship rather than class. However, there were a number of social, economic and industrial factors which produced a crisis in the 1933 to 1935 period. That crisis increased Labour support and led to abstention by many non-Labour voters. A different approach to the study of society and politics in Britain from 1918 to 1939 is advocated on the basis of the Northampton evidence. It is noted that there already exists considerable material showing that there was a wide range of difference in local response to government social policy. It is also argued that the Labour Party's philosophy and electoral performance during these years may owe more to community influences than has previously been acknowledged

A bibliography of the small towns in Northamptonshire, 1600–1850

What follows is an enumerative bibliography of nine small Northamptonshire towns from 1600 to 1850. This bibliography is designed to help local historians research the social, cultural and economic histories of these towns during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. [Continues.

The English pillow lace industry : a study of rural industry in competition during the nineteenth century

This thesis attempts to give substance to research in an oft-neglected area of Britain's economy by studying, in depth, one of the numerous rural industries which existed in England as it passed through its industrial revolution, and beyond. The pictorial map drawn by Augustus Petermann to accompany the 1851 Census of Population gives a vivid indication of the preponderance of rural industries in the middle of the century. The pillow lace industry was one of the oldest of these, having been born late in the sixteenth century, and in the event it was one of the last to survive, for it was not until the twentieth century that it finally succumbed to the rigours of competition with machinery, and disappeared.The machine industry had been in existence since the end of the eighteenth century and from the mid 1840s had been producing an enormous output of almost perfect imitations of hand-made lace, yet at a much lower price. How had the pillow lace industry survived for so long? The problem is compounded by the added competition of hand-made laces produced overseas, most notably in France and Belgium, where the industry was not only organized on a larger scale than its English counterpart, but was probably more skilled and more flexible in its response to machine competition. Imports of hand-made lace into England reached a peak during the 1850s and 60s, precisely at the time that the machine industry was reaching new heights of technical and organizational perfection.An examination of the pillow lace industry's response to these pressures, the najor theme of this thesis, falls readily into a number of sections. By the nineteenth century the industry had existed for approximately 200 years and had a well-established structure and organization on which its responses, by and large, were based. The thesis therefore begins by placing the industry in its historical context, tracing the industry's history from its origins to the beginning of the nineteenth century.Before a consideration of the industry's response to its competitors can be undertaken the nature of these competitors must first be defined. What were the strengths and weaknesses of rival hand and machine producers? How were they organized and on what scale? What kinds of fabric did they produce and how and where were they marketed? And how did the growth of the machine industry affect the production of hand-made lace overseas and this, in its turn, the hand producers of England?The pillow lace industry's structure and organization were the bases on which its competitive ability ultimately rested. The quality, variety and price of the industry's output, its ability to reach a variety of market outlets, not only at home but also overseas, were among the major determinants of its competitive capacity. Who ran the pillow lace industry and who were its workers? What, if any, were the organizational problems in bringing the various components of the industry's structure together in a putting out system? How was the lace made and how was it channelled to its market outlets, and how prompt was delivery? The answers to these questions, when viewed in the industry's competitive, and historical context, go a good way towards explaining the industry's survival into the nineteenth century. Part IV draws the various elements together and attempts such an explanation. To discover the human aspects of how workers and employers felt and behaved is essential if the true perspective of industrial history is to be obtained. This is the thesis' final task. Workers and employers in this kind of industry are notorious for not leaving private records. For this reason, as elsewhere, the thesis rests on parliamentary records and contemporary histories and to a lesser degree on accounts in contemporary newspapers and periodicals. Yet these provide a wealth of material, enabling the writer to draw up a picture of the workers' health and working conditions and of how the industry's workers said they felt about their existence and the effects which the industry's problems was having upon it. The thesis concludes with an examination of the industry's final thirty years, during which its organization fell substantially into the hands of philanthropic bodies. Partly as a result, the industry did not disappear until the 1930s, over 120 years after the advent of John Heathcoat's lace machine

How elites gain, maintain and propagate status 1770-2012: A social capital perspective

Recent studies on networking, social capital and elites have done much to expand academic knowledge in each of these topic areas. Elites are defined in several ways, including their attributes and their use of and access to power. However, far less research has been conducted on how those attributes and/or power are used by local political elites. A great deal of research has also been conducted on social capital, what it is and how it can benefit society, but less work has been done on the local politician’s individual production and use of social capital. Despite the important role that networks and networking play in producing social capital, local elite networks thus remain largely unexplored. We know little of how their networks are constructed and used in the pursuance of status and less on how the elite adapt the use of their networks in response to socio-economic change. In focusing on the construction and use of social capital networks by the Borough Aldermen and Councillors in Northampton over the longue durée, this work redresses those shortcomings. The research uses a large number and variety of sources which provide a wealth of qualitative and quantitative data with which to explore elite networking and social capital in the town. The work contributes towards furthering academic knowledge on how elites gain maintain and propagate status. The research reveals that the elite use two different constructs of networks, each of which provides different benefits for the user. It is the symbiosis of these networks which enables the political elite to respond to socio-economic and political events. The research also finds that overlapping networks produce the largest exchange of social capital, which is translated into gaining and maintaining status. It is clear that, over the longue durée, the importance of business networks in producing social capital has drastically reduced, and has been replaced by the growing importance of political association membership. It is also evident in the research that the expansion of formal institutions in the business and political arenas has led to individual Councillors and Aldermen making strategic choices. Using a market mentality of returns, they decide which networks give greater social capital and are thus more valuable and useful in gaining and maintaining elite status

Was Hannah Twynnoy Killled by a tiger in England in 1703? A historical sociological approach.

This paper approaches globalization through the lens of folk lore, myth, and John Law’s hopeful monsters, focusing on Hannah Twynnoy, a woman allegedly killed by a tiger in Malmesbury (England) in 1703. Hannah’s death was taken up three hundred years later as a metaphor for globalization when local factory jobs were relocated to a ‘tiger economy’ (Malaysia). Taken to manifest Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury’s ‘state of nature’, Hannah’s story also illustrates the reverse. Globalization can fragment and deregulate, but globalization assembles and regulates to. Hannah’s gravestone and burial records blend real and virtual, local, and global; the genealogy of ‘tigers’ challenges Michel Foucault; and questions regarding blame echo across centuries, in ongoing conflict over agency and causation (as per Edmund Evans). Is globalisation a ‘jungle out there’? No. Local factory jobs did go. Nevertheless, sustaining global intellectual property regulation means the company employs more people in Malmesbury today than before manufacturing relocated. After it was announced that local jobs would be ‘eaten up’ by a ‘tiger economy’, a spate of alien big cat (ABC) sightings near Malmesbury did express what Susan Lepselter calls the inchoate injuries of class and power. Indeed, experiencing such fabulous things did resonate with something real

Caroline Chisholm, 1808-1877: ordinary woman - extraordinary life, impossible category

The purpose of this thesis is to look at the motivations behind the life and work of Caroline Chisholm, nee Jones, 1808-1877, and to ascertain why British historians have chosen to ignore her contribution to the nineteenth century emigration movement, while attending closely to such women as Nightingale for example. The Introduction to the thesis discusses the difficulties of writing a biography of a nineteenth century woman, who lived at the threshold of modernity, from the perspective of the twenty-first century, in the period identified as late modernity or postmodernity. The critical issues of writing a historical biography are explored. Chapter Two continues the debate in relation to the Sources, Methods and Problems that have been met with in writing the thesis. Chapters Three to Seven consider Chisholm's life and work in the more conventional narrative format, detailing where new evidence has been found. By showing where misinformation and errors have arisen in earlier biographies that have been perpetuated by subsequent biographies, they give specificity to the debate discussed in the Introduction. Chapters Eight to Ten discuss, in far greater depth than a conventional narrative format allows, the relevant political, religious and social influences which shaped and influenced Chisholm's life, and which facilitate an understanding of her motivation and character