Black Country �lites: The Exercise of Authority in an Industrialized Area, 1830-1900

by Richard H. Trainor

Overview

Black Country Elites is a study of the people who ran Victorian industrial towns; it also examines the institutions, policies, rituals, and networks these urban elites deployed to cope with urban growth, social unrest, and relative economic decline. Concentrating on a particularly grimy district of the industrial Midlands, the book demonstrates the surprisingly great resources, coherence, sophistication and impact of the area's mainly middle class leaders, who were well linked to regional and national power centers. The strength of this provincial industrial elite suggests the need to reexamine the influential view that Victorian Britain's social development was dominated by London and by land, the professions and finance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198203551
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	02/24/1994
Series:	Oxford Historical Monographs
Pages:	456
Product dimensions:	5.75(w) x 8.75(h) x 1.17(d)

About the Author

University of Glasgow

Table of Contents

	List of Plates	xii
	List of Figures	xiii
	List of Tables	xv
	Abbreviations	xvii
1.	Introduction: The Approach	1
2.	Place and People	23
3.	Elite Structures and Attitudes	93
4.	The Changing Face of Discipline: Industrial Relations and Public Order	138
5.	Co-operation and Competition: Religious Institutions and Parliamentary Politics	175
6.	Participation, Services, and Ceremonies: The Development of Local Government	231
7.	Coercion and Consensus: the Poor Law and Philanthropy	285
8.	Conclusion: The Impact and Implications of Black Country Elites	354
	Appendices
1.	Social Classification	385
2.	Indentification and Analysis of Local Elites	391
3.	Supplementary Information on Elites	394
	Bibliography	405
	Index	427

Editorial Reviews

"His study of the rise of a confident, largely successful, and proudly heterogeneous Black Country elite can unquestionably take its place beside the major urban and regional studies of Victorian England."—American Historical Review

"Trainor's study of the Black Country elites provoke[s] a rehearing, and furthermore it indicates the robustness of detailed studies of local exercise of authority within the changing field of British social history."—Journal of Social History

"An extremely detailed and thorough examination of the authority wielded by individuals holding leadership posts in the major institutions of the Black Country...Richard Trainor intends his book to be a contribution to the role that the leaders of the industrial provinces played in Victorian society, and indeed, it is a valuable addition to the literature on this subject."—Albion

From the Publisher