New Directions in Economic and Social History

207 Pages·1989·18.906 MB·English

by  Anne Digby, Charles Feinstein (eds.)

NEW DIRECTIONS IN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL
HISTORY
New Directions in Economic
and Social History
Edited by
Anne Digby
and
Charles Feinstein
M
MACMILLAN
© ReFRESH 1989
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of
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or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying
issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court
Road, London WIP 9HE.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this
publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil
claims for damages.
First published 1989 by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
ISBN 978-0-333-49569-8 ISBN 978-1-349-20315-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-20315-4
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
Reprinted 1994
lV
Contents
Figures Vll
Illustrations Vlll
ru~ m
Maps IX
Introduction A. Digby, C. H. Feinstein I
I AGRICULTURE
1 Agricultural Revolution? England, 1540-
1850 M. Overton 9
2 Parliamentary Enclosures: Gains and Costs
M. E. Turner 22
3 The Highland Clearances T. M. Devine 35
II ECONOMY
4 Domesday Book after 900 Years S. Harvey 51
5 The Industrial Revolution: Economic Growth
in Britain, 1700-1860 N. F. R. Crafts 64
6 British Imperialism: a Review and a Revision
A. G. Hopkins 76
7 The Rise and Fall of the Managed Economy
R. Middleton 89
III SOCIETY
8 Population Growth: England, 1680-1820
E. A. Wrigley 105
9 Standards of Living and Industrialisation
R. Floud 117
10 Women and Society: Continuity and Change
J.
since 1870 Lewis 130
v
II The British Welfare State: its Origins and
Character P. Thane 143
IV LABOUR
12 Chartism E. Royle 157
13 The Labour Aristocracy in the British Class
Structure R.j. Morris 170
14 Social Control in Modern Britain
F. M. L. Thompson 182
Notes on Contributors 196
Index 199
VI
Figures
Chronology of parliamentary enclosure in England,
1750-1819 23
2 The tax assessment-manorial annual value
relationship for Essex lay-manors, 1086 57
3 Inflation, unemployment and the balance of
payments, 1950-85 94
4 Crude birth and death rates, 1681-1821 110
5 Expectation of life at birth and the gross
reproduction rate, 1681-1821 III
6 Class differences in height in the early nineteenth
century, and a comparison with males in Britain
today 122
7 Average heights of males recruited to the army at
the age of eighteen, 1750 onwards 127
8 Changes in fertility, 1860s to 1970s 133
9 Height of children as shortfall from the average
at Broughton School in Edinburgh" 1904 175
10 Distribution offathers-in-Iaw, Edinburgh, 1865-9 177
11 Distribution of the occupation of fathers-in-law
in Kentish London, 1851-75 177
Vll
Illustrations
1 A dwelling in Skye, 1853 43
2 Questions asked in the Domesday Inquiry 61
3 The white elephant 84
4 How Lord Salisbury is worked 85
5 A suffragette view of women's votes 140
6 Political capital extracted from the National
Insurance Act, 1911 148
7 Welfare and Electoral Advantage: the Old Age
Pensions Act, 1908 149
8 An initially favourable view of the Charter, 1848 166
9 A later mocking interpretation of the Charter,
1848 167
10 Priorities in elementary education 185
11 Impressions of a London beershop 190
12 Temperance refreshment: the Coffee Room at
Dorking 191
13 Teaching temperance 193
Vlll
Tables
1 Estimates of wheat yields, 1520-1851 15
2 Statistics of English parliamentary enclosures 24
3 Crop distributions, productivity, and grain output
in Northamptonshire, circa 1801 30
4 Growth rates of real output, 1700-1860 66
5 Investment as a percentage of national income,
1700-1860 68
6 Sources of economic growth, 1700-1860 69
7 A comparison of British and European changes
in economic structure, 1700-1840 70
8 Growth of population in England during the
'long' eighteenth century 107
9 Socio-economic differences in average height in
the 1880s and today 124
10 Female participation in the labour force in Great
Britain, 1861-1981 137
Maps
I Ratio of agricultural labourers to farmers who
did not employ labour, 1831 18
2 Density of parliamentary enclosure in England 27
3 Scotland: showing place names in the text 38
4 The growth ofthe British empire 77
lX
Introduction
ANNE DIGBY, CHARLES FEINSTEIN
This volume aims to bring to a wider audience some of the
important new interpretations made in recent years by those
working in the field of economic and social history. Increasing
specialisation in subject-matter, and a growing emphasis on
quantification in methodology, have meant that many impor
tant advances in this field have not been -accessible to the
general reader. To help overcome this the Economic History
Society decided to sponsor a publication specifically designed
to enable the leading specialists in the subject to present the
results of their latest research to a more extensive readership.
All the chapters in this volume were originally commissioned
for the journal, ReFRESH, (Recent Findings of Research in
Economic and Social History). ReFRESH set out to show that
complex arguments could be made accessible in simple stages
through the use of a clearly structured text and explanations
of technical vocabulary in special glossaries. Authors were
asked to use plentiful tables, figures, illustrations and maps to
clarifY the main points of the argument, and to present
information in a variety of mutually reinforcing ways.
ReFRESH was initially intended primarily for teachers, but
the response to the first few years of publication indicated that
many others, including pupils and college undergraduates,
also found the material extremely helpful. It was therefore
decided that it would be worthwhile to make the articles
available to a wider audience. In this volume leading scholars
discuss new answers to old problems, for example, the
reasons for the rapid growth of population in the late eight
eenth century, the effect of industrialisation on the standard of
living, the results of enclosures, and the nature of Chartism.
The authors show how new evidence from archival sources,
new methods of analysis and new approaches have helped to
change our understanding of these major historical issues.