The Edwardian Crisis: Britain 1901–14

223 Pages·1996·22.879 MB·English

by  David Powell (auth.)

THE EDWARDIAN CRISIS
British History in Perspective
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THE EDWARDIAN CRISIS
1901-14
BRITAIN
DAVID POWELL
palgrave
* © David Powell 1996
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PALGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of
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ISBN 978-0-333-59543-5 ISBN 978-1-349-24895-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-24895-7
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ISBN 978-0-312-16093-7
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and
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A catalogue record for this book is available
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library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Powell, David, 1956-
The Edwardian crisis: Britain 1901-1914/ David Powell.
p. cm. -(British history in perspective)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-16093-7
1. Great Britain-Politics and government-1901-1910. 2. Great
Britain-Politics and government-191Q--1936. I. Title.
II. Series.
DA570.P69 1996
941.082'3-dc20 96-15375
ClP
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02
Transferred to digital printing 2001
CONTENTS
Glossary VI
Preface VII
Introduction: The Victorian Legacy 1
1 The Social Crisis: Poverty, Social Reform and
the State 10
2 The Constitutional Crisis, 1909-11 39
3 Suffragism and Feminism 68
4 The Challenge of Labour 98
5 Ireland and the Crisis of Nationalism 131
Conclusion 163
Appendix 1 Chronology 177
Appendix 2 General Election Results, 1906 and
19lO 180
Notes 181
Further Reading 201
Index 207
v
Glossary
ASRS Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants
BSP British Socialist Party
ILP Independent Labour Party
LEA Labour Electoral Association
LRC Labour Representation Committee
MFGB Miners' Federation of Great Britain
NUWSS National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies
SDF Social Democratic Federation
TUC Trades Union Congress
UVF Ulster Volunteer Force
WSPU Women's Social and Political Union
VI
PREFACE
Seen from the vantage point of the late twentieth century, across
what J. B. Priestley described as the 'vast dark chasm' of two
world wars, Edwardian Britain evokes contradictory impressions
in the mind's eye. One is that of the 'long summer afternoon',
the leisurely swansong of an aristocratic society bathed in the
afterglow of Victorian splendour. The other is of a time of
mounting discord overshadowed by the lowering clouds of ap
proaching war. Both of these images are more than usually
shaped by the wisdom of hindsight, just as 'Edwardian Britain'
(which should, logically, end with the death of Edward VII in
1910) is, in a sense, the retrospective creation of historians who
know what happened after 1914 . Yet they remain the starting
points from which most studies of the period take their cue, and
the idea that the immediate pre-war years constituted some kind
of emergency or 'crisis' in British history has been widely
discussed. The great French historian, Elie Halevy, wrote about
the way in which 'domestic anarchy' had spread in Britain before
1914. This theme was developed with seductive fascination by
I
the young George Dangerfield, whose book The Strange Death of
liberal England was first published in 1935.2 Dangerfield argued
that, far from being the quiet haven of social peace affectionately
remembered by those wishing to return to pre-war 'normalcy'
after 1918, the Edwardian period was itself a time of mounting
conflict and instability, in which many of the unsettling post-war
changes had their roots and in which British society was suffering
VII
The Edwardian Crisis
from a deep-seated malaise that was symptomatic of a sea-change
in the national psyche. The tensions of the pre-war years, with
their increasing violence and political extremism, were evidence,
he believed, of a loss of respect for the rule of law and for the
institutions and conventions of parliamentary government; in
short, of a fatal weakening of the spirit of moderation, com
promise and social harmony which had been among the distin
guishing characteristics (in his view) of the 'liberal England' of the
middle and later part of Queen Victoria's reign.
Dangerfield's concept of a generalised crisis has generated
considerable controversy among historians. Recently there has
been a tendency to dismiss his account as impressionistic and
misleading.3 There nevertheless remains lively disagreement as to
the nature and direction of events in the 'lost world' of pre-1914
Britain, over which the writings of Dangerfield and Halevy
continue to cast a long shadow. What the present study sets out
to do, therefore, is systematically to re-examine the components
of the Dangerfield/Halevy thesis in the light of subsequent
research and to attempt a fresh assessment of the severity or
otherwise of the 'Edwardian crisis' in relation both to the
short-term and the longer term perspectives of British history in
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In so doing it will not
only touch upon specific issues of thematic concern but will also
engage a number of broader areas of historical debate. For
example, did the First World War accelerate or divert the
currents of change in pre-war Britain? Was the Liberal party,
which formed the government for most of the Edwardian decade,
in any sense in irretrievable decline before 1914, faced as it was
with a dual challenge from left and right? Above all, did the
surface excitements of the Edwardian years - over constitutional
and fiscal reform, women's and workers' rights, Irish Home Rule
- signify a deeper crisis of social or political relations, or were
they merely passing problems whose coincidence was uncon
nected to any single, common cause? The emphasis throughout
is on domestic affairs and space precludes any detailed treatment
of foreign policy, but in this last respect it might be instructive to
make comparisons between what was happening in Britain and
the experience of countries like Germany or Russia, where
Vlll
Preface
internal problems of equal or greater seriousness were occurring
- problems which may have played their part in influencing the
conduct of international relations and thus in precipitating a
more profound catastrophe of which, whatever their gravity, the
conflicts of 1901-14 were but the forerunners.
In writing a book of this kind, I have obviously relied heavily
on the research of other historians, which I have done my best to
acknowledge in the endnotes and the guide to Further Reading.
I am grateful to Jeremy Black, the series editor, for inviting me
to undertake the work and to the publishers for their continuing
support. My thanks also go to successive generations of students
in Ripon and York who have endured my enthusiasms and
helped to shape my thinking on the topic. Needless to say, any
errors or eccentricities of interpretation are entirely my own.
lX