Working men’s bodies: Work camps in Britain, 1880–1940 PDF
Preview Working men’s bodies: Work camps in Britain, 1880–1940
Working Men's Bodies_Layout 1 04/09/2013 17:21 Page 1 WORKING men s ’ BODIES W WORKING O R men s John Field’s book is the first in-depth study of Britain’s many work camp K ’ systems. Highly readable, and based on painstaking archival research, as well I as reminiscences of those involved, it tackles aspects of work, masculinity, N training and citizen service that sound remarkably familiar in today’s world. G Labour colonies flourished in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain, providing a M combination of work and discipline for such diverse groups as the unemployed, BODIES alcoholics, epileptics, ex-servicemen and ‘mental defectives’. Socialists, E anarchists and feminists also founded their own land colonies, in the hope of N building a new world. Government and others also used work camps to train potential emigrants for the Dominions. With the unemployment crisis of the ’ S 1930s, these different initiatives were overtaken by a national system of government work camps, designed to ‘harden’ the long term unemployed. The B book also explores residential training schemes for women, including the O domestic servant training centres of the interwar years, and nineteenth-century Work camps in Britain, 1880–1940 colonies for deviant women. D I While specific British circumstances shaped the systems that developed here, E we can also understand work camps as an international phenomenon, ranging S from well-known systems in Germany and the USA to lesser-known camp movements in Sweden and Ireland. Yet almost all work camp movements shared a preoccupation with men, seeking to reshape their bodies through heavy labour. Working men’s bodieswill interest anyone specialising in modern British history, F as well as those concerned with social policy, vocational education, and male I identities. E L John Field is a Professor in the School of Education, University of Stirling, Scotland D ISBN 978-0-7190-8768-4 J O H N F I E L D www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk Working men’s bodies MUP_Field_WorkingMen_Printer.indd 1 22/07/2013 15:56 MUP_Field_WorkingMen_Printer.indd 2 22/07/2013 15:56 Working men’s bodies Work camps in Britain, 1880–1940 johN Field Manchester University Press Manchester and New York distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan MUP_Field_WorkingMen_Printer.indd 3 22/07/2013 15:56 Copyright © john Field 2013 The right of john Field to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by Manchester University Press oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NR, UK and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk Distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA Distributed in Canada exclusively by UBC Press, University of British Columbia, 2029 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for iSBN 978 0 7190 8768 4 hardback First published 2013 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URls for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Typeset in Minion by Koinonia, Manchester MUP_Field_WorkingMen_Printer.indd 4 22/07/2013 15:56 For Annie MUP_Field_WorkingMen_Printer.indd 5 22/07/2013 15:56 MUP_Field_WorkingMen_Printer.indd 6 22/07/2013 15:56 Contents Abbreviations page ix Acknowledgements xi introduction 1 1 Colonising the land 9 2 ‘We work amongst the lowest stratum of life’: the early labour colonies 32 3 labour colonies and public health 57 4 Alternative living in the english countryside: utopian colonies 77 5 ‘The landless man to the manless land’: labour colonies and the empire 99 6 Transference and the labour government, 1929–31 125 7 incremental growth: instructional Centres under the National Government 148 8 ‘light green uniforms, white aprons and caps’: training unemployed women 173 9 Camps as social service and social movement 195 10 ‘down with the concentration camps!’: opposition and protest 222 Conclusion – Understanding work camps: memory and context 245 Select bibliography 264 index 271 MUP_Field_WorkingMen_Printer.indd 7 22/07/2013 15:56 MUP_Field_WorkingMen_Printer.indd 8 22/07/2013 15:56 Abbreviations Ad Arbeitsdienst BJN British Journal of Nursing BlPeS British library of Political and economic Science BMA British Medical Association BMJ British Medical Journal BUF British Union of Fascists BWTA British Women’s Temperance Association CCC Civilian Conservation Corps CCWTe Central Committee for Women’s Training and employment CPGB Communist Party of Great Britain CSC Community Service Council CUA Cambridge University Archives CUB Central (Unemployed) Body for london CUSS Christian Union for Social Service DM Daily Mirror DW Daily Worker elCS english land Colonization Society FAd Freiwilliger Arbeitsdienst GF Grith Fyrd GH Glasgow Herald GPo General Post office GTC Government Training Centre hhC hull history Centre hMSo her/his Majesty’s Stationery office hTC home Training Centre iC instructional Centre ilP independent labour Party iTB industrial Transference Board iVS international Voluntary Service JC Jewish Chronicle lCC london County Council leA local education Authority MUP_Field_WorkingMen_Printer.indd 9 22/07/2013 15:56
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