Brown R. Society and Economy in Modern Britain 1700-1850
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Figures
2.1 Physical divisions and resources in Britain 7
2.2 Counties of Ireland and Northern Ireland 9
2.3 Counties of Scotland 10
2.4 Counties of England and Wales 14
3.1 Population growth in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, 1741–1926 21
3.2 Changes in the distribution of population (a) 1801 and (b) 1851 22
3.3 Birth and death rates for (a) England and Wales, 1761–1931 and (b) Scotland, 1861–1931 22
4.1 Annual total enclosure in England, 1750–1819 35
4.2 Annual open field arable enclosure in England, 1750–1819 35
4.3 Annual common and waste enclosure in England, 1750–1819 36
4.4 (a) Wheat prices index 1731–1819 (b) ‘Real’ wheat prices index 1731–1819 39
5.1 England before the Industrial Revolution 46
5.2 The growth of the cotton industry 1710–1800 50
5.3 Ironworks in South Wales in 1811 56
5.4 The eighteenth-century coal industry 59
7.1 Major road networks in 1700 75
7.2 Major river and coastal communication systems in 1700 76
7.3 The turnpike road network in England and Wales in 1700 79
7.4 Early roads, including drovers’ roads and early turnpike roads, in Wales 81
7.5 The Rebecca Riots 82
7.6 The decline in journey times using the fastest coaches 1660–1840 85
7.7 Lancashire canals 89
7.8 The canal network c. 1830 90
7.9 Canals in Ireland 91
7.10 Canals in Scotland 91
11.1 The railway system in 1845 135
11.2 The railway system in 1852 137
12.1 Economic development: a simple model 151
16.1 Elites and recruitment 198
16.2 The nature of society: a tripartite model 204
17.1 Ashwell in the 1840s 220
18.1 Towns with 2,500+ inhabitants in England and Wales in 1700 233
18.2 Towns with 2,500+ inhabitants in England and Wales in 1801 233
18.3 The growth of London 1700–1831 243
Tables
3.1 Population growth (in millions) 20
3.2 Population growth rates (as percentages) 21
3.3 Mean age at first marriage 24
3.4 Births per thousand population: England 1750–1850 24
4.1 Real output in agriculture 31
4.2 Total real output and real output for industry and commerce 31
4.3 Enclosure statistics 35
5.1 English patents granted 1700–1809 (by decade) 48
5.2 Cotton production and exports 1750–1849 51
5.3 Real output in cotton—percentage per year 51
5.4 Woollen output 51
5.5 The impact of mechanization in textiles 53
5.6 Charcoal furnaces 1717 and 1790 54
5.7 The growth of the South Wales iron industry 56
5.8 British pig-iron output 1760–1850 56
5.9 Growth in real output in iron—percentage per year 57
5.10 Growth in real output in coal—percentage per year 58
5.11 Horsepower used in textile factories 60
8.1 English foreign trade in the late seventeenth century (£000) 95
8.2 English trade 1700–49 (£m) 96
8.3 English trade 1750–99 (£m) 96
8.4 English and Welsh imports in 1699–1701 and 1772–4 (£m) 96
8.5 English and Welsh exports and re-exports in 1699–1701 and 1772–4 97
8.6 Geographical distribution of English and Welsh trade (as percentages) 99
8.7 The structure of the domestic export trade 1750–1850 (as percentage of total exports) 101
8.8 Structure of British imports 1770–1830 (percentage of total value) 102
8.9 Geographical distribution of British export trade by continent (as percentage of total value) 102
8.10 Balance of trade 1800–50 103
9.1 Gross domestic investment and gross national product 1761–1850 (£m per annum) 110
9.2 National capital of Great Britain by sector in 1760 and 1860 111
9.3 National capital of Great Britain by type of asset in 1760 and 1860 111
9.4 Gross domestic fixed capital formation by sector 1761–1860 (£m at 1851–60 prices, and as a percentage) 112
9.5 National debt and debt charges 1700–1849 116
9.6 Money stock in circulation and means of payment (£m) 117
11.1 Railways Acts 1833–40 and what they sanctioned 134
11.2 Railway Acts 1841–50 and what they sanctioned 134
11.3 Railway investment 1825–55 (annual averages, £m) 138
11.4 United Kingdom Railway traffic 1842–50 140
13.1 Land ownership in England 1436–1873 155
13.2 Landowners in England and Wales in 1790 156
13.3 Scottish landowners in 1814 164
14.1 King and Colquhoun compared 169
14.2 Summary: percentage distribution 170
14.3 Edinburgh and Manchester in the 1770s compared 171
14.4 Appleby and Cardigan compared (1793) 171
14.5 ‘Middle-class’ occupations in 1851 174
17.1 Distribution of occupations in Cardington in 1782 214
17.2 Households by social and occupational status 216
17.3 Open and closed villages: a typology 217
18.1 Population of England and Wales living in towns of 2,500+ inhabitants in 1700 and 1801 231
18.2 Percentage of population of England and Wales in towns of 2,500+ inhabitants in 1700 and 1801 231
18.3 The changing urban hierarchy 1700–1801 232
xii
Preface
‘What is history?’, asked Robert Lowell in his Notebooks 1967–68,
1
and with the wisdom of the poet he responded: ‘What
you cannot touch.’ Into the fabric of our own existence we incorporate the records and the multifarious expressions of thought
and action of past peoples and social groups. They put us in touch with human history and yet they do not enable us to touch
that history alive. They compel us to listen and yet their sound alone cannot bring us fully within hearing presence of the word
of history. Intangible and inaudible though it is, this historical reality, this sense of ‘pastness’ is nevertheless formatively
present in our lives and reflections. Lowell’s question remains to incite us to improve our understanding of that past and his
answer also stands as a caution against any belief that we can fully discover what happened and why.
People study history for many reasons but all have in common a need to explain and understand past societies. We ask
questions, many of which have their origins in our own present-day experience, like how did individuals react to rapid change,
why did society change so slowly, what was it like to live then, have people’s needs changed, what was the nature of belief or
power and how did people register their protest against the action or inaction of those in government? In attempting to answer
questions like these it seems to me perfectly legitimate to use ideas and methodologies from disciplines other than history. We
may begin to understand people in the past by examining, for example, the social sciences, geography, technology, science
and philosophy. We may develop ‘models’ which can be applied to past events and people. But they must always be grounded
in the available sources of information, the raw data from which historians draw their conclusions.
Society and Economy in Modern Britain is the first of two volumes which consider the economic, social and political
history of Britain from the beginning of the eighteenth century until 1850. Two further volumes will bring the story up to
date. It is aimed at students studying A or AS Level examinations and first-year students at university or college. This book
covers the history of Britain from the beginning of the eighteenth century through to the mid-nineteenth century. It provides
an explanation of what actually happened and why, since narrative and description form the basis for historical studies at all
levels. It examines how historians have interpreted the past and provides a conceptual framework through which the past can
be illuminated. Each chapter has references to both contemporary and secondary sources. Volume I divides into two parts,
corresponding to the economic and social dimensions of past experience. Chapters 1 and 2 set the scene, outlining the nature
of history and what Britain was like around 1700. Chapters 3 to 12 cover the major economic themes of the period, in
particular the issue of the economic revolutions. Chapters 13 to 19 cover the main social questions. Any division of the past is
bound to be arbitrary to a certain extent. Religion, and popular politics are left to the second volume.
It is a history of Britain in which the histories of Wales, Scotland and Ireland are given an emphasis in their own right not
simply mentioned when their experience had some impact on England. Recent trends in historical writing have led to a
growing awareness of the role of women in the past and particularly their marginalization in a male-dominated and male-
focused society. Historians have also become aware of the place of ethnic minorities within the dominant cultural hegemony.
Both these issues receive particular emphasis. The past was, like the present, lived and if we are to understand that fully it is
fundamental that we should aim to achieve some ‘totality’ of past experience.
My debt to others in writing this volume will be obvious from the references to each chapter. I hope I have not
misrepresented their views. I am particularly grateful to Bedfordshire County Council for giving me two years secondment to
do research in education at Cambridge University between 1985 and 1987. This gave me time to think out my ideas in a less
hectic atmosphere than that of a school. I have been fortunate to teach in an authority and at two schools, Houghton Regis
Upper School and Manshead School, Dunstable, in which students have been both stimulating and unwilling to accept my
views as ‘tablets from Sinai’. My thanks to Anna Fedden who originated the project, Nancy Marten who kept me going over
the writing period, and Claire L’Enfant, Julia Hall and Antonia Pledger who saw it to its conclusion. Above all I must thank
my wife and children whose forbearance, patience and willingness to leave me in peace created the right atmosphere in which
to write. This book is dedicated to them.
Richard Brown
1 January 1990
Note
1 R.Lowell Notebooks 1967–68, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1967.
xiv
1
The nature of history
‘A SOCIAL NECESSITY’
Much has been written about the uses of history.
1
Understanding of the present and the potential of the future is impossible
without a temporal perspective. History is to society what remembered experience is to an individual. Marwick sees it as ‘a
social necessity’. There are three practical advantages to society from the study of the past. First, it alerts people to the sheer
variety of human mentality and achievement and thus to the range of possibilities people have now. History provides
imaginative range but is also an inventory of assets whose value may only be realized by later generations. Secondly, it is a
source of precedent and prediction. Though this is primarily a justification for contemporary history, the drawing of historical
analogies, often half-consciously, is a habitual and unavoidable dimension of human reasoning. Comparisons across time can
illuminate the present by highlighting both what is recurrent and what is new, what is durable, transient and contingent on our
present conditions. Finally history provides a critique of the myths that pervade society. It has a crucial corrective function in
that by removing myths, it can act as the conscience of society.
HISTORY—A DEFINITION
History is about people in society, their actions and interactions, their beliefs and prejudices, their pasts and presents. ‘People
in society’ means people as individuals, communities, groups, institutions, states and nations. Individuals can be simultaneously
members of a community (the village where they live), an institution (the church they attend), a group (the occupational group
they belong to), a nation (Wales, Scotland, Ireland or England) as well as a member of the United Kingdom. ‘Actions and
interactions’ mean the ways in which people behave as individuals and communities and the ways they react to each other.
‘Beliefs and prejudices’ mean the ways in which individuals and communities perceive(d) ‘their worlds’, the values upon
which ‘their worlds’ are based and the consequences of this in terms of their own perceptions of others and others’
perceptions of them. ‘Pasts and presents’ provide people in society with an individual and collective memory, a storehouse of
experience through which to develop their sense of social identity, to judge present actions and assess future prospects.
HISTORIANS ON HISTORY—DIFFERING METHODOLOGIES
History is also about how historians examine and interpret the past.
2
Although there are more than ‘two kinds of history’ the
recent debate between Fogel and Elton brings out some of the different ways in which historians approach their study. Fogel
sees ‘traditional historians’ as aspiring
to portray the entire range of human experience, to capture all of the essential features of the civilizations they were
studying, and to do so in a way that would clearly have relevance to the present. They were continually searching for
‘synthesising principles’ that would allow them to relate in a meaningful way the myriad of facts that they were
uncovering.
3
In their analysis, he maintains, historians turn to the social sciences for insights into behaviour. But they recoil from its
analytical methods because these threaten history’s intrinsic qualities: ‘its literary art, its personal voice and its concern with
the countless subtle questions that are involved in the notion of individuality’.
4
Fogel believes that this is the result of the way ‘traditional’ historians evaluate evidence. They use a ‘legal model’ which is
well suited to examining specific events and individuals but which is suspicious of statistical evidence and scientific method.
So how do ‘cliometricians’ like Fogel approach their study of the past? First, they want it to be based on explicit models of
human behaviour. Secondly, they believe that all historians use behavioural models in relating the facts of history to each
other. The difference is that for traditional historians these are implicit, vague and incomplete whereas for the cliometrician
they are explicit, specific and complete. They allow historians to cut through the diversity of experience and behaviour that
characterize human activity and to make judgements as to why people are likely to have behaved as they did. Thirdly, this
approach often leads cliometricians to represent behaviour in mathematical equations which are then verified or refuted with
quantitative evidence. However, quantification is not the universal characteristic of this approach. The crux of the difference
between these two methods is that
many traditional historians tend to be highly focused on specific individuals, on particular institutions, on particular
ideas, and on nonrepetitive occurrences…they make only limited use of explicit behavioural models and usually rely on
literary models. Cliometricians tend to be highly focused on collections of individuals, on categories of institutions and
on repetitive occurrences…. These involve explicit behavioural models and…quantitative evidence.
5
The traditional historian may want to explain why Thomas Edwards of Risby, Suffolk stole four hen’s eggs in 1864 whereas
the cliometrician would wish to understand why egg-stealing expanded in the nineteenth century. Both types of history are
concerned with explaining the past. Both search for meaning using evidence that is often incomplete, inconsistent and
ambiguous. Historians can and should use any method, concept, or model which help them to do this.
HISTORY AND ITS CONCEPTS
Historians examine the past through a number of methodological concepts. First, historians need to have an understanding of
historical context, a sense of time and chronology. Secondly, the nature of events, their causation and consequences needs to
be made clear. Piecing together what happened in the past will, thirdly, result in narrative, analysis and synthesis. Fourthly,
historians examine the past in terms of change and continuity, progression, regression, evolution or revolution and discrete
phenomena as ‘agents’ or ‘inhibitors’ of change. It is now fashionable to emphasize the continuities in historical experience
and to play down the importance and effects of change and discontinuities in the past.
6
Finally, history is less about truth than
about possible and tentative interpretations on the basis of the available evidence.
What concepts can historians use to examine people in the past? These can be divided into—
(i) understanding people in the past as individuals and social groups.
(ii) understanding the role of specific individuals and social groups.
(iii) understanding the actions, values, beliefs, attitudes and decisions of individuals.
(iv) understanding people in their local, regional, national and global context.
(v) understanding the various choices open to individuals and groups at particular times and why they opted for one direction
rather than another.
(vi) understanding the different dimensions of life which people in the past have experienced and the relationship between
them—I will highlight economic, social, political, cultural (including religious), technological and scientific and
environmental experiences.
(vii
)
understanding that people live different lives within the same time-scales—the diversity of contemporary experience.
(vii
i)
understanding that the historical process is one of development, that, despite appearances, it is not static and that
development may be resisted.
(ix) understanding the relationships, tensions and conflicts that exist between individuals and social groups.
Through the use of these concepts, and the available evidence historians can attempt to explain what happened in the past.
PEOPLE IN HISTORY
Individuals in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries lived in various types of association. There were quite definite forms of
the family, marriage, religious worship, property and inheritance, economic organization, governmental procedures and so on
and these formed something more than the individuals who lived and behaved within their contexts.
These associational forms were interconnected. Together they made up a total social system and it is important that they are
examined as part of that system. Three points make this clear. First, a social system came into being and regulated the
activities and experiences of people who shared the same collective conditions of life—who worked out a particular pattern of
life in relation to the same ecological constraints, economic resources and historical experiences. In eighteenth-century Britain
this was evident not just in the collective conditions of Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England but in different regional
experiences and expectations. Secondly, associational forms were essentially forms of regulation. Each association had its
2 SOCIETY AND ECONOMY IN MODERN BRITAIN 1700–1850
own set of rules—some implicit, others formalized—by which some individuals exercised authority which others were
obliged to obey; by which different tasks were defined; through which satisfactory work or behaviour was rewarded and the
unsatisfactory punished. Finally, the place of a particular association within the social system was made even more clear by
the existence of institutions which actually linked and inter-penetrated them all. ‘Marriage’, for example, was not just a
familial one but was also a religious, legal, political and economic institution.
Associations and social systems are essentially characterized by meanings and values. Every social institution contains a
set of values at its core: it forbids certain things and requires, upholds and encourages others. Although not all individuals
agreed or abided by all the values embodied within social institutions, the network of regulation was a moral condition.
Individuals born within a particular social system with particular associational forms have a multi-dimensional private
experience from birth to death quite different from those born within another. The experience of a Welsh farmer was different
from a Scottish one. These different private experiences are articulated, understood and expressed in terms of the language
with which they are familiar. The collective conditions and social systems shared by individuals have played a large part in
making private experience and in shaping the nature of individuals. This view does not negate the role of individuals in the
past but places them in a context that did influence, though did not determine, their responses to particular circumstances. For
example, in periods of high food prices those whose standard of living was directly affected were likely to riot for the
restoration of the ‘moral economy’. But similar circumstances did not always bring about the same individual response.
Associations and the social system will be inherited by generation after generation. Although certain aspects will be
sustained and continued, others will be gradually, or in some cases radically, altered. This ‘heritage’ plays an important part in
the way that individuals perceive their presents. It establishes systems of culture based upon inherited symbols, meanings,
sentiments, values, ideologies and sanctions. Through cultural hegemony, control over values and beliefs, the governing
association in eighteenth-and early nineteenth-century Britain was able to maintain its dominant economic and political
position. Inherited experience underpins existing cultural values.
HISTORY AND CHANGE
This can help historians understand features of importance in a society at a particular point in time. But it does not explain the
dynamics of change within that society. There is a surprising amount of agreement between social theorists about how
societies change. First, the contemporary social experience (at any point in history) was, they maintain, the result of social
evolution. Secondly, they agree on the central importance of the transition from a predominantly ‘traditional’ to a predominantly
‘rational and contractual’ social order. Thirdly, the promise and threat of this transformation is recognized, as is the necessity
for the deliberate reconstruction of associations and institutions. These theories have a direct relevance in explaining the
development from a pre-industrial society (though whether it was a ‘traditional’ society is a separate question) to an industrial
society in Britain. The development of industrial and particularly urban society led to existing forms of association and
institutions being brought into question. Parliamentary reform, in 1832 and particularly in 1867 and 1885, was the result of
the increasing difficulty in defending a demonstrably irrational system of suffrage. Developments in women’s rights were part
of the same process. Resistance to logical change, the defence of the indefensible, however, also played an important part in
the chronology of these developments.
Richard Wilkinson
These sociological theories identify progress as the driving force behind change. Marx, for example, saw the creation of a
more humane, non-exploiting society as the end of social development. But this is not the only possible explanation. Richard
Wilkinson
7
argues that development is the result of a society outgrowing its resources and productive system. As the established
economic system proved inadequate and subsistence problems became more severe, he maintains, a society is driven to change
its methods
Development comes out of poverty, not out of plenty as many economic theories would lead one to suppose. Poverty
stimulates the search for additional sources of income and makes people willing to do things they may previously have
avoided.
8
He identifies the ending of constraints upon population growth as the major cause of change.
9
This led to growing resource
scarcities. In England and Wales rising cost of living, falling real wages and population growth coincided before 1800: ‘In
English history there can be no mistaking the intimate connection between the periodic appearance of population pressure and
economic development.’
10
Wilkinson then goes on to analyse the English industrial revolution:
THE NATURE OF HISTORY 3
The ecological roots of the English industrial revolution are not difficult to find. The initial stimulus to change came
directly from resource shortages and other ecological effects of an economic system expanding to meet the needs of a
population growing within a limited area.
11
Population growth from the 1740s put pressure on land resources and Britain changed from the 1760s from being a net
exporter of wheat to a net importer. Initially, change in industry did not involve the establishment of new industries but
technical innovation in existing industries. Stimulus came from the limitations which land shortage imposed on the supply of
industrial raw materials. Three examples illustrate his argument. First, the substitution of coal for wood. From the early
sixteenth century there was a consistent increase in firewood prices. By the 1630s it was about two and a half times as
expensive in relation to other prices as it had been in 1500. Rising cost and growing scarcity put pressure upon both industrial
and domestic consumers with the result that during the seventeenth century there was a shift from wood to coal. Iron-smelting
was the only major industry not to make this change by 1700. It took ironmasters longer to work out a solution because of the
complexity of smelting iron with coal. The move to coal, Wilkinson argues, was followed by other innovations: ‘The
invention of the steam-engine was a direct result of the new technical problems posed by deep mines.’
12
Using coal meant that woodlands could be converted to arable farming and the pressure of feeding a growing population
eased. Second, the introduction of canals and then railways had the same effect. They released land which had previously
been used to provide horse feed. In 1800 a canal engineer wrote that
as one horse on an average consumes the produce of four acres of land, and there are 1,350,000 in this island that pay
the horse-tax, of course there must be 5,400,000 acres of land occupied in providing provender for them. How desirable
any improvement that will lessen the keep of horses….
13
Wilkinson states that
Undoubtedly one of the most important reasons for the commercial success of canals was the high price of horse feed.
Only when competition for land had forced the price of horse feed sufficiently high was it worth expending labour on
the construction of canals which allowed larger loads to be drawn by fewer horses.
Finally the growth of the cotton industry meant that, the manufacture of clothing could be expanded without threatening the
production of food.
Wilkinson admits that his analysis is based upon the cultural imperative of ‘survival’ and that it is neutral towards the place
of progress in development.
14
But his ecological model is, he believes, based on the reality of living people not on some
idealized form. Development is the response to actual and perceived ‘needs’ and ‘wants’ rather than some notion of human
perfectibility.
Other models
There are alternative models: W.W.Rostow put forward his ‘stages of economic growth’ in 1960 and E.E.Hagen his ‘theory
of social change’ in 1962. In 1965 the historian R.M.Hartwell proposed an approach to the industrial revolution based upon
the techniques of developmental economics and as early as 1955 W.A.Lewis had recognized the social influences on
economic development. Historians specialize in both time and place. This is the result of their need to reduce the volume of
primary evidence to manageable proportions. This often leads them to ignore the interaction between the various themes.
Interactions
In attempting to explain or understand any problem historians are struggling with a number of interactions. It is possible to
see one element as a ‘prime mover’, in the sense of being something from which all others follow. This is an attractive
approach but it imposes an order on the past which was not obvious to contemporaries. At its extreme the ‘prime mover’
attitude can become Whiggish history, an approach which examines the past in relation to the present. A second approach is
one that sees a particular factor as the stimulus to change—for example population growth stimulated agricultural change.
This too is inadequate. It is clear that, important as the connection between population and agriculture was, their relationship
must be explained in a wider context, of interaction between a number of social, economic and intellectual variables. It is in
the mutual interaction of the various elements that make up a particular past that the best means of understanding that past is
to be found.
4 SOCIETY AND ECONOMY IN MODERN BRITAIN 1700–1850
CONCLUSIONS
To understand fully the development of Britain between 1700 and 1850 it is important that the mutual interaction between the
main themes is established. One of the reasons why social and economic change appeals to many historians is that it allows
them to get to grips with the historical experience of whole societies rather than with restricted elites or parliamentary
sessions. This has led to a move towards ‘total’ history or histoire integrate, examining the life of a total society in an
integrated way. This has proved immensely difficult for a single country and has resulted in the geographical limits of the
enquiry being narrowed down to a particular locality. Total’ history may therefore mean local history. W.G.Hoskins
maintains that ‘The local historian is in a way like the old-fashioned G.P. of English medical history, now a fading memory
confined to the more elderly among us, who treated Man as a whole.’
15
History concerns both events and structures, individuals and groups, ideas and perceptions, reality and myth. Historians
need to combine narrative with analytical skills. They need to re-create and give meaning as well as provide valid
explanations and interpretations based on an objective analysis of primary and secondary evidence. But as Antonio Gramsci
wrote, though he neglects the role of women, it is more than that
I think you must like history, as I liked it when I was your age, because it deals with living men, and everything that
concerns men, as many men as possible, all the men in the world in so far as they united together in society, and work
and struggle and make a bid for a better life, all that can’t fail to please you more than anything else. Isn’t that right?
16
NOTES
1 The most convenient recent statements are to be found in J.Tosh The Pursuit of History, Longman, 1984, pp. 1–26 and A.Marwick
The Nature of History, 3rd edn, Macmillan, 1989.
2 On the question of historical method and writing see J.Cannon (ed.) The Historian at Work, Allen & Unwin, 1980; G.Kitson Clark
The Critical Historian, Heinemann, 1967 and R.W.Fogel and G.R.Elton Which Road to the Past?, Yale, 1983. P.Veyne Writing
History, Wesleyan University Press, 1984 provides a valuable theoretical perspective. D.N.McCloskey Econometric History,
Macmillan, 1987, summarizes the issues. C.Parker, English Historical Tradition since 1850, John Donald, 1990 is a critical account
of the empiricist approach.
3 Fogel and Elton op. cit. p. 19.
4 ibid. p. 21.
5 ibid. p. 29.
6 D.Cannadine ‘Change and Continuity in British History’, History Today, April 1985, pp. 4–5 is a straightforward examination of the
issues involved.
7 The following discussion is based upon R.Wilkinson Poverty and Plenty—an Ecological Model of Economic Development, Methuen,
1973.
8 ibid. p. 5.
9 ibid. pp. 57–89.
10 ibid. p. 81.
11 ibid. p. 112.
12 ibid. pp. 123–4.
13 ibid. p. 124.
14 ibid. pp. 217–18.
15 W.G.Hoskins English Local History: the Past and the Future, Leicester University Press, 1966, p. 21.
16 From a letter to his son written shortly before Gramsci’s death in 1937, quoted in H.J.Kaye The British Marxist Historians, Polity
Press, 1984, p. 222.
THE NATURE OF HISTORY 5