Daunton M. The Cambridge Urban History of Britain, Volume 3: 1840-1950
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trading services, which expanded from per cent of all outgoings in – to
per cent in –, largely due to the development of tramways and electric-
ity supply. Yet there were clearly great variations in the scale of expenditure and
the spending priorities of differing authorities. In the second half of the nine-
teenth century boroughs like Birmingham and Glasgow invested heavily in util-
ities, capital projects and social amenities, as did new towns like Middlesbrough,
whilst older cities like Norwich proved very reluctant to spend before the end
of the century. In the first half of the twentieth century variation continued,
with small county boroughs like West Hartlepool spending very little on either
health care or housing between the wars, whilst similar sized boroughs like
Wa ke field concentrated their health spending on infectious diseases. Most of the
major cities spent heavily on the new social services, especially Liverpool,
Birmingham and Glasgow – though both Manchester and Birmingham did
attempt to introduce a form of ‘rationing’ in the mid-s.
26
Paying for this expansion was a perennial problem for local governors who by
the s could draw on four sources for finance: rates, central government
grants, income from estates, dues and services, and loans. Up to the late s
rates, a locally levied tax on occupiers of land and buildings, remained the most
important source, revenue growing fourfold between the early s and ,
whilst the average rate in the pound – the proportion of rateable value actually
paid by the occupier – almost doubled between and ,
27
with similar
increases after . As rates were regressive and inflexible, bearing little relation
to ability to pay, especially for small businesses, there were frequent calls for
economy, forcing local and national politicians to seek alternative sources of
finance. Yet central government did little beyond rationalising assessment, col-
lection and valuation and derating industrial and freight transport property by
per cent in , a reluctance Philip Waller attributes to the Treasury’s prefer-
ence for grant-in-aid over flexible and buoyant forms of local income.
28
Initial government grants were targeted at rural areas but from the s per-
centage grants multiplied as government accepted the national character of many
of the new compulsory obligations of local authorities, state support rising from
less than £m in , to £.m in .
29
Assigned revenues were introduced
in to replace annually voted grants, but the inflexible distribution system
devised in and the almost immediate proliferation of new percentage grants
for education, housing and health led to their decline. They were replaced in
Barry M. Doyle
26
Twenty-Eighth Annual Report of the Local Government Board, – (London, HMSO, ), pp.
–; Whittaker’s Almanac (London, ), p. ; Fraser, Power and Authority; Briggs,
Victorian Cities; E. Watson, ‘The municipal activity of an English city’, Political Science Quarterly
(), –; Fraser, ‘Municipal socialism’; Powell, ‘Did politics matter?’, –; J. L. Marshall,
‘The pattern of housebuilding in the inter-war period in England and Wales’, Scottish Journal of
Political Economy, ().
27
Waller, Town, p. .
28
Ibid., p. .
29
G. C. Baugh, ‘Government grants in aid of the rates in England and Wales, –’, Bull.
IHR, (), –; Waller, Town, p. .
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
by ‘block grants’, which provided the first attempt to utilise a resources and
needs formula in grant aid, a problem finally tackled successfully in .
30
Ye t
it was only with the reforms of that government grants became more
important than the rates, and for most of the period they remained less
significant than either other sources of income or loans.
Revenue from sources other than the rates took a variety of forms. Ownership
of extensive estates, markets or docks could be crucial, Edwardian Manchester
receiving £, from markets, whilst Doncaster’s estate income ensured no
rates were levied at all.
31
Conversely, those with limited estates, such as
Birmingham and Middlesbrough, looked to municipal trading for the money to
improve their towns – Birmingham’s gasworks contributing £,–,
annually, enough to pay for a municipal art gallery and ensure the completion
of substantial urban improvements without raising the rates.
32
Profits from
trading services and other sources were even more significant in the interwar
period, contributing £m to relieve rates in the late s. But much of this
benefit was lost after when nationalisation of gas and electricity forced
greater dependence on grants and loans. Throughout the nineteenth century
municipalities borrowed extensively to fund infrastructural improvements,
including reservoirs, harbours, roads, schools and sewerage, as well as the estab-
lishment of utilities. Loans became less important after about , as the need
to undertake large-scale capital projects diminished, and from then on the
emphasis was on funding house building, which accounted for around half of
the interwar debt increase. By the late s urban authorities had amassed out-
standing debts of £m – per cent more than current rateable value – with
the burden increasing sixfold to stand at almost £,m by –, leaving a
substantial legacy in terms of debt charges, equivalent to over per cent of
expenditure throughout the first half of the twentieth century.
(ii)
Local government growth was accompanied by the expansion and consolidation
of an elite of municipal officials, many with the status and power of their polit-
ical masters. Very few positions in this municipal bureaucracy were compulsory,
though by the s urban authorities were obliged to appoint a medical officer
of health, surveyor, inspector of nuisances, town clerk and treasurer. Beyond this,
they had considerable discretion over whom to appoint, under what conditions
and qualifications and for what salary. There was no general system of appoint-
ment or clear promotion routes, whilst beyond teaching and medical appoint-
ments, specific qualifications were rare, with leadership skills acquired on the job.
The changing functions of urban government
30
Baugh, ‘Government grants in aid of the rates’, .
31
Waller, Town, p. .
32
Hennock, ‘Finance and politics’, –.
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Salaries were also ad hoc. Town clerks in larger boroughs earned between
£,–,, though Glasgow’s Sir James Marwick received £, in the
s. The salaries of other officials were meagre in comparison, county
borough surveyors, engineers and accountants earning between £ and
£,, whilst many small towns paid their officials little more than an honorar-
ium.
33
Furthermore, most senior posts remained part time until the twentieth
century, for though larger towns were employing full-time town clerks from the
s, full-time medical officers of health remained much less common (slightly
over one third by ) with many officials continuing in private practice or
occupying a number of municipal offices. As a result, the development of a
municipal professional ethos owed much to the consolidation of organisations
like the Institution of Municipal Engineers, which provided a sense of identity
and legitimacy in the form of examinations and qualifications and widened the
horizons of municipal officials, per cent of whom were locally recruited.
34
The nature of officials’ political relationships changed as they became more
professional, mobile and autonomous. Prior to the Municipal Corporation Act,
the office of town clerk was usually controlled by the Tories, but after ‘there
was an exhilarating effusion of party appointments when municipal reform
transferred power from one elite to another’.
35
The revival of urban Toryism in
the s led to some redressing of the balance, and by the second half of the
nineteenth century most senior appointments reflected the politics of the
incumbent party. Political alliances between officials and councillors were
strengthened by a shared social profile. Prior to most senior officials were
local men or long-term migrants, with strong business and professional involve-
ment in the locality. Intermarriage between the political and administrative elite
was not uncommon, whilst social connections, like the Masonic links between
councillors and officials in Norwich and Wolverhampton, were widespread.
Though occasionally, as with Herbert Morrison’s tenure as leader of the London
County Council, such interactions could be banned, overall relationships
between council members and officials were remarkably close, especially in
smaller communities with compact elites.
36
Barry M. Doyle
33
Waller, Town, p. ; B. Keith-Lucas and P. G. Richards, A History of Local Government in the
Twentieth Century (London, ), p. ; I. Maver, ‘The role and influence of Glasgow’s munic-
ipal managers, s–s’, unpublished paper, Urban History Group Annual Meeting (Leeds,
); G. W. Jones, Borough Politics: A Study of the Wolverhampton Borough Council, –
(London, ), pp. –.
34
J. Garrard, ‘Bureaucrats rather than bureaucracies: the power of municipal professionals,
–’, in Occasional Papers in Politics and Contemporary History, (University of Salford,
), pp. –. Municipal Yearbook, , pp. –, for a list of professional organisations.
35
D. Fraser, Urban Politics in Victorian England (Leicester, ), pp. –.
36
Garrard, ‘Bureaucrats rather than bureaucracies’, –; B. M. Doyle, ‘The structure of elite power
in the early twentieth-century city: Norwich, –’, UH, (), ; Jones, Borough
Politics, pp. –; J. Gyford, Local Politics in Britain, nd edn (London, ), p. , n. .
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
As local government became too complex for councillors to master, the town
clerk, and subsequently the treasurer, became de facto chief officers, acquiring
considerable power over other departments and the direction of policy.
Administrative control of the council, the power to define its legal competence
and shape local acts, combined with frequent longevity in office made the town
clerk ‘the most stable and permanent element in English municipal government
. . . the living embodiment of the local traditions of government’.
37
Pivotal
figures, some masterminded substantial municipal projects requiring great skill,
vision and determination, occasionally against the wishes of the council, though
some were uninterested in the progress of their locality. Most, however, were
competent administrators, running efficient organisations without making too
many waves, an approach which became more common in the s as clerks
struggled to cope with the huge increase in council business.
The omnipotence of the town clerk was weakened as the expansion of local
government after privileged those with particular expertise like James
Dalrymple, manager of the , strong trams department in Edwardian
Glasgow. The technical complexity of departments like gas and electricity con-
tributed to the growing autonomy of chief officers, for though responsible to a
committee, most councillors had neither the time nor the inclination to master
the intricacies of the service. As a result many departments were left to the
‘experts’, with scrutiny retained over salaries and staffing whilst most major
capital projects were adopted on the advice of the chief officer. As a result, public
officials had a considerable say in policy as well as administration. During the
nineteenth century men like Joseph Heron of Manchester and Samuel Johnson
of Nottingham acted as members of the councils as opposed to its employees,
rebuking or challenging councillors in the chamber, whilst Horatio Brevitt of
Wolverhampton characterised himself as a public official, not a ‘servant’ of the
council, with the independence to decide which orders to carry out.
38
Other
officers adopted positions which came close to opposition, especially health
officials like M’Gonigle in interwar Stockton-on-Tees, who became enmeshed
in intense political controversies. This problem arose partly from the absence of
an unequivocal chief executive or a class of generalist administrators. Glasgow’s
attempt to appoint a non-lawyer as town clerk in was blocked by the
Scottish legal fraternity, but by the s pressure was mounting for municipal
administrators on the civil service model, with E. D. Simon and others question-
ing the need for expert departmental heads when most of the job was routine
administration.
39
Furthermore, from , rising rates and expenditure and
increasingly powerful labour movements, especially after , exposed local
The changing functions of urban government
37
J. Redlich and F. W. Hirst, Local Government in England, vol. (London, ), pp. –.
38
Jones, Borough Politics, p. .
39
Maver, ‘Glasgow’s municipal managers’; E. D. Simon, A City Council from Within (London, ),
pp. –; H. Finer, English Local Government (London, ), pp. and –.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
officials to intense political scrutiny. Accusations of corruption and evidence of
a scandalous lack of administrative control, weakened the power of men like
Brevitt and Dalrymple and in some authorities the treasurer, through the finance
committee, acquired overall supervision of council affairs. In addition, the posi-
tion of town clerks and utility managers was challenged in the twenties by the
emergence of new officials who were beginning to consolidate their local power
and national prestige in areas like housing, education and planning.
40
Thus by the
s the power of municipal managers had spread and weakened as greater scru-
tiny and complexity ensured that one individual could no longer ‘boss’ a town,
whilst the personal autonomy given to managers of some large departments was
eroded by accusations of corruption and increasing political interference.
(iii)
This political interference was possible because ultimately the municipal officials
were responsible to their elected masters, the borough councillors. Before
most boroughs were in the hands of self-selecting Anglican Tories, though in
some cases they had adapted to incorporate new social actors. In Leeds and
Liverpool, therefore, reform replaced a Tory Anglican elite of merchants and
manufacturers with a Liberal nonconformist elite of merchants and manufactur-
ers, but in Exeter change was more apparent, with lawyers, retailers and ‘the
trade’ ousting the traditional medical and commercial men.
41
In unincorporated
towns experience varied, Manchester witnessing ‘a blatant struggle for local
power between rival groups of similar social status within the upper ranks of the
middle class’,
42
while in Birmingham, where the un-elected Improvement
Commission was representative of the city’s elite, the new council was more
obviously arriviste, dominated by small business until after the Commission was
wound up in . However, strict property qualifications for candidates ensured
that for the rest of the century change in the council chamber involved little
more than the reallocation of places between those incorporated in .
The main change up to was the declining dominance of substantial manu-
facturers
and merchants and their replacement by small producers, retailers and
the drink trade. In Leeds, the social composition of the corporation changed
markedly in the mid-nineteenth century as petit bourgeois elements triumphed to
such an extent that by the s there were no professionals on the council at
all. Middlesbrough’s iron-masters, who dominated early municipal government,
receded from ten council members in the s to just one in , whilst the
Barry M. Doyle
40
Jones, Borough Politics, pp. –.
41
E. P. Hennock, ‘The social compositions of borough councils in two large cities, –’, and
R. Newton, ‘Society and politics in Exeter, –’, in H. J. Dyos, ed., The Study of Urban
History (London, ), pp. – and –; Fraser, Urban Politics, pp. –.
42
Fraser, Urban Politics, p. .
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predominance of ‘large’ merchants and manufacturers fell from around half of
the councils of Bolton, Salford, Blackburn, Rochdale, Bristol and Leicester in
the s and s to a quarter or less by .
43
Though there was a commen-
surate rise to prominence for the shopkeeper in most towns, especially during
the late s and s, the political balance between large and small business
was complex. In Cardiff and Exeter, ‘large business’ was never important on the
council, and council social structure changed little before the end of the century,
whilst in Birmingham and Leeds, the mid- to late nineteenth century saw a
revival of the political position of prominent businessmen.
44
Of equal impor-
tance, however, was the massive growth in the recruitment of professionals to
borough councils between and , as in Leeds, Leicester, Bristol, Cardiff,
Birmingham and Wolverhampton where their proportion of council members
increased from between per cent and per cent to around a quarter.
Furthermore, other social groups did begin to break through after , the
transfer of education in and the opening of borough councils to women
candidates (in ) resulting in the cooption of , women and the election
of around fifty female councillors by . Working men councillors were rare
before the end of the s, but by many towns had a handful of mostly
union men, associated with the Liberal or Conservative parties.
45
This changed
in the early Edwardian period as Labour made noteworthy gains, especially in
east and south London, West Yorkshire and Scotland, and though this rise was
piecemeal and erratic, Keith Laybourn has estimated that there were around
Labour borough councillors (out of ,) by .
46
The years following the First World War witnessed a major transformation in
the composition of elected representatives. As Labour broke through, the
number of working-class representatives grew substantially, whilst there was a
sharp fall in the participation of professionals from the early s and economic
The changing functions of urban government
43
Hennock, ‘Compositions of borough councils’, p. ; A. Briggs, Victorian Cities (London, ),
p. ; J. Garrard, ‘Urban elites, –: the rule and decline of a new squirearchy?’, Albion,
(), ; H. E. Meller, Leisure and the Changing City, – (London, ), p. ; P.
Jones, ‘The recruitment of office holders in Leicester, –’, Transactions Leicestershire
Archaeological and Historical Society, (/), –; W. Miller, ‘Politics in the Scottish city,
–’, in G. Gordon, ed., Perspectives of the Scottish City (Aberdeen, ), p. .
44
M. J. Daunton, Coal Metropolis (Leicester, ), pp. –; Newton, ‘Exeter’, pp. –;
Hennock, ‘Compositions of borough councils’, pp. – and .
45
Jones, ‘Office holders’, –; Meller, Leisure and the Changing City, p. ; Daunton, Coal
Metropolis, pp. –; Hennock, ‘Compositions of borough councils’, p. ; Jones, Borough
Politics, p. ; P. Hollis, ‘Women in council: separate spheres, public space’, in J. Rendall, ed.,
Equal or Different? (Oxford, ), pp. – esp. n. .
46
C. Cook, ‘Labour and the downfall of the Liberal party, –’, in A. Sked and C. Cook,
eds., Crisis and Controversy (London, ), pp. –; Miller, ‘Politics in the Scottish city’, p. ;
G. L. Bernstein, ‘Liberalism and the progressive alliance in the constituencies, –: three
case studies’, HJ, (), –; K. Laybourn, ‘The rise of Labour and the decline of
Liberalism: the state of the debate’, History, (), .
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leaders from around , leading to greater influence for small businessmen,
shopkeepers and increasingly women and middle-ranking white-collar
workers.
47
But it was the immediate aftermath of the Second World War which
signalled the real break with the Victorian council, as Labour swept to power
across the country, ousting hundreds of old-style councillors. The municipal
governors of the s were much more likely to be workers, non-proprietor-
ial managers, women and the retired than professionals or owner-managers,
with shopkeepers alone providing continuity with the Victorian council
chamber.
Few historians have questioned the causes of the changing status of munici-
pal government, most accepting that economic and social leaders withdrew vol-
untarily from municipal government, choosing instead to live semi-detached
lives in outer suburbs where they might mix socially and politically with the
county elite. Withdrawal is usually seen as the result of changes in the structure
of the firm, a desire to separate themselves socially and physically from the cities
they helped to form, movement on to a regional or national political and eco-
nomic stage, and/or as a reaction to challenges to their ‘natural’ authority by
lower social groups.
48
In many cases, especially amongst second-generation
urban economic leaders like the Reading Palmers, or the Middlesbrough iron-
masters, withdrawal was voluntary,
49
but for many it was not. For the absence of
members of certain groups on the council did not mean they were not trying to
get there, a point noted by Derek Fraser in relation to the large number of unsuc-
cessful professional candidates for Leeds town council in the s.
50
Problems
also arise with the classification of individuals, especially when distinguishing
between large and small employers, and in assigning individuals with multiple
interests to a single category. Thus the tendency to lump all retailers together as
a single petit bourgeois group creates problems understanding the structure and
nature of local politics, for changes in retailing, especially the department store
and the multiple chain, produced shopkeepers of immense political, economic
and social power. Although a good many shopkeepers were of limited economic
means, they were balanced by men like Duckworth in Rochdale, or the
Chamberlins who, in addition to owning a Norwich department store, ran a
clothing firm and held directorships of major London stores.
This also helps to illustrate a third significant caveat to discussions of the
Barry M. Doyle
47
Jones, ‘Office holders’, pp. –; Jones, Borough Politics, p. .
48
See for example R. H. Trainor, ‘Urban elites in Victorian Britain’, UHY (), –; Garrard,
‘Urban elites’; P. Joyce, Work, Society and Politics (Brighton, ); M. Savage, The Dynamics of
Working-Class Politics (Cambridge, ). For the contrary position see Doyle, ‘Structure of elite
power’.
49
S. Yeo, Religion and Voluntary Organisations in Crisis, – (London, ); Briggs, Victorian
Cities, pp. –; B. M. Doyle, ‘Urban Liberalism and the “Lost Generation”: politics and middle
class culture in Norwich, –’, HJ, (), .
50
Fraser, Urban Politics, p. . See also Doyle, ‘Structure of elite power’, –.
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changing social status of council members, the problem of assigning individu-
als, especially lawyers or accountants, to a single category. Sir A. K. Rollitt of
Hull, a lawyer and shipowner, managed to combine vice-presidency of the Law
Society with presidency of the Associated Chambers of Commerce of the UK
and the Municipal Corporations Association, whilst younger members of the
Bristol Frys and Norwich Jewsons diversified into the professions yet continued
to hold significant business interests within the family firm and beyond.
51
Thus,
to see the decline of manufacturers and merchants as necessarily leading to the
decline of large-scale business interests on the council is overly pessimistic. In fact
this process frequently reflected the greater diversity of the local economy, as
large-scale retailing and an increasing number and diversity of professionals
emerged to service the needs of maturing urban environments, with the latter
often serving a pivotal role between manufacturing, commerce and retailing.
Even the appearance of women and managers did not necessarily herald the end
of social leadership on the council, as many female councillors were from prom-
inent families – such as the Norwich Colmans – whilst many local managers had
considerable power at least until the Second World War.
(iv)
Corporation reform injected party politics into municipal elections from the
very start,
52
although until at least the s party programmes were rare and
party discipline in the council chamber almost non-existent. This first round of
elections, fought between Liberal reformist candidates and old corporation
Tories, resulted in a Liberal landslide, with forty-plus majorities in Leeds,
Liverpool and Leicester. The old guard was even ousted in Exeter and
Colchester, though Nottingham, with a pre-reform Whig elite, produced a
much closer contest, whilst Tories in Bristol actually held on to control. Liberals
continued to perform well in newly incorporated boroughs, but elsewhere the
Conservatives fought back, recovering control of Exeter, Colchester and
Liverpool and making impressive gains in Leeds and Nottingham.
53
By the later
s, however, municipal politics in most places had settled into inactive one
party rule, and as party conflict eased, the number of contested elections
declined so that by the s party battles were rare, with council composition
The changing functions of urban government
51
E. H. H. Green, The Crisis of Conservatism: The Politics, Economics and Ideology of the British
Conservative Party, – (pb. edn, London, ), p. ; Meller, Leisure and the Changing City,
pp. –; Doyle, ‘Urban Liberalism’, –.
52
J. A. Phillips, ‘Unintended consequences: parliamentary blueprints in the hands of provincial
builders’, in D. Dean and C. Jones, eds., Parliament and Locality – (Edinburgh, ), pp.
–.
53
Fraser, Urban Politics, pp. –, and ; Fraser, Power and Authority, pp. , –, ;
Newton, ‘Exeter’, p. ; D. Cannadine, ‘The transformation of civic ritual in modern Britain:
the Colchester oyster feast’, P&P, (), .
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
and policy most likely to change as a result of internal party divisions, as in
Birmingham in the s.
54
Urban politics was revived from the late s by the extension of the fran-
chise, secret ballot and development of local political organisations. Incumbents,
whether Tories in Liverpool and Cardiff, Liberals in Leeds or economists in
Birmingham, faced concerted assaults from the opposition, leading to new
administrations in Cardiff and Birmingham.
55
But from the late s, the cul-
tural politics of came under pressure from class and ideology as the Liberal
Unionist split, the creation of the county boroughs and the formation of the
Independent Labour party (ILP) in transformed urban politics. In particu-
lar, the ILP saw control of the town hall as the best way to improve the lives of
working-class people through a programme of municipal socialism, and as a
building block for victory in national politics. Candidates began to appear in
places like Leeds in –, but although they secured some seats in Bradford,
Bristol and Glasgow and control of West Ham in , in most cases, including
the LCC, the ILP breakthrough had to await the new century.
56
Labour weakness on the LCC was accounted for, in part, by the unique nature
of London politics, where the Progressives, encompassing ‘all shades of Liberal,
from staid Liberal Unionist to Fabian “permeator”’ faced the conservative
Moderates for control of the new body. The Progressives developed a fairly
coherent policy of municipal socialism, making them a truly municipal party
able to secure substantial majorities at most of the elections between and
.
57
But in the Moderates captured the LCC in a remarkable turn-
around,
58
presaging a fundamental shift in urban leadership as the Liberal hege-
mony was destroyed all across Britain. Following the Education Act the
Liberals had captured control of places like Sheffield and Exeter,
59
but this was
municipal Liberalism’s swansong as a growing Labour challenge and an impres-
sive Conservative recovery in – saw them routed in Leeds, Sheffield,
Bradford and Nottingham. And despite a fightback between and
municipal Liberalism suffered further severe losses to left and right in November
Barry M. Doyle
54
Fraser, Urban Politics, p. ; Miller, ‘Politics in the Scottish city’, p. ; Hennock, ‘Compositions
of borough councils’, –.
55
Daunton, Coal Metropolis, p. ; Hennock, ‘Compositions of borough councils’, pp. –;
Fraser, Urban Politics, pp. and .
56
T. Woodhouse, ‘The working class’, in D. Fraser, ed., A History of Modern Leeds (Manchester,
), p. ; Meller, Leisure and the Changing City, p. ; Miller, ‘Politics in the Scottish city’, p.
; Cook, ‘Downfall’, p. .
57
K. Young, Local Politics and the Rise of Party (Leicester, ), p. ; Redlich and Hirst, English
Local Government, , p. ; S. Pennybacker, ‘“The millennium by return of post”: reconsidering
London progressivism, –’, in D. Feldman and G. Stedman Jones, eds., Metropolis London
(London, ), pp. –.
58
Young, Rise of Party, p. .
59
H. Mathers, ‘The city of Sheffield, –’, in C. Binfield et al., eds., The History of the City
of Sheffield, –, vol. (Sheffield, ), p. ; Newton, ‘Exeter’, p. .
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
.
60
Considerable disagreement surrounds the meaning of these results,
Labour optimists pointing to the growing number of Labour councillors espe-
cially the impressive performance of , and the development of anti-social-
ist pacts in places like Bradford, as evidence of Liberal collapse.
61
However,
others, whilst accepting Labour advances in Leeds or Bradford, emphasise their
weak performance in cities like Birmingham, Sheffield and Liverpool, and the
limited scope of most anti-socialist pacts.
62
In fact, the real beneficiary of Liberal
weakness in the Edwardian period was the Conservative party which, by a com-
bination of skilful propaganda, protest votes and anti-Tory division, captured the
lion’s share of borough government for the first time since the s.
63
The election of , however, did herald a major transformation in munic-
ipal politics, as Liberal disarray and a proliferation of candidates, including rate-
payers and ex-servicemen, helped Labour record massive gains, some in the most
improbable of places. In the metropolitan boroughs, Labour’s tally of council-
lors grew twelvefold to , the party taking control of twelve boroughs over-
night as Municipal Reform and Progressive representation almost halved.
64
In
the provinces Labour advance was equally impressive, consolidating their posi-
tion in Bradford and Leeds, recording remarkable gains in previously barren ter-
ritory, such as Tory Birmingham (nineteen gains) and Liverpool (eleven), and
winning their first ever representation in places like Dudley and Cardiff.
65
The
response to Labour’s breakthrough was a wave of anti-socialist agreements,
including new parties as in Sheffield and Edinburgh, and a complete end to
hostilities between the older parties in many other places. These agreements
stemmed the Labour flood in and pushed the socialists back in , espe-
cially in the big cities, like Liverpool and London, where their metropolitan
borough representation was halved in . Labour’s only success was in
Glasgow in , when a municipal general election saw them win per cent
The changing functions of urban government
60
Cook, ‘Downfall’.
61
R. McKibbin, The Evolution of the Labour Party, – (Oxford, ), esp. p. ; M. G. Sheppard
and J. L. Halstead, ‘Labour’s municipal election performance in provincial England and Wales,
–’, Bulletin of the Society for the Study of Labour History, (), –; Laybourn, ‘State
of the debate’, and ; K. Laybourn and J. Reynolds, Liberalism and the Rise of Labour,
– (London, ), pp. –.
62
Cook, ‘Downfall’, p. ; Bernstein, ‘Liberalism and the progressive alliance’, –; D. Tanner,
‘Elections, statistics, and the rise of the Labour party, –’, HJ, (), –; T.
Adams, ‘Labour and the First World War: economy, politics and the erosion of local peculiarity?’,
Journal of Regional and Local Studies, (), ; B. M. Doyle, ‘A conflict of interests? The local
and national dimensions of middle class Liberalism, –’, in Dean and Jones, eds.,
Parliament and Locality, esp. pp. –.
63
Young, Rise of Party, pp. –; J. Lawrence, ‘Class and gender in the making of urban Toryism,
–’, English Historical Review, (), –.
64
Young, Rise of Party, p. ; C. Cook, The Age of Alignment (London and Basingstoke, ), p. ;
Adams, ‘Labour and the First World War’, .
65
Cook, Alignment, p. ; Daunton, Coal Metropolis, p. .
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