The Urban History Group: Elites in Urban History

Edinburgh, 30/31 March, 1995

Posted by: Barry Doyle, Department of Modern History, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, KY16 9AL, Scotland. bmd@st-andrews.ac.uk

The revived Urban History Group held its third conference in Edinburgh on the theme of Elites in Urban History, with speakers addressing a variety of subjects, localities and time periods. The programme consisted of ten papers, an evening lecture and a plenery panel discussion on the current state of, and future for, the study of elites in urban history. The ten papers were grouped into three sessions which were broadly concerned with elite power, elite culture and mapping elites. Although a variety of approaches were adopted, seven of the papers were concerned with British elites and three with continental Europe; eight concentrated on the nineteenth century, with some overlap into the early twentieth century; and most addressed elites at the level of the locality, with only one attempting international comparison. As might be expected, London featured prominently, although work was also presented on Paris, Budapest, Liverpool, Bristol and Norwich. The conference closed with a discussion about the future of the Urban History Group, and the establishment of a working party to produce a framework document.

The conference opened with a session on elite power. John Garrad (Salford Univ.) introduced the conference with a paper on Urban elites 1850-1914: the rule and decline of a new aristocracy, which concentrated on the period up to 1890 and posited the idea of an 'urban squirearchy'. Although he did not develop his ideas beyond 1890 - often seen as the turning point in elite power - he did suggest that the decline may not have been as precipitous as has been suggested and in the questions emphasised the role of women in continuing elite power into the early twentieth century. Barry Doyle (St Andrews Univ) did attempt to bring the story forward into the twentieth century in his paper on the structure of elite power in Norwich, 1900-35, which investigated elite networks in the city, especially marriage patterns, freemasonry and employers organisations. Challenging the recent thesis of Mike Savage (Urban History 1993) that the middle class became more unified and surrendered the urban to the working class in the years after 1890, Doyle suggested that the evidence from social and economic networks, charities and party politics all showed continuing divisions within the elite (mostly determined by religion) and an enduring commitment to urban society and politics well into the 1930s.

The third paper in the session came from Gabor Gyani of the Academy of Historical Sciences in Budapest, and discussed the structure and mobility of Hungary's urban elites in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He highlighted the existence of three geographical centres for the country's elite - market towns, Budapest, and the industrial towns of the north - illustrated the ways in which the law and property supported elite power; and how the metropolis came to dominate the whole country with the spread of national companies and a national bureaucracy. Finally Peter Claus (Open Univ.) presented a paper on civic culture and radical politics in the City of London in the years following the Chartist demonstrations of 1848. In particular, he emphasised the way in which a radical view of the City as a 'demos' was defeated by a more restrictive view of power centred on property owners and ratepayers. The various discussions drew out a number of common themes and problems, in particular the relationship between the urban space and surrounding interests; the use urban elites made, or did not make, of the law in both discourse and action; the place of women; the experience of large urban areas and small towns; and differing experiences of urban areas dominated by one leading figure or a wider urban elite.

Session 2 explored urban and suburban culture. Katherine Hall (Edge Hill College, Liverpool) gave an intelligent paper on Liverpool's elite and the Liverpool Museum, which combined analysis of the structure of the city's elite with an investigation of the meaning they wished to convey in their museum. Following a discussion of the economic, social and political background of the museum committee in the second half of the 19th century, she looked at who gave artifacts, illustrating the dominance of academics and imperial interests, both commercial and military. By the later 19th century, under the control of a professional curator, the museum was reconstructed to display a coherent evolutionary narrative which emphasised the racial superiority of Europeans and the commercial importance of Liverpool as the trading centre of the Empire. In the course of this transformation, those who ran the museum became less concerned with the behaviour of those attending and more interested in conveying messages which justified their economic, social and political power at home and abroad. Pedro Lorento (Leicester Univ.) developed the theme of justifying political power through culture in an enthusiastic paper on the creation of museums of modern art in 19th century Europe. His basic thesis was that the rulers of nineteenth century Europe utilised these new museums to legitimate their political power. Thus, the restored Louis XVIII of France opened his house to the public as a museum, Victor Emmanuel of Piedmont planted museums as he expanded his control over Italy, whilst King Ludwig of Bavaria built a museum of modern art in the 1860s to assert his independence from Prussia. Conversely, the lack of political instability in Britain meant museums of modern art became the responsibility of individuals such as Tate. The ensuing discussion did highlight the importance of modern art in the museums of provincial Britain, especially Manchester.

The final paper in the session, from Isabelle Mazieres (Universite des sciences humaines de Strasbourg) explored the development of suburbs around Paris in the course of the nineteenth century, illustrating the slow and uneven development of suburbanisation and the problems inherent in the creation of private estates in a period of rapid social and economic change. Central to the uneven nature of Parisian suburbanisation prior to the 1870s was the partial nature of suburban life - for many the new estates were holiday homes used only in the summer - as a result facilities were poor and properties and estates prone to decay in the winter. As the century progressed many of the early estates succumbed to infilling or were invaded by industry. Increasingly, the middle class concentrated their suburbs to the SW of Paris and took up permanent residence - a move faciltated by improved transport. This led to demands for more and better facilities, policing and control as residents abandoned their rugged individualism for collective control through local government. This paper provided interesting contrasts with the British and US experience - especially the issues of partial residence and the creation of early garden suburbs based on the French axial style of the 18th century.

In the evening those attending received an interesting insight into the problems involved in managing change and conservation in an historic city centre. Jim Johnson, Chief Executive of the Edinburgh Old Town Renewal Trust, gave an account of the history of South Bridge in Edinburgh from its origins in the urban planning associated with Robert Adam and the Old College of the University up to the present day. This was linked to an often amusing survey of the problems associated with the issues faced by the trust as it tries to fulfil its remit of encouraging a dynamic and active city centre developed in a way which respects its history. This was a fine piece of 'applied' urban history..

The third academic session was concerned predominantly with the quantitative analysis of elites, in particular the mapping of wealth and the use of computers in urban history. Craig Spence of the Centre for Metropolitan History at the University of London and Peter Atkins of Durham Univ. both addressed the spatial distribution of London's elite, Spence in the years following the Great Fire of 1666 and Atkins for the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Spence employed a variety of maps to illustrate the changing residential patterns of the capital's aristocracy, gentry and mercantile elite in a period of rapid change. Utilising _Boyle's Court Guide_, Atkins performed a very similar function, concentrating on aristocratic residence in the West End. In the course of his paper he emphasised the enduring position of Mayfair at the hub of London society and, in a slightly disconnected section, discussed the battle to remove the gates and bars from the capital - most of which were not located in the main area of elite residence.

The third paper in this session was a joint presentation by Peter Wardley and Spencer Jordan from the Bristol Historical Databases Project at the Univ. of West of England, Bristol. Wardley described the work of the Project which has produced a number of databases on Bristol, most of which are available for purchase at very reasonable cost. These include a Bibliography of Bristol and Bath, two commercial directories from the 1790s, the Bristol Poll Book of 1722, and the list of members of the Society of Merchant Venturers to 1972. Ongoing projects include an attempt to make machine readable and decode the voluminous 1937 Social Survey of Bristol (for a description of this work see a recent article in _History and Computing_), the creation of a database handlist for the Port of Bristol Archive, and a highly innovative project on Bristol Obituaries, 1871-1921. This latter project was the subject of Spencer Jordan's presentation. He explained that the full text of over 350 obituaries published in the _Western Daily Press_ between 1871-1921 had been entered into a database in a form which allowed for multiple textual analysis. After briefly highlighting the types of individuals warranting obituaries (the majority of whom were political figures), he illustrated the way in which the information could be searched to deconstruct the obituaries. What features of elite behaviour were important to the obituarists and their readers? What words and phrases were most commonly used? What characteristics were worthy of note? The results were quite surprising - for although civic duty and public work were frequently emphasised, both benevolence and philanthropy were low on the list of priorities, seemingly for both public figures and their obituarists. The project publishes a newsletter which includes information on current work and the available databases - for more information e-mail s-jordan@uwe.ac.uk or p-wardle@uwe.ac.uk.

The conference concluded with a panel session on Elites and the study of urban history. Opening the panel, Rick Trainor (Glasgow Univ.) noted that those asked to comment on the current state of a discipline were usually either optimistic to the point of complacency or pessimistic to the point of despair. He felt that the proceeding of the conference called for cautious optimism, with the study of the urban elite clearly developing in some important and fruitful new areas. His optimism was tempered by the narrow temporal and geographical focus of much of the work and in particular the emphasis on the mid to late nineteenth century English town. He urged research which broke this chronological barrier - moving forward into the twentieth century and back into the eighteenth, or which compared urban spaces at different points in time. Similarly, he emphasised the need for intra-national and international comparison, with attempts to highlight links between urban elites (political, social, economic); contrast the experience of elites in a variety of localities; and draw out common themes and diverse experiences across national boundaries. Drawing on his own research, John Phillips (Univ. California, Riverside), used his time to pose a question for future research: how did urban elites cope with the dominance of party in local politics in the years after the passing of the 1832 Reform Act and the 1835 Municipal Coroporations Act? Simon Gunn (Leeds Metropolitan Univ.), returned to Trainor's optimism/pessimism paradigm, placing himself on the side of the qualified pessimists. He was disappointed by the rather mechanistic and impersonal nature of much of the work presented, and called for a new type of elite history which moved beyond structure to look at meaning. In particular, how did the urban bourgeoisie educate themselves and transmit their values to the rest of urban society? What was the place of middle class art, music and ritual in urban society? What messages did it convey about the bourgeoisie and how successful were they in getting these values adopted by the middle class as a whole? The discussion amplified many of the points made by the speakers, especially those relating to the narrow Anglo-centric focus of much of the work.

Before bring proceedings to a close, Bob Morris, conference organiser, made some suggestions about the future of the Urban History Group. The three conferences to date had been organised on an ad hoc basis and he felt that their obvious popularity and the vibrant nature of the work being done, merited the structuring of the Group on a more formal basis. As a result, a working party was to be formed to discuss structure and meaning. Should a society be formed? If so what would its relationship be with other groups such as Early Modern Towns, and the Urban History Centre at Leicester? Should there be a subscription and if so what for? Where and when should meetings be held? Points from the floor emphasised the need for a representative body to make submissions to funding councils and bodies involved in Research Assessment and Teaching Quality Assessment; the need for an identity for urban historians working in Britain and urban historians of Britian; and a group to work with urban history associations world wide, to promote international collaboration. It was agreed that the conference should continue to meet at the same time as the Economic History Society. Bob Morris would welcome comments and suggestions from interested parties, and can be contacted by e-mail at rjmorris@edinburgh.ac.uk

[Thanks to Bob Morris for comments on the report. BMD]

Barry Doyle
Department of Modern History
University of St Andrews
St Andrews
KY16 9AL
Scotland

bmd@st-andrews.ac.uk

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