THE EMERGENCE OF SUPERVISORY EEITES IX THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY IN \\TDNES

F.J. mi Hams

Recent interest in changes in labour markets during the industrial revolution has highlighted the emergence of new occupations. Most notable have been studies by John Foster, Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution. E. P. Thomp­ son, The Making of the English H'orking Class, Eric Hobsbawm, Labouring Men and Worlds of Labour and F. M. L. Thompson, The Rise of Respectable Society. Controversy flourishes over how far a working-class consciousness existed before 1851.' Many historians acknowledge that forces acting upon the working classes in the last half of the nineteenth century were very different from those in the first. 2 Grievances felt in 1820 generated a different concept of identity and solidarity from those felt in 1880. Among the factors which caused these shifts of identity, labour historians have identified emerging managerial and administrative groups which, in effect, arbitrated between factory owner and labour force, developing into a 'supervisory elite' in the latter half of the nineteenth century. As early as 1833, John Wade was writing his History oj the Middle and H'orking Classes and Cobbctt wrote in 1830, 'we see at last then the middle class uniting with the working classes'. 3 \Vhile Pollard's pioneering work on management history sets an agenda for more detailed studies of individual industries, there seems to have been an enthusiasm for historians to explore structures of supervisory groups which emerged as indus­ tries expanded after 1850.4 National trends in managerial 290 F.J. ll'il/iams

growth have been identified elsewhere. David Landes, for instance, in his Unbound Prometheus explains the emergence of 'predatory' management which 'tried to make the worker keep up with his machine'.' H. Braverman explains man­ agement growth in Marxist terms and identifies supervisory strategies of 'knowledge to control each step of the labour process and its mode of execution'/' Research carried out by K. C. Philips and G. Stedman Jones lias examined the ways that emergent groups described themselves and explored the usage of such terms as 'class', 'elite', 'manager', and 'supervisor' at the time.' More detailed work on these ascendant supervisory groups has been carried out by historians like Francois Crouzet on the origins of entre­ preneurial leadership, Charlotte Erickson on the steel industry, and D. C. Coleman and Christine MacLeod on commerical and business history.8 Crouzet's work, in parti­ cular, confirms a growing belief that entrepreneurs who undertook large-scale industrial development between 1780 and 1880 often came from a Dissenting middle class with commercial contacts rather than from upper or lower classes. Charlotte Erickson points out that claims about origins of entrepreneurs can only focus on success, a success which generated business histories, biographies and archive material which all reflect successful progress. What is available for historical analysis, she claims, profoundly affects methodology and any conclusions drawn. Erickson believes that such research can hardly represent those unsuccessful industrialists whose names merely appear in dockets of bankruptcy courts, but whose energy and enter­ prise should contribute to an overall perspective of indus­ trial organization. Recent research, while examining the importance of managerial organization, offers little in terms of social structures of supervisory elites. Attempts to locate supervisory groups in terms of occupational mobility and geographical location in communities are few and far between. This paper will explore managerial elites in the chemical industry in before 1900 as a response to calls for greater clarification of occupational and social structures of supervisory groups. 9 It will examine the emergence of clerks, foremen and managers from 1847 when chemical l\'idnes (.'/lemica/ Industry Supervisors 291 factories first arrived, and trace their development as older, traditional crafts declined. P. L. Payne in his British Entre- preneurship in the Nineteenth Century claims that tracing these supervisory structures in industrial 'colonies' needs to be a major topic of scrutiny for labour historians. 1 "

II

In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith wrote;

In many great works almost the whole labour of this kind is committed to some principal clerk. His wages properly express the value of his labour of inspection and direction."

The prerequisites of a factory manager were recognized early on. In 1816, the elder Robert Peel commented to a parliamentary enquiry

It is impossible for a mill at any distance to be managed unless it is under the direction of a partner or superintendent who has an interest in the success ol the business.'"'

Reliability and trustworthiness were identified in the industrial revolution as necessary managerial attributes. Supervisory groups certainly existed before 1850, but it was the Limited Liability Act of 1862 which enabled managers to handle capital for factory owners, offering them new organizational and financial authority. 13 In 1865 Professor Fawcett remarked

In a joint stock company, it all depends upon the manager. Men can rarely be found who are as careful with other people's property as they would be their own. The manager of a company may do nothing which is in the slightest degree dishonest"

The correspondent for the British Almanac in 1865 wrote about limited liability

a committee must manage what they don't understand or must be dependent on the skills and honesty and energy of a manager employed by them 1 ' 292 F.J. mi Hams

A manager had to have the single-mindedness of a factory owner, the shrewdness of an investor, and the honesty of a bank clerk. His role demanded a delegation of responsi­ bility, an organization of the workforce, and an establishing of targets. G. B. Shaw, writing for the Fabian Society, said that

managers must be drawn from the classes which enjoy education and social culture; and their price, rapidly as it is falling with the spread of education and consequent growth of intellectual prole­ tariat, is still high. It is true that a very able manager can now be obtained for about £800 a year ... a labourer receives less than £50, and that the demand for labourers is necessarily vast in proportion to the demand for able managers.' 6

Relationships between master and servant were defined clearly for the next forty years by the law of 1823 whereby men were fined or disciplined for breach of contract. 1 ' After 1862, the need to finance widening markets for British goods and the diversification of trades as methods of production changed meant that factory owners could no longer remain in control of manufacturing processes, and found it necessary to delegate administrative and organiza­ tional tasks. 18 Beswick in An Industrialist's Journey explains how in the chemical industry, like in many others, owners could at first know process, manpower and machinery. As processes became more complex, they could no longer have such an overview of their work-force. New machinery demanded a technical expertise which managers did not possess. In chemical factories, the role of manager after the mid 1860s was to transform factory organization and a contemporary report indicates that the new responsibilities were

to take change of all renewals of company plant; to keep account of all goods delivered to the works and sent away from the works; to take the state of all the customer's meters and keep them in good order; and generally, to protect the interests of the company 1 '1

Managers clearly needed a full knowledge of processes, funding and clientele for day-to-day running of the business. Recruitment into supervisory groups in the chemical (1 idnes Chemical Industry Supervisors 293 industry has scarcely been researched by historians. 20 Much of our information comes from autobiographies and con­ temporary accounts with little analysis of economic trends and social effects. 21 A tradition in commerce of upward mobility from office boy to clerk, assistant manager and finally to managing director has been identified by a pre­ vious generation of social historians. 22 Vet more recent researchers, such as J. H. Fox in his study of the entre­ preneur in and L. H. Jenks in his Early Phases of Scientific Management, maintain that only local small-scale research can refute or verify a national picture based on generalizations over three or four generations. 23 Table 1 (over) illustrates a growth in skills demanded by the chemical industry and corresponding decline in nearly all old craft industries. The chemical labourer figure is added to illustrate growth in the work-force. Origins of managers in chemical factories can be identi­ fied from census returns for 1851, 1861, 1871, and 1881. The returns are very accurate for Widnes, as can be ascertained by large numbers of cross-check markings, absence of double entries and accurate summary tables at the end of each census district. 21 Relationships between manager and work-force can be determined by a variety of methodologies and geographical analysis reveals the likelihood of emergent groups living in proximity to the labourer. Census analysis reveals how far managerial groups were marrying into local families, the social structure of the emerging family and occupational mobility of children. Furthermore, this article will examine how far promotion into these supervisory elites was divisive in that it cut a man off from his background. 26 A manager living out of town, marrying outside the work­ force and having no interest in local events would indicate minimal identification with the town. On the other hand, if he married locally, lived near the factory, sent his children to local schools and showed himself eager to be elected on to local committees, his commitment was more evident. Such commitment was shown by Henry Deacon, factory owner and local benefactor, who in his early days had trained under Faraday and Bunscn. 2 ' He started out as a manager in Hutchinson's works in Widnes in 1851, then established his own firm nearbv. He lived in Widnes for most of his life 294 / : /. \\'il limns

TABLE 1 The labour force in Widnes by socio-economic grouping, 1851 and 1861

SEC Heads oj households Heads of households in 1851 in 1861

I doctors 1 3

II manufacturers 3 4 managers 0 6

Ilia shopkeepers 44 55 engineers 3 19 clerks 0 12 cashiers, weighers, etc 0 11

Illb watchmakers 60 24 canvas weavers 49 41 filemakers 15 23 tailors 10 12 foremen 2 9 joiners 7 34 bricklayers 7 17 coopers 4 6 IV watermen 43 48 farm workers 73 50 dock labourers, etc. 18 8

V chemical labourers 70 233

Source: Census returns for Widnes, 1851 and 1861.

and sat on many committees. Yet there was considerable lack of uniformity in the management of chemical factories Hidnes Chemical Industry Supervisors 295 until in 1890 the United Alkali Company emerged, based on the Lcblanc process. John Brock, the new manager stated

In the . . . hardly any two works could be compared with respect to the system of manufacture or keeping accounts, costs and conducting commercial operations. Now they are brought into line.""

Ill

The role of clerks in Victorian society has been closely examined.29 Janet Roebuck comments that their numbers grew as the size of the factory grew. 30 Gradual bureaucrat- ization of industry is one of the most distinctive features of industrial organization. For children of artisans' families, it was seen as a way into the middle classes, but in Widnes, foremen's children tended to become skilled tradesmen. Census returns provide ample evidence for these trends while children of foremen remained at home. Once they left, it is harder to trace them except by the occupational trends represented on the marriage returns. Families of local, skilled artisans generally retained their skill, while the old crafts of watch, file and canvas making which pre-date the arrival of chemicals, provided clerks for new industries. This is explained by old crafts, employing a dozen men in a small workshop, generating administrative and commercial skills needed for the chemical works. This is the only area of economic activity where old and new industries actually related to one another. Clearly, from evidence in census returns, traditional craft industries offered nothing in terms of manual skill. Chemical factories were notoriously slow in generating a newly skilled labour force, and relied on existing artisans to 'commute' from St Helens. 31 Skill levels in the chemical industry can be seen in table 2. The provenance of clerks and their access to occupational mobil­ ity makes them an important index for measuring fluidity of upward progress. 32 Pollard has suggested that there was a tendency for book keeping to take precedence over tech­ nology in gaining promotion, while in the Select Committee on Manufactures of 1833, evidence suggested that clerks 296 / '../ ll'illiams

TABLE 2 The growth of supervisory elites in IVidnes, 1861-81

Xiimber Average age Locally born

Administrators clerks 1861 12 27 1881 44 31 cashiers, weighers, time- 1861 11 40 keepers 1881 31

Overseers foremen 1861 9 38 1 1881 75 40 5

Managers 1861 6 37 0 1881 27 38 3

Source: Census returns for \\idnes. 1861 and 1881.

needed 'moderate' education. 15 A study of clerks noted how their great heterogeneity was also very hierarchi­ cal: the highest paid were in banking and insurance, declin­ ing through central government, local government, industry and commerce, and finally down to railway clerks in the lowest group.'' How far education was a factor in upward mobility is difficult to ascertain. VV. B. Stephens suggests that identi­ fying the access to education which new occupations enjoyed remains a major task of the local historian in this period. j) The Grammar School in the town was offering mostly classical education until after 1865 and the Roman Catholic Academy seems to have been offering a more commercial curriculum. 36 The first School Board census in 1874 revealed that voluntary agencies provided only 3,475 places for 5,217 children of school age. 31' VVidnes also had a Mechanics Institute in the dock area from 1853, but it was H'idnes Chemical Industry Supervisors 297 not until after 1872 that Science and Art classes offered what one would call 'clerical training'. J/ It is interesting to note that the first concerted attempts at chemical training for technological and scientific development came from Sheridan Muspratt, son of James Muspratt, the Widnes chemical pioneer. Sheridan established Liverpool Chemical College in 1848. Norman Tate, a German-trained chemist who worked in the earliest chemical factory in the town, established Liverpool College of Science and Technology between 1870 and 1873. 38 F. G. Crompton and Michael Sanderson have showed how access to elementary education in the 1850s generated upward mobility a decade later.39 Tracing the origins and educational experiences of every clerk who came to Widnes would be a task beyond the scope of this paper. What we can say from the census returns is that locally-born clerks from families of traditional artisans bridged the gap between pre-industrial craft industries and the new chemical works. Until 1871 few locally-born men were likely to be found working in the new alkali factories. Numbers of sons entering their father's trades of watch and file making declined after 1851 owing to foreign tariffs and increased international competition. Census returns show that some of their children became railway and dock workers. Few became skilled either in or outside the chemical works. Traditional craft workers and farmers had little contact with new industries except through the posi­ tion of clerk. W. B. Stephens in his celebrated Education, Literacy and Society. 1830-70 (1987) shows how regional and national trends are often refuted by the local picture. Yet what seems to emerge from south Lancashire supports the view that childhood labour was likely to lead to lower educational standards, and in Widnes there was plenty of work for children. 40 Answers probably lie outside the field of formal school­ ing, in that children with fathers in other occupations and who were equally likely to attend school, are not found among clerks. The answer lies in the skills acquired in small family businesses in the north of the town. John Foster's method of tracing the growth of class consciousness through marriage returns shows a fairly consistent pattern in Wid­ nes.4 ' Clerks tended to marry into families involved with 298 F.J. Ill I Hams retail trade or skill in the chemical works. None married into either unskilled families or traditional craft industries in Church of England marriages between 1850 and 1880, Details on nonconformist and Catholic marriages are not available from the Public Registry office. This seriously affects the findings since two major immigrant groups remain outside this study: the Irish and the Dissenters who comprised a considerable proportion of the work-force after 1851. An insight into the social origins of clerks in the chemical industry can be gained by examining paternal occupations if the clerk was living at home, which was the case for some twenty clerks in 1881. Recruitment patterns show how most (thirteen) came from socio-economic group Ilia (shop­ keepers, engineers, and clerks); five came from skilled families in socio-economic group Illb; and two came from group IV. Geographically, clerks separated themselves from the work-force and, as heads of households, created con­ trasting settlement patterns from skilled and semi-skilled families. Few clerks resided in industrial areas of the town, except younger clerks who lived at home. Later, they would marry and move to the more rural districts of Appleton and Upton where they established families. It is interesting to speculate how far titles such as 'shipping clerk', 'railway clerk', and 'bank's clerk', which designate those in the industrial belt, represent the census enumerators' effici­ ency. By contrast, those living in Appleton and Upton were designated simply as 'clerks'. Geographical movement of clerks out to rural areas of Upton and Appleton indicates a progression through a career.

IV

Hobsbawm's view that foremen were recruited from skilled and semi-skilled trades seemed to hold good for the chemical industry.43

A foreman was a firm's man. He could go into the factory and do any job competently. Managers, on the other hand, always had accountancy training.41 \\idnes Chemical Industry Supervisors 299

The census shows that foremen were older than clerks, the average foreman's age being in the late thirties. Like other members of the supervisory elite, the foremen gradually separated themselves from the unskilled labourers and a convenient geographical methodology for calculating occupational status can illustrate this. The technique is known as social index scoring, in which each socio- economic group is allocated a numerical value, from six for professional down to one for unskilled labourer. By multi­ plying the household scores by the values attributed to them, and dividing the product by the number of families in the sample, a number is obtained which can be used for the purposes of socio-economic comparison. The number 3, for instance, is used to indicate the boundary between the lower and middle classes. A figure of 1 or 2 indicates an area of unskilled labourers. The neighbours of foremen show a change from 1.8 in 1861 to 2.56 in 1881, a shift sufficient to indicate a move towards a skilled neighbourhood. Impor­ tant evidence comes from school log books at the time, when headteachers bemoaned the absence of foremen's children w:ho could easily find work in factories and who were assured of permanent positions there later on.43 This in­ dicates that a closed shop was operating in terms of recruitment of labour and explains the fierce protection of skilled factory trades. Census returns show how the coop­ ering trade in Widnes, for instance, was entirely in Irish hands until well after 1881. Railway work, in a similar way, was controlled by locally-born English workers. Less easy to detect is protection which operated for new skills as chemical factories grew. While it is important to know that skills were passed from father to son, and jealously pro­ tected in the work-place, it is also crucial to understand how mechanisms of recruitment operated when industries expanded, demanding greater numbers than these protec­ tive families could provide. Early chemical manufacturers brought their foremen with them, daily by rail, from St Helens, some five miles away. 16 Foremen were quickly recruited from a local influx of labour, some from Ireland reflecting the need for Irish supervision of a largely Irish workforce. 4 ' In iron mould­ ing, another early industry in the district, foremen subcon- 300 F.J. Williams

tracted from employers and became 'under-gaffers' with power of hiring and firing. A series of reports on the proceedings of the Association of Foreman Iron Founders in the local press suggests they were very conscious of their own autonomy. Apart from making representation to manufacturers, the association ran a sickness scheme and burial club. With this degree of support and organization, foremen would enter the 'respectable' strata of society and migrate to neighbourhoods populated by the highly skilled. No evidence of subcontracting in chemical factories has survived and, apart from the famous report by the London Statistical Society in 1860, there is little reliable evidence about wage differentials. This report was eager to claim

that the low prices of provisions and clothing, together with the high rate of wages, and the facilities for education and mental culture now existing, have placed within the reach of the working classes more physical comforts and the means of obtaining more social and intellectual enjoyment than at any previous period.

Evidence shows that in watchmaking, an industry which dominated Widnes before chemicals, a foreman could earn very high wages at times. It was one of the most highly paid occupations in the region, but only while watchmaking boomed. Leaner years followed and witnessed an eventual demise of craft industries after 1875. Unfortunately, no evidence survives concerning wages of clerks and managers. What is striking about table 3 are contrasts between skilled and unskilled remuneration which clarify, in monetary terms, distinctions between the skilled socio-economic groups Ilia and Illb, and the semi-skilled and unskilled groups IV and V. It would be interesting to know how far later chemical factories depended on existing supervisory elites to organize the shop-floor. Slight evidence from census returns in 1861 suggests that most foremen's fami­ lies had been in the town at least a decade, and obviously were well acquainted with skills and processes in chemical factories. H'idnes Chemical Industry Supervisors 301

TABLE 3 Wage differentials between skilled and unskilled occupations in south Lancashire in 1859

Occupation Hours per week ll'age skilled soap maker 58 307- soap works labourer 58 157- moulder 58 347- foundry labourer 58 15/6 foreman watchmaker 58 607- watchmaker 58 307-

Source: Journal of the Statistical Society of London, XXIII (1860), pp. 12-2/.

Occupational evidence in marriage returns indicates that between 1850 and 1880 foremen were likely to marry into skilled and semi-skilled families rather than unskilled. Social origins of foremen are simple to discern; recruited from a shop-floor labour force, they quickly adopted the geographical mobility of other supervisory groups and pro­ tected entry to the job by controlling access. What remains more complex is identifying the prerequisites a man had to possess in order to be promoted. Census returns indicate that the jobs their children obtained were mostly in socio- economic groups IV and V.

Changes in industrial structure heralded a greater need for the managerial skills of planning, implementation and evaluation. 48 While Sanderson claims that chemical indus­ tries, in particular, made demands on university education for managers and technologists, dating this demand is difficult. Educational initiatives were developed in Liverpool for chemical training, but it is hard to see what access the Widnes chemical manager had. Evidence sug­ gests that some managers used teacher training at Chester 302 / ../

College, not as a preparation for school teaching, but as a background for a career in industrial management. 49 Of twenty-eight managers living in Widnes in 1881, only three were recruited from local watchmaking and tailoring fami­ lies. Most children of watchmakers and tailors took skilled jobs in chemical factories. Managers who lived in the town were likely to live next to a skilled or supervisory neighbour, social index scores for managers' neighbours being 3.1 in 1881. From such bald statistics it is hardly possible to identify commitment to the community. Garrard, in his study of industrial leadership in Lancashire, offers a method of monitoring the emergence of community leader­ ship by examining representation on local committees, especially at inaugural stages of the committee's emergen­ ce.'" John Tally's work on electrical supply in Widnes illustrated the late nineteenth-century proliferation of boards and committees, in which some socio-economic groups were strongly represented. 3 ' Table 4 shows ten managers on five out of nine inaugural committees. While this was half the figure for manufacturers (twenty-three), and shopkeepers (twenty-two), there was a sufficient spread

TABLE 4 Representatives on inaugural committees of public bodies in Widnes, 1 1853-1892

1853 1855 1856 1865 1871 1874 1876 1892 1892 MI SM G&W I.B LY SB RG TC TE

factory owners 2 2 2 3434 1 2 professional men - 2 3 1 managers - - 2 2213- clerks - 1 2 shopkeepers - - 18 4 foremen 1 - - - - - 1 skilled workers 111-2 -

Key: MI - Mechanics Institute, SM - school managers, G&W - gas and water, LB - Local Board of Health, LV - local volunteers (47th Lanes, officers) SB School Board, BG Burial Ground committee, TC Town Council, TE - Technical Education committee. '- l\ifines Chemical Industry Supervisors 303 to indicate, in Garrard's terms, that managers sensed some commitment to the town. Higher shopkeeper numbers, especially on the town council, shows how the needs of retail traders were prominently represented. Supervisory groups, generally, were not strong supporters of inaugural meetings, and what minutes survive suggest they did not show much initiative in terms of original contributions. Owners of chemical factories were major benefactors to the town.53 Closer analysis of committee representation reveals that patterns did not change substantially during this period. The interests of supervisory elites were met else­ where, most notably in factory organization and in the churches. Because managers tended to be family men when they first appear in the census, it is impossible to identify families into which they married. But research into several thousand marriage returns between 1850 and 1900 has identified families into which their children married. Man­ agers' children married into farming, banking or commer­ cial interests. Merseyside evidence suggests that chemical processes were in the hands of factory owners who retained a keen interest in production, until well after 1851, contrary to Pollard's claim34 that early alkali industries generated advanced managerial expertise because the various stages of innovation, combinations of skill, and establishment of markets meant a diversification and delegation of expertise and responsibility by factory owners.55

TABLE 5 Social index score of neighbours of the supervisor],' elite in Widnes. 1861 and 1895

Social index score /56V 1895 of neighbours

Managers 2.1 3.1 Clerks 2.5 3.3 Foremen 2.4 2.6

Sources: Census returns for VVidnes, 1861; Worral's Directory Jor \VidnesandSt Helens, 1895. 304 I'.J. mi Hams

Table 5 shows that there was a general increase in social index scores of neighbours of the supervisory elite. This is in keeping with VVebb's national picture of upward social mobility and Felling's view of the emergence of the middle classes in the latter half of the nineteenth century. 1(> How­ ever, close analysis offers further insights into the ways these groups emerged within the chemical industry in Widnes. Low social index scores for managers in 1861 indicate how many of them lived near their places of work along with a work-force of labourers. William , the soap manufacturer, lived 'in' his factory. Movement to the suburbs of the town occurred sometime after 1871. 3 ' Clerks, with a high social index score throughout the period, represent supervisors arriving late. Managerial groups, brought from St Helens with the earliest manufacturers, had established themselves geographically in the town. Clerks, on the other hand, arrived later. Many, according to the census in 1881, still lived in boarding accommodation. The figures for foremen further support the conclusions from marriage returns that these men were marrying into skilled families and living in skilled communities.

VI

Any overall perspective on these social trends supports the theory that bureaucratization of industry produced an elite whose major interests lay in factories, rather than in communities. In Widnes, this elite recognized opportunities for upward occupational mobility in terms of skills which new factories could produce. While chemical works cer­ tainly generated opportunities for widening skill and breaking down early trade monopolies, it also engendered a divisiveness in the work force, which is most clearly seen in patterns of urbanization after 1861. Supervisory elites moved away from industrial areas to new 'colonies', separ­ ating themselves from the work-force they had to organize, and living as far away from the smoke as they could. H'idnes Chemical Industry Supervisors 305

NOTES

1 John Foster, Class struggle and the industrial revolution (London. 1974); E. P. Thompson, The making of the English working class (London, 1963); Eric Hobsbawm, Labouring men (London, 1964); F. M. L. Thompson The rise of respectable society (London, 1965). 2 Eric Hobsbawm, Worlds of labour (London, 1968); Malcolm I. Thomis, The town labourer (London, 1974), pp. 184 196; Paul Thompson 'Labour process and deskilling', in Work, employment and unemployment: perspectives on work and society, ed. K. Thompson (London, 1984). 3 William Cobbett, Rural rides (Harrap edition. 1950), pp. 291-301. 4 S. Pollard, The genesis of modern management (London, 1963); S. Pollard. Growth and distribution of capital in Great Britain, 1770-1870', in The third international conference on economic history (Munich, 1956). 5 David Landes, The unbound Prometheus (London, 1969), pp. 322-323; The Educational Times, October 1854, p. 302. 6 Thompson, 'Labour process and deskilling'; P. Thompson, 'The genesis of the modern management profession', Studies in romanticism. IV (1965), pp. 57-80. 7 G. Stedman-Jones, Language and class (London, 1983). C. K. Philips. Language and class in Victorian England (London, 1984), 8 Francois Crouzet, The first industrialists: the problem of origins (London, 1983), pp. 139-142; Charlotte Erickson, British industrialists 1850-1950 (London, 1986); D. C. Coleman and Christine Macleod, 'Attitudes to new techniques: British businessmen, 1800-1950', Econ. H.R., 2nd series, XXXIX, 1986. 9 Reinhardt Bendix, Work and authority in industry (New York. 1956), p. 212. See also The Wheel. The house magazine of William Gossage and Sons, Vol. 1 no. I, Spring 1921. A retiring foreman from the soap works explained how, in the early years of the industry a foreman would 'support the management while working in harmony with his colleagues'. 10 P. L. Payne, 'The entrepreneur: origins and motivations', in The Industrial Revolution: a compendium, ed. L. Clarkson (London, 1990), p. 82. 11 Adam Smith, The wealth of nations; ed. K. B. Bax (London. 1905), I, pp. 49-50. 12 P.P. 18Hi, Select Committee On Children's Employment in Manufacturing In Great Britain, p. 136. 13 25 and 26 V'ict. c.89. Also C. R. Fay, Great Britain from Adam Smith to the present day (London, 1957), p. 385. 14 H. Fawcett, Manual of political economy (London, 1865), p. 77. 15 The British Almanac (London, 1865), p. 111. 16 Fabian Essays, ed. G. B. Shaw (London, 1889). 17 9 George IV, c. 129; 5 George IV, c. 95. 18 Solomos Solomon, Phases of economic growth, 1850-1973 (London, 1988). 19 D. \V. F. Hardie. History oj the chemical industry in \\idnes (London, 1950), pp. 17-56. 306

20 H. Chance, 'On the manufacture of alkali and acids in and neighbourhood', Birmingham and the midland hardware districts: a series of reports, ed. S. Timmis (London. 1967); R. Padley, 'The beginnings of the British alkali industry', University of Birmingham Historical Journal, III (1951), pp. 64-78. 21 Abstract of British historical statistics, ed. B. R. Mitchell (London, 1976), p. 60 section B, on the growth of numbers of chemical workers from 42,000 in 1851 to 72,000 in 1881. Also Gossage's obituary in the Widnes Guardian, 14 April 1877, p. 4, col. 7. 22 R. H. Tawney, Religion and the rise of capitalism (London, 1926), p. 273; G. M. Young, Portrait of an age: Victorian England (London 1960), pp. 39-40; R. Lewis and A. Maud, The English middle class (London, 1950), pp. 132-134. See also Pollard, Modem management, pp. 33-67. 23 J. H. Fox, 'The Victorian entrepreneur in Lancashire' in Victorian Lancashire, ed. S. Peter Bell (London, 1974). 24 D. V. Glass, Numbering the people (London, 1973), appendix 4, pp. 181 194. M. Anderson, Familv structure in nineteenth-century Lan­ cashire (London, 1971), pp. 56 79; R. Lawton, The census and social structure (London, 1978), pp. 88-96. 25 John Garrard, Leadership and power in Victorian industrial towns, 1830- 1880 (London, 1983), chapter 2. 26 W. E. Marsden, 'Education and social geography in nineteenth- century towns and cities', in Urban education and social geography, ed. E. A. Wrigley (London, 1972); John Langton, Geographical change in the industrial revolution (London, 1979), pp. 3 32; J. Eyles, Qualitative approaches in social and geographical research (Q.M.C. papers in Geogra­ phy, Number 256, University of London, May 1986). 27 L. F. Haber, The chemical industry during the nineteenth century (London, 1952), pp. 102-117. 28 Hardie, Chemical industry in Widnes, p. 148. 29 H. Perkin The origins of modern English society, 1780-1880 (London. 1969), pp. 102-134; Richard Johnson, 'Educational policy and social control in early Victorian England', Past and Present, XLIX, 1970. 30 Janet Roebuck, The making of modern English society from 1850 (London, 1973), pp. 48-49. 31 Widnes Guardian, 27 February 1875, p. 4, col. 6; R.O., Minutes of the Widnes Wesleyan Methodist Circuit Quarterly Meetings, 1892-1904. 32 G. Roderick and M. Stephens, Scientific and technical education in nineteenth- century England (London, 1972), pp. 65-116, especially 99-116. 33 Pollard, Modern management, p. 125. 34 M. Sanderson, The universities and British industry, 1850-1970 (London, 1972), chapter 1; H. Macleod, Class, religion and society in the late Victorian city (London, 1974), pp. 133-155; M. Tylecote, The Mechanics Institutes of Lancashire and Cheshire before 1851 (London, 1957), pp. 259-263. 35 W. B. Stephens, 'Regional variations in education during the indus­ trial revolution', Journal of educational administration and history, Mono­ graph number 1, University of Leeds, 1973. ll'idnes Chemical Industry Supervisors 307

36 Runcorn and ll'idnes Guardian, February 1875; Committee of Council for Education. 1873-4, Scott-Cowan's report on the county of Lancashire. 37 fl'arrington Guardian, 5 November 1853. p. 11. col. 1; Runcorn and ll'idnes Observer, 6 April 1861, p. 1, col. 4. 38 Roderick and Stephens, Scientific and tec/mica/ education pp. 69-70. 39 M. Sanderson, 'Literacy and social mobility in the industrial revolu­ tion', Past and Present. LXI. 1972. p. 85. 40 F. J. Williams, "Occupational mobility in the Industrial Revolution - the case of Widnes and the early chemical industry, 1847-1871,' T.H.S.L.C., CXXXII (1984); W. B. Stephens, Education and literacy, 1830-1970 (London, 1987), p. 86. Also, Widnes Guardian. 11 April 185'7, p. 8, col. 1: 'a man goes to learn a trade and his education suffers'. 41 Foster, Class struggle. 42 Glass, Numbering the people', R. Lawton, and C. G. Pooley. 'Methodo­ logical problems in the statistical analysis of small area data , Social geography of nineteenth-century Merseyside working paper no. 2, 1973. 43 Details collected in the Angel and Elephant Inn, Appleton, Widnes, by the author, June 1978. 44 Donald Reade, England 1863-1914 (London, 1979), p. 333. 45 St Mary's Widnes Dock School Log Book: entries throughout the period illustrate the absence of children whose lathers were foremen. 46 Hardie, Chemical industry in Widnes. 47 L. H. Lees, Exiles of Erin (Manchester, 1976), pp. 38-69. 48 Pollard, Modern management, p. 46. 49 Chester R.O., CK/101: Chester College records show that men who later became industrial leaders were students there in the 1840s. 50 Garrard, Leadership and power, pp. 56-75. 51 John Tully, 'Electrical supply and the borough council of Widnes, 1899-1911', T.H.S.L.C., CXXXVIII (1989), pp. 159-179. 52 Warrington Guardian, 5 November 1853, p. 12, col. 1; Widnes Public- Library, Widnes School Board Minutes and Widnes Town Council Minutes. 53 Most benefactors to the town were factory owners: Hardie, Chemical industry in Widnes, pp. 28 35. 54 Pollard, Modern management, p. 97. 55 B. Dickenson, 'The history of vitriol making in England', Transactions of the Newcomen Society, XYIII (1937-8), pp. 40-50. 56 R. K. Webb, Modern England from the eighteenth century to the present (London, 1969); Henry Felling, The origins of the Labour Party, 1880- 1900 (London, 1965); Perkin, Origins of modern English society. 57 A. E. Musson and E. Robinson, Science and technology in the industrial revolution (Manchester, 1969), chapters 7 and 9.