UPPSALA PAPERS in ECONOMIC HISTORY Continuity And

UPPSALA PAPERS IN ECONOMIC HISTORY

1999

RESEARCH REPORT NO 47

Continuity and Change in the Rise of Labour:

Working-class Politics in Plymouth, 1890-1920

Mary Hilson

Department of Economic History ISRN UU-EKHI-RR-47--SE ISSN 02814560 Uppsala universitet Repro Ekonomikum, Uppsala 1999 Contents

Introduction: The rise of Labour and the decline of the Liberal Party...... 5

Context:PlymouthandDevonport...... 9

Tradeidentities andindustrial relationsin the dockyard...... 12

AlternativeVisions:The Co-operative Society...... 19

The Movement for Independent Labour Representation...... 25

Conclusion:The Roots of PolititalChange in Plymouth...... 3 1

References...... 38

Introduction: The rise of Labour and the decline of the Liberal Party’ Until recently, historians largely agreed that the changing politital alignments of early twentieth century Britain, notably the rise of Labour, were related to the emergence of social elass as a basis for politital alignments. Debate was concentrated on the timing of the maturation of elass experience into politital consciousness, rather than disputing it altogether. For some, the failure of the Liberal Party to accommodate working-elass demands made the rise of independent labour politics inevitable, even before 1914.’ Anti-trade union legal judgements in the early twentieth century strengthened the convictions of trade unionists that supporting the Liberal Party was becoming increasingly inappropriate, and led them to establish first the Labour Representation Committee and then the Labour Party as a serious electoral threat to the Liberals in the pre-war period.3 Other schol- ars, however, although accepting that elass did become an important factor in defining politital alignment during the early twentieth century, argued that the Liberals, as the traditional working-elass party, were able to re-

’ This article summarises the main tindings of my thesis, ‘Working-Class Politics in Plymouth. 1900-1920’ (University of Exeter PhD, 1998). 1 would like to thank Dr Joseph Melling and Dr Andrew Thorpe who supervised this work, also Dr David Harvey for his tomments on earlier drafts of this article. ’ Henry Pelling, The Orig% of fhe Labour Party, 1880-1906 (1954); idem.. A Short History of the Lobour Party (1961); idem.. ‘Labour and the Downfall of Liberalism’ (1968); Paul Thompson, Socialists, Liberals and Labour: The Struggle for London 18&1911 (1967); Alun Howkins, ‘Edwardian Liberalism and Industrial Unrest: A Glass View of the Decline of Liberalism’ (1977); D Howell, British Workers and the Independent Labour Party, 1888-1906, (1983); George L Bernstein, ‘Liberalism and the Progressive Alliance in the Constituencies, 1900-1914: Three Case Studies’ (1983). ’ John Saville, ‘Trade Unions and Free Labour: The Background to the Taff Vale Decision’ (1967).

5 spond adequately to intensitied elass consciousness before 1914. Peter Clarke, for example, argued that the ‘New Liberalism’ expressed in a series of major social reforms from 1906, was able to rally working-elass support for the Liberals before the war.4 It was the strains of the war itself, and the resulting split in the Liberal Party which eventually led to Labour’s ascendancy over the Liberals. Some progress was made by Labour imme- diately before the war, but no body of contemporary opinion believed that Labour was on the verge of a breakthrough: “no shred of evidente existed anywhere which might suggest that within ten years the Labour Party would be forming the government of the country.“5 Further debate has taken place over the nature of the elass consciousness which motivated the founders of the early Labour Party. For those coming from a Marxist perspective, the problem has been to explain the failure of the Party, whilst in office, to remain consistent to its working- elass roots.6 The disastrous govemment of 1929-3 1 in particular has been interpreted as a betrayal in these terms. Yet for others, the party behaved entirely consistently with the elass consciousness of those, predominantly trades unionists, who founded it. It was interpreted as the product of a particular type of working-elass awareness; not socialism, but a socially conservative, defensive working-elass identity which was cultivated by the trade unions, and expressed for example through the associational leisure activities in which many workers took part.’ Thus the Labour Party could be essentially characterised as a bureaucratic trade unions’ party, where loyalty to the movement replaced socialist ideology: “this was a trade- union code of behaviour; so were the politital aims of the Labour Party essentially trade-union enes.“’ The most significant point about elass-based explanations of the rise of Labour is the implicit suggestion that the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries represented a period of fundamental discontinuity within

4 P F Clarke, Lancashire and the New Liberalism (197 1). ’ Roy Douglas, ‘Labour in Decline, 1910-1914’ (1974), p. 125. 6 For example, Ralph Miliband, Parliamentary Socialism: A Srudy in rhe Poliiics oj Labour (1972). ’ ROS McKibbin, The Evolution of the Labour Party 1910-1924 (1974): idem, . Work and Hobbies in Britain 1880-1950’ and ‘Why Was There No Marxism in Great Britain?’ (1990); Gareth Stedman Jones, ‘Working-elass Culture and Working-elass Politics in London 1870-1900: Notes on the Remaking of a Working Glass’ (1983). ’ McKibbin, The Evolution ojthe Labour Party, p. 247.

6 British politics, when elass replaced older allegiances such as religion, ethnicity, or deferential loyalties as the basis for politital alignment.’ Re- cent work has posed a challenge to this interpretation, attempting instead to explain popular politics in terms of a sustained continuity in popular Radicalism which may be traced through the Chartist movements of the 1830s and 1840s and the popular support for Gladstonian Liberalism, into the early twentieth century and the rise of the Labour Party.” Of central importante to understanding politital formations, it is argued, is the ideologital tontent of popular politics. The formative influences on this thesis are thus acknowledged as the work of Peter Clarke and Gareth Stedman Jones in stressing the importante of reconstructing and reasserting the in- tellectual roots of popular politics.” This work is valuable, and much of it is persuasive. The adapted quote used by Biagini and Reid to summarise their thesis - “those who were originally talled Chartists were afierwards talled Liberal and Labour activists”‘2 - cannot easily be disputed, even if it may only be explained in generational terms. The Labour Party was not fashioned upon an entirely clean sheet. Many of its early activists did indeed express views which may be placed within the Radieal politital tradition, and many of them indeed supported or were active in the Liberal Party; some of the oldest could no doubt draw on memories of Chartism. Indeed, perhaps the most useful aspect of this new work has been the reassessment of the radieal un- dercurrents infotming the politics of the period 18.50-1880, hitherto ex-

9 Hence the development of a movement for independent Jabour politics from the late nineteenth century has sometimes been referred to as the ‘remaking’ of the working elass. See Andrew Miles and Mike Savage, The Remaking of the British Working Glass, IR-IO-1940 (1994). ” Eugenio Biagini and Alastair Reid, eds., Currents of Radicalism: Popular Radiealism, Organised Labour and Party Politics in Britain, 1850-1914 (1991); Logie Barrow and Ian Bullock. Democratic Ideas in the British Labour Movement, 1880-1914 (1996): Jon Lawrence and Miles Taylor, eds., Par& Stare and Society: Electoral Behaviour in Britain sinte 1820 (1997). ” Stedman Jones, ‘Rethinking Chartism‘ (1983); Clarke, Lancashire and the New LIberalism; idem., Liberals nnd Social Democrats (1978). Jon Lawrence explicitly acknowledges this link, in ‘The Dynamits of Urban Politics, 1867-1914’ (1997), p. 82. ” Biagini and Reid, eds., Currents ofRadicalism. p.1. plained largely as a difticult hiatus within the history of elass struggle, or rather inadequately in terms of a theory of labour aristocracy.” 1 want to suggest, however, that this thesis is inadequate as an explana- tion of the dynamits of popular politics, in that it fails to explain W@ the Labour Party was formed in the first place, and rose to prominente as the main politital party of the left in Britain. In other words, if Liberalism had a genuinely widespread popular appeal, and there seems to be no reason not to go along with the suggestion that in the Gladstonian era at least it did have, why did it fail, after 1900, to accommodate a growing body of working-elass radieals? Or, perhaps more accurately, why did it lose out to the Labour party in some localities, but retained its strength in other areas, notably the south west of England, until the 193Os? This research focuses on the south west town of Plymouth, and explores the changing politital and social formations in the town during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Analysis of social relations and politics in two of the most important institutions in Plymouth, the naval dockyard and the con- sumers’ co-operative society, suggests that the period may in fatt be per- ceived as a major discontinuity within popular politics, when the entire politital system was remade. What follows is divided into several sections. First, 1 offer a brief over- view of the tontext in which this study is set, and then focus on the two main areas of concem, the dockyard and the co-operative society. Then 1 tum my attention to the movement for independent isbour representation as it developed within Plymouth, paying close attention to the deployment of particular politital languages. The tina1 section is devoted to a closer analysis of the changes in popular politics during this period.

l3 See especially Eugenio Biagini, Liberty, Retrenchment and Reform: Popdar Liberalism in the Age of Gladstone, 1860-1880 (1992). For the labour aristocracy. see Eric Hobsbawm, ‘The Labour Aristocracy in Nineteenth Centuv Britain’ (1964).

8 Context: Plymouth and Devonport Existing work on the politics of the south west of England has largely been concemed with the continuity of the Radieal tradition and the survival of Liberalism as an electoral forte until the 1930s.i4 The success of Liberal- ism was generally associated with the ascendancy of nonconformity in the region, especially Wesleyan Methodism, and social relations were linked to an elision of religious fratemity with elass fratemity, reconciliation and industrial harmony.‘5 Thus the continued importante of an old-fashioned allegiance - religion - combined with other factors, such as the continued prominente of individual candidates and their personal votes, to charac- terise the politics of the south west as backward. This was linked in tum with the portrayal of the region’s economy as locked into rural stagnation. Some problems exist with this interpretation, however. In the first place, the coherence of the region itself, both historitally and contempo- rarily, is doubtful. There were some profound differentes between the mining distritts of Cornwall and west Devon, where nonconformity and Liberalism were indeed widespread, and the agrarian areas of the rest of Devon, not to mention the developing tourist industry on the coast. Eco- nomic decline should thus in many places be understood as deindustriali- sation, rather than agrarian stagnation. Furthermore, the portrayal of the region as locked into rural stagnation is unhelpful for understanding the main concem of this thesis, the major industrial conurbation of Plymouth and Devonport. During the nineteenth century, the town grew at a rate which far outstripped the rest of the region; the population increased by

” A M Dawson, ‘Politics in Devon and Cornwall 1900-1931’ (1991); idem, ‘Liberalism in Devon and Cornwall, 1910-1931: “the Old-Time Religion”’ (1995); G H Tredidga, ‘The Liberal Party in Cornwall, 1918-1939’ (1991); idem, ‘The Liberal Party in South West England, 1929-1959’ (1995). ” Tredidga, ‘The Liberal Party in Cornwall’.

9 345% during the nineteenth century, as labour was drawn in from the sur- rounding districts.16 The population of the county of Devon as a whole, meanwhile, grew by barely 95% between 1801 and 1901, and that of Cornwall declined absolutely after mid century as the mining industry contracted.” Up until the eighteenth century, Plymouth’s main role, like that of the other west country ports, was as a centre for the export of the products of lotal extractive and agricultural industries. In 1681, the town ranked tifth among English ports in tonnage and number of ships entering.” During the mid-seventeenth century, the town assumed some politi- ca1 prominente as a major parliamentary stronghold. From the early eighteenth century however, Plymouth, lacking the infrastructure and hinterland of other ports such as Bristol and Liverpool, began to decline, and it is from this period that its economy became dominated by its connections with the navy, following the decision to use the natural deep water harbour as a site for a new royal dockyard and naval base in 169 1. The town of Devonport, known until 1824 only as Plymouth Dock, grew up entirely on the back of the dockyard and naval auxiliary industry; it did not exist before the dockyard. Ahhough Plymouth benefited from remaining the major metropolis in the west - the railway arrived in 1844, and the port was designated as an official emigration terminal two years earlier - the dockyard and the navy assumed a position as by far the largest employer of labour, and this relationship situated Plymouth and Devonport within the national economy in a particular way. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the total population living in the conurbation was a little under 200,000. There were actually three towns, the county boroughs of Plymouth and Devonport, each with its separate municipal authorities, and East Stonehouse which was adminis- tered as an Urban Distritt under the auspices of Devon County Council.” Collectively, the area was commonly known as the ‘Three Towns’, and for l6 Peter Hilditch. ‘The Dockyard in the Lotal Economy’ (1994). ” During the eighteenth century St Just in the far west was almost as big as Manchester. whereas St Ives was bigger than Liverpool, See Tredidga, ‘The Liberal Party in Cornwall’, p. 18. ‘* David Starkey, ‘The Ports, Seabome Trade and Shipping Industry of South Devon, 1786-1914’ (1994). l9 Plymouth, in the tontext of this work, is used to denote both the specific borough (usually specified in relation to Devonport andor East Stonehouse, and as a shorthand term for the whole metropolis.

10 many purposes was considered as one unit. Amalgamation became an important and contested issue within municipal politics, and was eventually achieved in 19 14. In terms of morphology, the Three Towns were indis- putably maritime, bordered by river estuaries to both the east and West, and the natural harbour of Plymouth Sound, enhanced by the Napoleonic breakwater, to the south. Despite the dominante of the navy, the harbour had other uses. Sutton Pool, in the oldest part of Plymouth, was the base for a sizeable fishing fleet. The Millbay docks in Stonehouse were owned by the Great Western Railway, and served as a liner terminus and embar- kation port for emigrants.” The major influence on the economy of the Three Towns, however, was the presence of the navy. Apart from the royal dockyard, which was by far the largest employer in the whole region, the towns, particularly Devonport, played an important role in supporting and servicing the fleet, and were host to large numbers of naval personnel. These links with the navy had a crucial impact on the internal economy of the towns, and their place within the wider world. It has been argued that the presence of the navy and the dockyard contributed in the long run to the underdevelopment of Plymouth as a commercial port, which has re- sulted in decline and serious unemployment during the latter part of the twentieth century.2’ However, the naval connection also generated unique links with the national state, as the major employer of labour, and with the other dockyard towns, especially Portsmouth and Chatham. It is therefore to the social relations and politics of the dockyard that 1 shall first tum.

‘” Mark Brayshay. ‘The Emigration Trade in Nineteenth Century Devon’ (1994). 2’ Hilditch. ‘The Dockyard in the Lotal Economy’.

11 Trade identities and industrial relations in the dockyard It is hard to overexaggerate the significance of the dockyard in Plymouth and Devonport, particularly in terms of the labour market. In the census year of 1911 it had a total workforce of over 10,000, accounting for nearly 17% of male employment in the Three Towns. Together with Portsmouth and Chatham yards, and the smaller establishments at Pembroke Dock and Sheemess, Devonport represented a crucial link in the nation’s naval defence strategies, and underwent immense change from the 1890s as output was expanded in response to the European arms race. Dockyard historians have commented on the distinctiveness of the culture of work within the dockyards, stemming from their unique position as long-established, large- scale industrial plants under national control.22 In particular it has been noted that the Admiralty’s institutional structures seemed specifically designed to fragment collective solidarities by fostering a competitive meri- tocracy and a culture of individualism. This system worked in several ways: by differentiating wages among members of the same trade based on merit; by a flexible and open promotion system through examination, which extolled the value of individual self-improvement through education; and by structures such as the Establishment which tut horizontally across trade divisions. This last institution was a device intended to guar- antee the loyalty of a core group of workmen by offering them permanent job security together with certain material benefits such as a pension. It represented about 20% of the workforce, and in theory all classes of work-

‘* N Casey, ‘An Early Organisational Hegemony: Methods of Social Control in a Victorian Dockyard’ (1984); Mavis Waters, ‘A Social History of Dockyard Workers at Chatham, Kent, 1860-1914’ (1979); Haas, ‘Trouble at the Workplace: Industrial Relations in the Royal Dockyards’ (1985); idem, A .&nugemenr Od~sse~; The Royl Dockyards, 1714-1914 (1994).

12 ers were eligible for Established status. The greatest opportunities for self- improvement were available to the ammal intake of boy apprentices, the brightest of whom had the potential opportunity to train as draughtsmen, or even naval architects, via a scholarship to Greenwich Naval College. Even those entering as ordinary labourers or yard boys, however, could hope for promotion to the rank of skilled labourer, performing work such as riveting which normally required an apprenticeship in private sector shipbuilding.23 Although the Admiraity’s aim seems undoubtedly to have been the un- dermining of a collective workplace culture, it is more difficult to uncover evidente to show that this was indeed achieved. The wage system might have been expected to foster a competitive individualist culture: each trade had its own strata of wage rates, and promotion to higher rates was on the basis of the recommendation of a chargeman in recognition of merit. The Devonport evidente however suggests that the net result of this system was to generate resentment and allegations of corruption and favouritism among the men, and that it did not undermine the bonds of collective solidarity among the members of particular trades. This view of the dockyard thus corresponds more closely to studies of the private shipbuilding sector, which have generally described the industry as one characterised by a rigid stratification of the workforce along trade lines, reinforced by the presence of craft unions, and beset by deeply entrenched trade rivalries and demarcation disputes.” As in the private shipyards, the division of labour within the dockyards was based on a complex combination of different factors, and it is even possible that the Admiralty structures designed to foster individualism actually contributed to cementing solidarities among the members of different trades. In this respect, perhaps the key aspect of the division of labour in the dockyards was the status of the shipwrights at the apex of the hierarchy of trades. Unlike their counterparts in the private sector, the dockyard shipwrights were retrained to work in metal following the demise of wooden shipbuilding, and thus retained their status as the major trade of the yard, responsible for the greater part of the construction

” Mavis Waters suggests that at Chatham dockyard, the skilled labourers were the most totally committed to a career in the dockyard. Waters, ‘A Social History of Dockyard Workers’. p. 196. The demarcation of skilled labourers’ work was the source of rancour for the trade unions representing similar (apprenticed) workers in the private sector. “ S Pollard and P Robertson, The British Shipbuilding Indushy 1870-1914 (1979); K McClelland and A Reid, ‘Wood, hon and Steel: Technology, Labour and Trade Union Organisation in the Shipbuilding Industry, 1840-1914’ (1984).

13 of the ship’s hull, and exercising a considerable amount of autonomy over their work, organised in small gangs. This status was reinforced by several structures within the yard, even though the shipwrights’ wages were not necessarily higher than those of the other skilled trades employed in the workshops. Shipwrights were more likely to have entered the yard via an Admiralty apprenticeship with the promotion opportunities attached to that privilege. They were also the major beneficiaries of the Establishment, open in theory to all dockyardsman, but in practice dominated by the shipwrights. Central to the construction of trade identities was also an entrenched culture of masculinity.25 Furthermore, trade solidarities within the dockyard were mirrored outside the yard, with distinct groups of workers identifiable within different neighbourhoods in Devonport.‘6 Perhaps the most unusual feature of the dockyards vis-a-vis private shipbuilding was the system for the articulation of workplace grievances. The Admiralty’s position with regard to trade unions was rather ambiguous. The official line was that,

the Admiralty were perfectly prepared at certain times to receive a deputa- tion and to hear representations on behalf of trade unions generally, but that the workmen who might be responsible for preparing the Navy for instant action which was necessary in war should all be affiliated with a trade union, which might influence their action at a critical moment, was not a position that the Admiralty could accept.27

This did not mean however that the dockyard workmen were not per- mitted to join a trade union, although there is evidente that many felt dis- couraged because of their fears that chances of promotion rested on politi- ca1 acceptability as well as competent workmanship.28 The Admiralty

” There is not suffcient space here to do justice to the complexities of gender identities in the dockyard. The workforce was predominantly male, although a small number of women worked in the colour lofts and elsewhere in the yard, and many more were taken on during both world wars. See Ann Day, ‘The Forgotten ‘Mateys’: Women Workers in Portsmouth Dockyard, England, 193945’ (1998). 26 Census returns for Devonport, 1891. See the author’s thesis, pp. 73-93 for a full discussion of the dockyard neighbourhoods. 27 Parliarnentary Secretary to the Admiralty answer to parliamentary question; Hansard vol. 149 (1905) col. 494. ** The issue of a notice formally acknowledging that politital influcnce co~ld be brought to bear on promotion was welcomed by Labour representatives among the dockyardsmen for just this reason. Soufh Wesr Labour Journal, August 1903.

14 maintained that existing channels for the expression of workmen’s griev- antes were perfectly adequate, and were not inclined to view leniently any resort to other metheds.” In place of more conventional structures of collective bargaining, the workmen were invited to submit their complaints to the Admiralty for consideration, either individually or collectively, in the form of an annual petition. The majority of these were concerned with pay, but petitions could also take up other issues, such as work conditions, demarcation, and nomenclature of trades. Representatives of the Admiralty toured the yards and interviewed the men for evidente in support of their claims, and the decisions were posted in the yards after due consideration. The dockyardsmen thus enjoyed unique access to the institutions of state, and it has been suggested that this helped to make them particularly aware of the possibilities for action through politital channels.30 Additionally, MPs for the dockyard constituencies could also take up grievances in Par- liament or with the Admiralty on behalf of individual constituents.3’ Significantly, the Admiralty’s defence of this system, and their refusal to view favourably demands for alternative methods of representing griev- antes, was partly couched in the liberal language of the tyranny of the mi- nority:

The desire now, as it has always been, is to maintain a fair Iield and no favour in the Dockyards. Trade Unionists admittedly have easy access to Par- liamentary influence nowadays and as a very large number of the men in our Dockyards are believed not to be Trade Unionists, it is here that the fair field disappears.32

The idea of the petitions system was that it allowed every worker, individually or collectively, to gain legitimate access to a fair and unbiased hearing of his grievances. The use of a written petition, and of politital

” In 1911. following the intervention of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers in a dispute between two fitters and their manager, the Admiral Superintendant sought the instant dismissal of the entire ASE committee for fomenting dissent. PRO ADM 11611129.4 (Case 3011, Method for Obtaining Redress of Grievances, 1911). ” Mavis Waters. ‘Dockyard and Parliament: A Study of Unskilled Workers in Chatham Yard’ (1984). p. 137. ” Hansard, val. 116, col. 1486 (1902); vol. 130, col. 726 (1904); val. 149, col. 69 (1905); vol 167, ~01s. 964-5, 1275-77 (1906). ” PRO ADM 11611129A (Case 3011, Method for Obtaining Redress of Grievances, 1911).

15 channels via a direct appeal to those in authority, to seek redress for economic woes suggest that if any group of workers might be expected to demonstrate the resilience of the Radieal tradition, and look towards Par- liament and the rule of law as a strategy of social change, then the dockyard workers were that group. In one interpretation, a reformulation of just such a discourse may be distinguished in the politital philosophy of the secretary of the Boilermakers’ Union, Robert Knight, who began his career in Devonport dockyard. According to Alastair Reid, Knight’s reaftirmation of the Radieal tenets of liberty, equality, justice, and minimal intervention by the state was based on his experience of the government-run dockyards.33 And there is evidente that many of these principles found favour lotally as well, especially as the organised labour movement began to explore the politics of state socialism. Here, in Devonport, was an example of a govemment-owned enterprise, in direct control of the state; here was a town where the state was highly visible, and where formal channels existed to give all access to the state, and yet here was no state-run utopia. Re- jetting wholesale nationalisation of industry as a palliative for the ine- qualities of the capitalist economy, representatives of the lotal labour movement were inclined to argue for less, not more state intervention. The following tomment is from the lotal labour journal:

The Dockyards Will not [under govemment control] become lvhat they really ought to be, pure civil business establishments conducted in such a marmer as to secure the maximum efficiency at the minimum cost.31

There is evidente however to suggest that this outlook was changing during the years before the First World War. In 1901 dockyard trade unionism received a boost following the abolition of the pay classitication system, which removed workers’ need to retain favour with their superiors in order to achieve promotion. Consequently, the dockyard unions began to step up their activities within the yards, and to take a more forward role in the petitioning process.35 Further administrative reform followed, for the

33 Alastair Reid, ‘Old Unionisrn Reconsidered: The Radicalism of Robert Knight’ (1991), pp. 229,232-9. ” South West Labour Journal, June 1905. 35 The main craft unions at Devonport were the Shipwrights and Shipconstructors’ Union and the Amalgarnated Society of Engineers, together with the Government Labourers’ Union which was unique to the dockyards. One of the main shipbuilding

16 most part marked by a shifi towards the casualisation of the labour forte, in an attempt to economise on naval spending in the wake of the expensive new Dreadnought building programme. Paradoxically, therefore, as output expanded, the workforce actually contracted during the years 1904-6, and pay was frozen and admission to the Establishment suspended for a number of years.36 For a workforce hitherto sheltered from the vicissitudes of the business cycle, this contraction was a severe shock, and provoked increasing dissatisfaction with the existing channels for the expression of grievances. There is evidente that many workers were coming to regard the petitions system as little more than a formality which did little to alle- viate their difficulties, and moreover, one that was degrading. The So& West Labour Journal was ironital and condemnatory:

The time has nearly arrived when those Dockyard employees who fancy they may have a grievance can avail themselves of the doubtful privilege of memorialising their Lordships of the Admiralty for redress; yet, in spite of the promise that early replies would be given to the petitions of last year, in most cases no answer has yet been received. But hope springs etemal in the human breast, and it is astonishing to see the fervour devoted to the framing of a petition by most bodies of Dockyard workers, even after successive years of disappointment.37

This dissatisfaction was undoubtedly behind the first wave of expansion of the lotal movement for independent labour representation, as dockyardsmen grew inclined to bypass their Lordships in seeking redress and tum their attention to more direct channels of representation. Dockyards- men were well-represented in the lotal Labour Representative Association (LRA) which was forced by its finantial circumstances to contine its efforts to the municipal sphere, but retained the election of a Labour MP as an ultimate aim. In this Devonport lagged behind Chatham, where dockyardsmen succeeded in getting a shipwright elected as their MP in 1906,

unions, the Boilermakers’ Union, remsed to organise in the dockyards because of a quarrel over the demarcation of work. 36 8000 men were discharged from Portsmouth and Devonport dockyards during the winter of 1905/6. Haas, A Manugemenr Odyssey, p. 176. ii South H’est Labour Journal, August 1903.

17 but from 1907 Devonport men, whose names are recognisable as those of leading dockyard activists, attended the Labour Party conference.38 A further dimension to dockyard politics existed however, which suggests a rejection of the state as a means of social change, and the development of strategies for the alleviation of material difticulties which were strongly mutualist. Many hundreds ofinformal networks and organisations existed within the dockyard alongside the trade unions. Some of these were merely social, such as the apprentices’ and ex-apprentices’ associations which organised treats and excursions, and the numerous football teams, which helped to cement the collective culture of the yard. Most important however were the mutual benefit societies which operated unoffi- cially, but were nonetheless recognised as part of the life of the yard. An Admiral Superintendent’s order prohibiting the transaction of any club business during working hours was thought to affect ‘hundreds’ of unreg- istered clubs for sickness, injury, infectious diseases, money-lending and the like.39 Some of these clubs attracted a very large proportion of dockyardsmen - the Western Distritt Govemment Employees Infectious Dis- eases Club had approximately 5000 members in 1904 - whilst others were smaller, ad hot, or temporary.40 Ultimately, these kinds of activities were linked with the rejection of the Admiralty’s paternalism, and by detinition, state paternalism, by organising alternative, mutual provision of welfare benelits. Many dockyardsmen were also active members of the most important formal expression of this tradition in the Three Towns, the con- sumers’ co-operative society.

38 LRC/Labour Party annual reports, 1900-1913. The activities of the LRA are dealt with later in the article. 39 South West Labour Journal, Januaq 1904. 4o South West Labour Journal, June 1904.

18 Alternative Visions: The Co-operative Society The Plymouth Co-operative Society may justly be claimed to be the most important working-elass organisation in the Three Towns. Membership grew rapidly from 1860 when the society was founded, to the point where it was the third largest retail co-operative society in England in 1908, with over 30 000 members. As Figure 1 illustrates, membership had almost doubled by the end of the war, and the extent to which co-operation pene- trated the life of the town is perhaps indicated by the inception of a rationing scheme in 1917, when 183 000 people out of a population of approximately a quarter of a million were registered with the society for the distribution of potatoes.” The retailing sector was in a state of considerable flux during the late nineteenth century, characterised essentially by the rise of multiple store retailing at the expense of the small independent shopkeeper.42 The co-operative movement was well-placed to take advantage of these changes, especially in the vertical integration of distribution and production through the central Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS). It is very diffcult to account for the relative market shares of different types of traders, but there can be no doubt that the Plymouth Co-operative Society was, by the end of the nineteenth century, making a significant impact on the retailing trade in Plymouth. Trade grew rapidly in line with membership, so that in 1908 the Board of Trade tommissioners commented on the extent to which the society accounted for working-elass purchase of groceries in the Three

” Plymouth Co-operative Retord, April 1917, p. 93. Ii See John Benson and Gareth Shaw, eds., The Evolution ofRetai1 Systems, c.1800- 1YI-l (1992); A F Alexander, ‘The Evolution of Multiple Retailing in Britain, 1870- 1950’ (1994): M T Homsby. ‘Co-operation in Crisis (1989).

19 Figure 1. Membership of Plymouth Co-operative Society, 1896-1920

(Source: Co-operative Congress reports, retum of trade etc. for South Western Section. 1896-1921. 1901 membership is estimated, based on average grouth.)

Towns.43 The society’s aggressive expansion, geographically across the locality as well as in terms of market share, threatened the small independent traders, and provoked conflict: anti-co-operative propaganda, and nr- mours of boycotts circulated widely between 1898 and 1905. The conflict was eventually settled in 1905 by recourse to the law. In a milestone case for the movement as a whole the Plymouth society won a libel action against a gracers’ newspaper, which had claimed erroneously that the society was on the verge of bankruptcy, and panicked many members into withdrawing their savings.44 The greater significance of this case for Ply- mouth co-operators, however, was the spotlight that was thrown on the forms of retail trade. The traders’ threats were ultimately responsible for forting the society to attempt to define a mode of consumption which was recognisably distinct from capitalist trading, distinguished through the creation of a moral discourse around the conditions under which goods were produced and consumed. This could involve, for example, attempts

43 Co-operative Congress report, retum of trade etc. for South Western Section. 1908. Board of Trade Report, H.C.cd.3864 (1908) cvii.3 19. 44 Western Morning News, 4th April 1906.

20 by the society’s buyers to source goods orrly from tirms which met trade union requirements for minimum wages and working conditions.45 Of central importante to this strategy was the development of the notion that tonsumers, acting as tonsumers, could work collectively to bring about change within society. Accordingly, the debate took on a gendered aspect, as women were identified as the principal tonsumers within individual households, and became the main targets of co-operative propaganda. Increasingly, the relationship between producers and tonsumers was conceived as a reflection of the marital partnership between the wage eaming, trade unionist husband and his wage spending, co-operative wife. During the war, the whole issue reached a new pitch as the society sought an alternative strategy to the price mechanism for the fair distribution of scarce basic foodstuffs. Pre-war conflicts had been fought out outside the realm of politics, by means of propaganda, boycotts and eventual recourse to the rule of law, but now the issue was politicised as a result of the entry of the state into the field. From 1915 Co-operators found themselves in conflict with the national govemment, over its decision to impose excess profits duty on co-operative surpluses. Then, in response to the escalating food shortages, a decision was taken to set up lotal Food Control Com- mittees in order to oversee lotal rationing schemes. The tomposition of this committee was in the hands of the municipal authorities, and co-operators felt that, given their influence on the lotal food supply, they were grossly underrepresented when the new committee was established. The outrage over the tomposition of the committee, and the intransigente of the lotal authorities, provided the major catalyst for the formation in 1917 of the Labour and Co-operative Representation Association to tontest municipal and parliamentary elections from 19 18. What was most interesting about these developments was the increasing identification of tommon interests between co-operators and other representatives of the labour

Is The issue was debated extensively over the period 1898-1914, at co-operative meetings lotally and regionally and in the pages of the society’s monthly newspaper, the Retord. As one contributor put it in 190 1, “When we purchase goods manufactured either by the [Co-operative] Wholesale [Society] or the Productive Societies we may rest assured that they have been produced under conditions that are honest to the l~orkers who are employed, for we can fairly lay claim for the Movement that its employees are paid the full standard of wages, do not work excessive hours, and have in all cases well-ventilated and pleasant workshops.” Paper presented to the Devon Co- operative Conference Association, Retord, November 1901, p, 275.

21 movement in Plymouth, in opposition to the private traders who made up the majority of lotal councillors of both parties. Economic enemies in the commercial sphere were identified with the politital enemies in the council chamber, whose vested interests were corrupting the fair workings of the Food Control Committee. A lotal co-operative organ made this quite clear: although the councillors were represented as encompassing a wide range of politital beliefs, “You Will not be told, however, that they ALL UN- FAILINGLY SUPPORT CAPITALIST PARTIES. Parties, that is, who subordinate the interests of the tommon people to the profits of their masters.“46 This emerging sense of elass within the society was further cemented by the consolidation of the movement’s strength within the locality and its associational culture. The society’s strategies for expansion followed closely the development of working-elass residential distritts within Ply- mouth and Devonport, so that co-operative stores tame to represent a distinct, identifiably working-elass mode of consumption, one which was lotal, which involved frequent, small-scale purchases, and was governed, unlike private stores catering for similar neighbourhoods, by a stritt rule that goods were not to be supplied on credit.47 The ‘divi’ system of re- turning profits to customers as a share of their purchases at the end of each quarter was the defining feature of the Rochdale system of co-operation, and probably constituted the main meaning of co-operation for most con- sumers. Yet, in addition to the role played by lotal stores as nexuses of gossip and social contact, the society could also offer a network of educa- tional and recreational activities which were equally as important in defining co-operation as an associational movement. The Plymouth Society had a particularly active education department, funded out of the society’s ammal trading surplus, and responsible for running a range of activities including evening classes in such diverse subjetts as book-keeping, first aid, electricity and politital economy; a winter lecture series; libraries and reading rooms; children’s classes and social clubs; a monthly newspaper; several choirs; and a full programme of treats, excursions and toncerts. Education had several intended purposes, it could offer opportunities to

46 Plymouth Co-operator, 10thNovember 1917. Capitalisation in the original. 47 See Christopher P Hosgood, ‘The “Pigmies of Commerce“ and the Working-elass Community: Small Shopkeepers in England, 1870-1914’ (1989), for discussion of working-elass grocery shopping practices.

22 individuals through a range of scholarships and the University Extension Movement, and it also had an ideologital aim of educating members in co- operative principles and citizenship. Much soul-searching was devoted to the desirability or not of holding more frivolous entertainments such as toncerts and dances, but these were undoubtedly popular, and furthermore could provide a form of recreation which was recognisably co-operative, and morally distinct from more dubious forms of commercial entertain- ment.“8 A recent historian of co-operation has pointed out that the politital ex- pressions of many within the movement lend themselves easily to a reading in terms of a broad, inclusive populism.49 Indeed, the sense of elass within the early twentieth century co-operative movement was at best am- bivalent, stemming in part from its inheritance of an Owenite tradition of inclusiveness. Pre-Rochdale co-operation had at its heart a theory of social transformation, but this was not based on elass; rather, it extended its appeal to all humanity in a bid to transcend divisions of class.50 Recent work has made a case for the vibrance of this tradition at the end of the nineteenth century, asserting that the movement was concemed with more than the prosaic, everyday business of shopkeeping, and retained at its heart a vision of the Co-operative Commonwealth as a scheme for social redemp- tian.” Co-operative philosophy thus represented a continuation of an alternative tradition within popular politics: a strand of secular millenarianism which could trace roots at least as deep as those of Liberal Radicalism.52 It also demonstrates, however, the use and reformulation of politital histories in response to present circumstances. The decades around the tum of the

‘* Retord, February 1897, p. 105; December 1904, pp. 141-2. ‘9 Peter Gumey, Co-operative Culture and the Politics of Consumption in England, 1870-1930 (1996), p, 53. So Retail co-operation in Britain was based on the payment of a quarterly dividend to customers as a proportion of purchases, a system first used at Rochdale in 1844. Earlier co-operative enterprises in Britain owed much to the utopic writings of Robert Owen, and his attempts to found ideal communities based on co-operative principles. For Owenite co-operation see Barbara Taylor, Eve and Gze New Jerusalem (1983). For a view which suggests an ideologital break between the Owenite and the Rochdale models, see Sidney Pollard, ‘Nineteenth Century Co-operation: From Community Building to Shopkeeping,’ (1960). ” Gumey, Co-operarive Culture; Stephen Yeo, ed., New Views of Co-operation (1988). ” For the strength of this discourse within the wider labour movement see Stephen Yeo, ‘A New Life: The Religion of Socialism in Britain, 1883-1896 (1977).

23 century were a crucial period for the co-operative movement, and in Ply- mouth, at least, response to these changes led to the rhetorical reinvention of the Owenite tradition.53 The decision to enter politics, viewed pessimis- tieally as an indication of the movement’s ideologital bankruptcy by many co-operative historians, was actually presented by contemporary co-operators as a reformulation of co-operative ideology, which gained its le- gitimacy by reference to the pre-Rochdale Owenite tradition of social transformation through community building.” The co-operative movement in Plymouth thus offers evidente for the existence of another tradition of popular politics, and furthermore suggests how this tradition was reinterpreted, and restated rhetorically in response to new and contemporary challenges. However, we may also note the important shifts which were taking place during this period, firstly in response to struttural changes in the organisation of retailing, and setondly in response to the govermnent intervention in the sector during the war. In particular, we may note the development of a sense of elass within the movement, firstly in response to the escaiation of conflicts within the retailing sector, and setondly in the consolidation of a strong associational culture organised within the movement. This did not come to fiuition in an explicitly politital movement until 1917, with the formation of the Labour and Co-operative Representation Association (LCRA), but the prominente of the society and the extent of its affairs within the town were taken to provide a model for a new development of municipal politics in the pre- war era. The final section of this article explores how these traditions tame together and were expressed in the politics of the movement for independent labour representation in the Three Towns.

53 For example the secretary of the Plymouth society, addressing a co-operative meeting on Easter Sundsy, 1918: “Co-operation has conquered the omposts of capitalism because its leaders in the past have been inspired by the crusading spirit.... 1 say. therefore, that we who profess and elass ourselves Co-operators have to do to-day what Owen did a century ago. We must now present Co-operation in its larger aspects. preach it as a religious principle, and press for the application of Co-operative methods in every field of human activity.” Retord, May 1918, p. 108. 54 This reformulation is clearly distinguishable within the post-war writings of two leading Plymouth co-operators, T W Mercer and W H Watkins. See Watkins. ‘The Co- operative Party: Its Aim and Work’, (Co-operative Union pamphlet, 1921); Mercer. ‘The Relation of Co-operative Education and Co-operative Politics’. (Co-operative Union pamphlet, 192 1).

24 The Movement for Independent Labour Representa- tion The movement for independent labour representation in Plymouth and De- vonport had its roots among the skilled workers of the dockyard. Although so-talled ‘independent labour’ candidates occasionally ran for municipal office from 1892, without conspicuous success, it was not until 1902 that electoral campaigns were co-ordinated under the umbrella of the Labour Representation Association (LRA), and the first labour representatives were elected to the municipal authorities. The LRA was linked to the dockyard, inasmuch as many of its activists gave their trade union affilia- tions as dockyard unions, and its main electoral challenges were largely confined to the Devonport distritts dominated by the dockyard workers and their families.55 The LRA was formed independently of the national Labour Representation Committee (LRC), and seems not to have affiliated formally for some years, but it was in correspondence with them, and was approached by members of the National Executive Committee (NEC) when the opportunity arose to put forward a Labour candidate for the De- vonport by-elections in 1902 and 1904.56 Unofficial links were acknowl-

” Known affiliates of the LRA whose members were drawn mostly tiom the dockyard included the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE), Steam Engine Makers, Associated Society of Enginemen, Govemment Labourers’ Unions, Hammermen, Iran Feunders, Painters, Pattem Makers, Plumbers, Associated Shipwrights’ Society. (South JVest Lobour Journal, September 1903). The first LRA municipal candidates were Tom Proctor, engine fitter (ASE); Alf Stroud, engine fitter (ASE); R D Mo& Chief Constructor‘s department (GLU). Zbid., October 1903. Co Labour Party archives; J McNeill (LRC) to W Rutter, 6th October 1902, LRC.LB 1154: J McNeill to Secretxy, Devonport LRC (sic), 6th October 1902, LRC.LB 1/57-8. No candidate was in fatt put up. The formal relationship between lotal parties and tie national machinery before the inception of the 1918 constitution was fairly ambiguous in any case.

25 edged between the LRA and other lotal working-elass organisations, such as the Plymouth branch of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF). The Co-operative Society too debated briefly the possibility of running its own candidates in lotal elections, but the idea proved too controversial. Nev- ertheless, the society’s education committee contributed funds to the LRA, and many co-operators were active in campaigning for the organisation. Crucial to an understanding of the politics of the LRA, expressed mastly through the So& West Labour Journn/,57 is the predominantly lo- ca1 focus of its work. The movement lacked the resources to run a parliamentary candidate in any case before 1918, but two by-elections in De- vonport in 1902 and 1904 presented a potential opportunity which the national executive committee of the LRC was anxious not to let slip. En- quiries were made but interest foundered amid allegations that lotal activists were not true to the principles of independent labour representation, on account of their willingness to support a Lib-Lab candidate.58 Accordingly it was municipal politics that was the focus for independent labour activity, and this took place within the tontext of other important shifts in lotal politics. In the tirst place, lotal govemment became increasingly politicised as lotal councils extended their activities into new and controversial fields.59 In Plymouth and Devonport both borough councils found themselves drawn into conflict over issues such as housing, lotal transport and the municipal supply of utilities such as water. Setondly, other new politi- ca1 groupings, besides the Labour Party, emerged during the tirst years of the twentieth century. From the late 1890s lotal elections were contested by candidates rumring under the auspices of the Ratepayers’ Association, which campaigned on a platform of municipal retrenchment in response to escalating rates and during its peak year of 1908 had seven councillors in

” The South West Labour Journal was in fatt the quasi-official journal of the LRA. published by an organisation known as the South West Labour Journal Association. formed in 1903 under the Industrial and Provident Societies Acts. The paper was published monthly as the mouthpiece of the lotal labour movement until its share capita1 ran out in 1906. It sometimes included brief news from Exeter or Bristol. but despite its title was essentially a Plymouth organ. The editorial board included most of the leading lights of the LRA. ‘* Labour Party archives: LRC memo on Devonport by-election, LRC.LB 1182; correspondence R D Monk to LRC, nd. (1902) LRC.LB 5/259; LRC to T Proctor. 20th June 1904, LRCLB 151206. 59 This is illustrated by the declined incidente of lotal councillors who uere elected to office unopposed.

26 Plymouth. Although it was alleged in some quarters that the RA merely represented the Conservative Party in a new guise, its candidates denied this and made a virtue out of the association’s challenge to the traditional two party tompetition. The politital labour movement was thus part of a wider trend of ‘movement away from party’, which in its early years at least was the LRA’s defining feature. The greatest virtue of the LRA, according to the Labour Journal, was that it

appeals not. in the lirst place, to Liberals and Conservatives as such, but to all alike as men.... The ranks contain ex-liberals and ex-Tories, men who see the fally of distinctions without differentes... Our candidate Will vote as his conscience dictates, and not at the bidding of ‘party whips.‘@J

In the long run, however, independence from party could not be sustained as an electoral platform. The formation of a distinctive ideologital platform was closely linked to developments within the municipal sphere, especially, in Plymouth, the campaign for better housing.6’ The gradual evolution of the debate on housing is illustrative of wider politital developments. An Association for the Better Housing of the Working Classes was launched in 1900 at the instigation of the Plymouth branch of the SDF, as an inclusive organisation which proclaimed that housing was a question for all citizens and deliberately sought to play down the elass aspects of the debate.@ The emphasis on a broad alliance of all classes against the intransigente of the centralised state may indeed be read as re- flecting the dominante of Radieal populist discourse. Yet evidente also suggests that this position was evolving during this period. Afier three years’ raising awareness of the high levels of overcrowding within the Three Towns, the leaders of the Housing Association decided that the populist emphasis was not working, and relaunched their organisation as a trade union based association with a more explicit focus on cluss. What was hindering the construction of more municipal housing, it was argued, bo South Western Labour Journal, October 1904. 6’ Plymouth and Devonport had very high levels of overcrowding during the early twentieth centuv. and the highest leve1 of rent in the country outside London. Report by the Board of Trade into working-elass rents, housing, retail prices and wages, H.C. cd.3864 (1908) cvii.319. ” Wesrem Daily Mercur~,. 14th March 1900.

27 was the presence among the municipal authorities of those whose interests were actually opposed to this goal, the “builders, contractors, property owners and vendors; members of the legal profession who finante jerry- builders and advise others; gentlemen who hold shares in and direct gas, water, brewery, and cemetery companies.“63 The housing question became a key issue in LRA electoral campaigns seeking to replace those described in characteristically antagonistic terms as ‘self-interested jobbers representing private interest and privilege’.64 Independence from party was not suffcient as a platform in its own right, it was merely a symptom of the escalation of elass-based politics. The existence of the Ratepayers’ Asso- ciation “timishes,” according to the Labour Journal,

conclusive evidente that the property-owning classes are irrespective of Liberal and Tory politics, combining ‘against the growing danger of So- cialism.’ This combination is known by different names in different parts of the country. In West Ham it is ‘The Municipal Alliance;’ in Plymouth, ‘The Ratepayers’ Association.‘65

Does the Liberal Radieal tradition lie at the heart of this politics? The construction of elass in this case could indeed be read as drawing on older notions of the term denoting the assertion of sectional interests in the constitutional balante of power, the municipality conceived here as the state in miniature: vested interests versus ‘the people’. The Labour councillors, although elected on the basis of elass solidarity, would nonetheless transcend elass divisions and govem in the interests of all citizens, rather than the ascendancy of the working elass. Yet it also comes across quite clearly from detailed readings of the South Western Labour Journal that the contemporary perception was not one of an evolutionary and continuous trajectory. The emphasis in the Journal is on the novelty of the new labour politics, and there is little self-conscious suggestion of any continuity from traditional Radicalism. The following passage is worth quoting in full in this respect:

We must realise that the municipality is the people, and not only a select few - that the Council is a servant and not a master. So far we have been la-

” South Western Labour Journal, October 1903. 64 South Western Labour Journal, October 1904. 65 South Western Labour Journal, September 1906

28 bouring under the delusion (and are now suffering for it) that a certain section of the community have some divine right to govem us how they please. We have been too lorigg the victims of proprietary respectability - of the idea that the landlord must be the Council lord - that our boss in the workshop must be our boss in the Council. The truth is that masters and men, land- lords and tenants, are equal as citizens, and the sooner we rise to this knowledge the better.

The traditional parties were presented as being hopelessly out of date; the Labour Party, by tontrast was new, young, and forward-looking. “So far . ...” “too long . . . . “- the emphasis in the passage quoted above is on the change in consciousness, from subjection to equal citizenship. Also important is the means of change which was stressed: ultimately it was uni- form, sudden and complete. The profile of one of the founder members of the Plymouth SDF, Arthur Grindley, describes a process of gradual awak- ening and realisation, but the final dawning of consciousness was characteristically experienced as a tonversion, with its tonnotations of a clean and complete break with the past. Grindley’s career had spanned “in tum, missionary collector, Sunday-school teacher, chapel organist, Band-of- Hope secretary, Methodist lotal preacher, then unattached Socialist, and finally a Social Democrat,” according to his profile in The Social Demo- crat. Revealingly, the writer of the profile went on,

The changes are not inconsistent with one another, and if the first four are grouped together..., then each of the succeeding three marks a distinct ad- vante in thought and action over its predecessor.67

Grindley’s speeches and writings were coloured throughout by a religi- osity clearly related to his nonconformist preaching roots; references to ‘the Promised Land of Social Democracy’, ‘spreading the light’ and ‘preaching the gospel’ being only the most obvious.68 The short biogra- phies of the LRA and SDF candidates and activists carried in the Labour Journal and the Co-operative Retord tonform to a similar formula. The use of such a discourse demonstrates the vibrancy of other traditions

66 Sourh Western Labour Journal, April 1904. “’ Tbc Social Demotrut, val. V. no. 3, Match 1901. (Copy in Plymouth Central Li- brary). 6S A T Grindley, ‘The Future of the SDF in Plymouth, with special reference to better organisation’. MS. n.d. (?1906) WDRO 470/18.

29 within the labour movement, in particular the co-operative millenarian vision. These alternative traditions were also expressed within the municipal programme of the LRA as it grew to maturity. Municipal house-building was not the only policy solution available for the housing crisis; it had to compete with mutual strategies such as the Co-operative Society’s own house-building programme and a similar scheme carried out by a body known as the Dockyard Workman’s Dwellings Co. which built several streets of cottages in the Ford distritt of Devonport in the late 1890s. The dockyard-based Government Labourers’ Union disaffiliated from the Housing Association over its unwillingness to countenance the proposal for extensive municipal housing. Such views may be read as embodying the rejection of the state as a channel for social reform which was suggested amongst the politital strategies of the dockyardsmen. Furthermore issues of self-help and independence were central to the LRA’s programme in its insistence that municipal poor relief should be organised on the basis of justice - the rights of all to minimum welfare standards - rather than patronising charity.

30 Conclusion: The Roots of Politital Change in Plymouth It is not my intention to suggest that the trends in popular politics distinguished in Plymouth necessarily reflected those taking place nationally, or even those within the other dockyard towns. Rather, it is hoped that the evidente from this study Will help to complete our understanding of a fragmented national picture. Some general points may be made however. In my view it is necessary to consider the period as one of fundamental discontinuity in British politics. The notion of a smooth, evolutionary transfer of momentum from the Liberal Party to Labour as the embodiment of popular politital aspirations Sterns in part from the prevailing concep- tion of British politics in terms of a basic dualism: the opposed fortes of reaction and radicalism. This in tum may be linked to an electoral system requiring only a simple majority, and the dominante of the two party model in British politics during the latter part of the twentieth century, in tontrast to the multi-party models and proportional electoral systems found elsewhere in continental Europe. 69 Nevertheless, alternative versions to this model have arisen at different times during the past century. In 1916, and again during the 1930s competing parties were replaced by a national coalition; whilst at other times a third party has commanded a significant share of popular support, sometimes resulting in a long-standing position of regional hegemony.70 1 argue that the period around the tum of the century was one such crucial juncture when the prevailing system of British politics broke down, and was fundamentally reformed. It follows, therefore, that we should understand the changes in this period not just in terms of the realignment of voters from the Liberal to the Labour parties,

69 1 am grateful to Kersti Ullenhag for her suggestion regarding electoral systems. ” For example the support for the Welsh and Scottish Nationalist parties. See G R Searle, Cowrr~, BeJöre Party. Coalition and the Idea of National Government in .blodern Britaiu 1885-1987 (1995).

31 but as a major discontinuity within the entire politital system. Apart from the realignment of voters away from the Liberal Party and towards the La- bour Party, these included a movement away from party altogether, expressed at a national leve1 in the form of the pre-war patriotic leagues, and the ‘coupen’ election of 1918 in which the ruling coalition prevailed, and also at the lotal leve1 where, as we have seen, non-aligned ratepayers’ parties challenged the existing bi-partisan structure of lotal politics. ‘Country before Party’ formed a crucial part of the Conservative Party’s efforts to take account of the extended franchise, and reform themselves as a mass party with a popular base in the constituencies. It has not been possible to examine popular Conservatism in Plymouth in this article, but it may be noted that through the medium of organisations such as the Primrose League, the Tories were able to construct a populist conservatism which drew most of its success from an inclusive portrayal of imperial patriotism, as a counterweight to the potentially fracturing languages of elass and gender.” The extension of the franchise further increased the possibilities for mass canvassing to solicit votes, and necessitated for all parties a move from an elitist, metropolitan-based politics to the formation of caucuses within the constituencies. Perhaps the most crucial change concerned the shifting boundaries between lotal and national govemment, as the nation state was consolidated, and the limits of government redefmed. To be meaningful, the renewed emphasis on lotal and regional studies of the rise of Labour must pay close attention to lotal politics, and recognise the differentes between the coali- tions formed at this leve1 and those concemed with parliamentary politics in a lotal tontext. The early twentieth century was a period when the boundaries between municipal and national govemment were in flux, as responsibilities were consolidated and extended.‘* Before 19 18, lotal govemment elections operated on a different franchise to parliamentary elec-

” David Jarvis, ‘British Conservatism and Glass Politics in the 1920s’ (1996); E II H Green, ‘Radieal Conservatism: The Electoral Genesis of Tariff Reform’ (1985); Jon Lawrence, ‘Glass and Gender in the Making of Urban Toryism, 1880-1914’ (1993); Martin Pugh, The Tories andthe People, 1880-1935 (1985). ” See Christine Bellamy, Administering Central-lotal Relations, 1871-1919: The Lotal Government Board in Its Fixal and Gultural Context (1988) for a study which describes the chaotic and paradoxical relationship bet\*een central and municipal govemment during this period, as the central authorities gained increased control over the municipalities, but lacked the Will and capacity to assume strategic leadership over lotal authorities.

32 tions, although it remains difficult to assess the impact that this had on working-elass voters. Yet analysis of lotal election results may help to indicate a more accurate picture of the extent of Labour’s success before 1918, not orrly in terms of council seats gained, but also of electoral con- tests forced where previously candidates had been retumed unopposed. Also, even where the lotal labour movement was not able to achieve a critical mass within the council chamber, lotal politics remained a crucial focus for labour activism. lndividual membership of the Labour Party was not possible until the constitutional changes of 1918, but in the earlier period more informal ward-based arrangements allowed individuals to par- ticipate even when they had no trade union affiliation. The central question remains, however, that conceming the motivation for politi& activity. How do groups of people within any society come to recognise their shared experiences and identities and articulate their interests polititally? The fundamental challenge of recent work in social history has been the suggestion that the politital consciousness of shared identities such as elass or gender are not necessarily rooted in the social structure. Instead, this work has seen an emphasis on language and textual decon- struction to explore how categories such as elass may be seen as social discourses which are constructed in order for people to make sense of the social order in which they live: “consciousness cannot be related to experience except through the interposition of a particular language which organises the understanding of experience.“73 Class, or any other interpretation of the social order, is rooted in the knowledge and self-identity of the individuals themselves who make up a social elass rather than in the social and economic structures in which these individuals live. Some historians, notably Pstrick Joyce, have questioned the existence of elass alto- getber.“’ Joyce’s emphasis on language and ideology allows him to show that a monolithit consciousness of elass is replaced by competing discourses of social identity, of which elass is one, but one which must compete with other ways in which people understood the social order. Of these, elass was in fatt more or less rejected in favour of an inclusive and con- sensual ‘populism’, which represented a continuation of popular Liberal-

” Stedman Jones, ‘Rethinking Chartism’, p. 107. il Pstrick Joycc, Ilstons of fhe People: Industrial England and the Question of Glass, IHJ&1914(1991).

33 ism, especially in its perceptions of injustice as being rooted in the politi- ca1 rather than the economical sphere. Such interpretations are crucial to an interpretation of Labour politics in terms of a continuity of Liberal Radicalism. Of particular importante has been Gareth Stedman Jones’ work on Chartism, which argued that the politital demands of the Charter should not be treated as merely symbolic, but were in fatt central to the whole story. His method shows that the language of Chartism was not a language of elass, but of politital exclusion, thus placing it fnmly within the Radieal politital tradition.” The relationship between politics and social identity is tumed on its head. As Eugenio Biagini puts it, “politics then did not have the function of providing fa- vourable legislative changes for elass-conscious groups: rather it supplied a collective identity to groups whose social and material interests did not in themselves lead to a polititally relevant elass consciousness.“” This similar emphasis on the language and ideology of labour politics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, does, it is argued, demonstrate the centrality of the Radieal tradition to popular politics, and the relative un- importante of competing languages such as elass and socialism. What, then, were the specific distinguishing components of popular Radicalism? As is often the case, Radicalism is partly detined by what it is not, in this case elass. Thus Pstrick Joyce argued that while to qualify as a language of elass, politital discourse might be expected to articulate an understanding of injustices which were embedded in the realm of eco- nomics, combined with a strategy of social exclusivity and conflict; popular Radicalism by tontrast exhibited a concem with identities forged outside the economic sphere, and was inclusive and universal.” The popular sense of injustice remained rooted in the politital sphere: even trade unions were concemed with issues of mastership, authority, respect and honour as much as bread-and-butter concems.78 This work thus follows Sted- man Jones’ analysis that the demands of the Chartists were rooted not in economic experiences of hardship, but based on a sense of politital and

” Stedman Jones, ‘Rethinking Chartism’. For a critique of this view see Neville Kirk. ‘In Defence of Class: A Critique of Gareth Stedman Jones’ (1987). Jon LauTence explicitly acknowledges the debt to this work, in ‘The Dynamits of Urban Politics. 1867-1914’ (1997), p. 82. 76 Biagini, Liberty, Retrenchment and Reform, p. 2. ” Joyce, Visions of the People. ” Joyce, Visions of the People, pp. 64, 110.

34 juridical injustice, exhibited in their demands for open govemment and the rule of law, the sovereignty of Parliament, and universal suffi-age. Cru- cially, this work lays its emphasis on the underlying component of Radi- calism: the concem with individual freedom, expressed not only through the preoccupation with the rights of every individual citizen, but also through for example the extollation of essentially individual virtues such as independence, and the Liberal distrust of state intervention. Biagini and Reid are thus able to distinguish, when they describe the long trajectory of Radicalism, a continuation of the “strength of libertarian attitudes within the population at large.“79 Fundamentally, therefore, it seems that such ‘populist’ interpretations are an assertion of the individualist or libertarian strands within British popular politics and a downplaying of the collectiv- ist and mutual traditions within the Labour Party itself. The protagonists of this position argue that the ‘people’ as a collectivity were essentially re- ducible to their own individualist interests, and that the strongest part of the Labour Party’s inheritance was the libertarian tradition stemming from this individualism. Undoubtedly the notion of a simple linkage between material depriva- tion and labour politics is far too simplistic; however, a total rejection of materia1 interests would be profoundly unhelpful, it seems to me. It is useful to reconsider Michael Savage’s attempt here to place material interests foremost in politital formation, in particular his emphasis on politics as a response to materia1 insecurity.” The concems with the fundamentals of everyday life - wages and food prices - were at the root of the changing politital languages articulated within the tontexts 1 have explored above. Language was the means by which groups interpreted the material insecu- rities which they experienced, and formulated their response to these difficulties, but discourse must be understood in relation to the material tontext in which it was employed. What were these particular discourses in the tontext of Plymouth? As discussed above, evidente could indeed indicate that Plymouth was fertile ground for the surviva1 of a Radieal politital tradition which stressed Parliament and the rule of law as a means of social change, and an understanding of the social order in terms of an inclusive populist model, rather than one of elass conflict. However, Radicalism

” Biagini and Reid, C‘rrwenrs of Radicalism, p. 19. 8o Michael Savage. The Dynumics of Working-dass Politics: The Labour Movement in Preston, 1880-1940 (1987).

35 competed with other traditions, notably the utopic Co-operative vision, and the vibrancy of mutual self-help found in both the dockyard and the Co- operative Society. Furthermore, these visions were by no means static, and were re-interpreted and employed in the formation of a new politics in response to the changes during the period. Therefore, as two of the largest institutions in the Three Towns, both the dockyard and the Co-operative Society may be considered to be important sites for the formation of social identities, through the shared experiences of work, recreation, and the consumption of household necessities. Whilst 1 reject any notion of a determinist relationship between social dep- rivation and politital action, 1 have argued that it would be equally over- simplifying matters to reject such a relationship outright. 1 have attempted to show how various different sites for politital formation in Plymouth provided the social resources for a politics which was at its root collective. Politital formation is understood as a process of identification which rests necessarily on the recognition of collective bonds between individuals, based on a shared outlook, whether this be a sense of grievance or a vision for social transformation. Inescapably, it seems, at the heart of these strategies was a critique of at least some aspects of capitalist economic and social relations. Politital formations may indeed be understood by means of a close analysis of politital discourses within a specific tontext, but some difficulties are raised by the so-talled ‘linguistic tum’. In the first place, there is a danger that the concem with language necessarily underlines the pri- macy of written texts as historital sources, sinte in practice, analysis of historital languages has relied upon the close reading of these texts. It thus becomes difficult to avoid place the weight of historital interpretation on elite discourses, as it is these languages which were most likely to be con- verted into written texts, and therefore make themselves available to the historian. Gareth Stedman Jones has been criticised in this respect for his rather narrow understanding of language,” but to be fair to some of the more recent proponents of the linguistic tum, historians such as Joyce have stated their wish to expand the sense in which language is considered by historians, and to move beyond an understanding of language which fo-

” Jon Lawrence and Miles Taylor, editors’ introduction to Party State and Socie~~ (1997); Joan Scott, Gender and the Politics ofHistory (1988).

36 cuses exclusively on publit and formal discourses. Secondly, the more serious criticism is that there is a real danger here of these texts becoming unpinned from the tontexts in which they were produced and consumed, despite the avowed awareness of the need for minute criticism of historital sources which the new methodology has raised.83 A close analysis of po- litieal discourse may allow us to understand the reformation of politics, but it is important that these languages should be placed within the particular tontext in which they were articulated. In particular, we need to understand how versions of the past were deployed rhetorically in order to con- tribute towards a contemporary picture of the social order and legitimise new politital formations. Statements of continuity should not be taken at face value therefore. Central to the Conservative Party’s strategy for forming a politital appeal to a new constituency was an invocation of an antiquarian mediaevalism, harking back to a golden age, expressed through the activities of the Primrose League.84 Similarly, the new politics of the Labour Party were articulated with reference to real or mythologised traditions: Liberal Radicalism, secular millenarianism, and even its own brand of mediaevalism in the guild socialist movement, which were reformulated in order to suit existing politital tontexts.

” Joyce, Visions of the People, p. 17; idem., Democratic Subjetts: The Self and the Social in Nineteenth Century England (1994); James Vemon, Politics and the People: A Budy in English Politital Culture, c.181.51867 (1993). *’ In some senses this may considered as a question of reinventing the wheel in any case: have not historians always remained sensitive to the problems of the objectivity of their sources? ” See Pugh. The Tories and the People.

37 References

Published books and articles Logie Barrow and Ian Bullock, Democratic Ideas in the Brltish Labour Move- ment, 1880-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Christine Bellamy, Administering Central-lotal Relations, 1871-1919: The Lotal Government Board in Its Fistal and Gultural Context (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988). John Benson and Gareth Shaw, eds., The Evolution of Retail Systems, c.1800- 1914 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1992). George L Bernstein, ‘Liberalism and the Progressive Alliance in the Constitu- enties, 1900-1914: Three Case Studies’, Historital Journal, 26 (1983) 617-640. Eugenio Biagini, Liberty, Retrenchment and Reform: Popular Liberalism in the Age of Gladstone, 1860-1880 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Eugenio Biagini and Alastair Reid, eds., Currents of Radicalism Popular Radi- calism, Organised Labour and Party Politics in Britain, 1830-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). Mark Brayshay, ‘The Emigration Trade in Nineteenth Century Devon’. in M Duffy, et al., eds., The New Maritime Histovy ofDevon, vol. 2 (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1994). N Casey, ‘An Early Organisational Hegemony: Methods of Social Control in a Victorian Dockyard’, Social Science Information, 23 (1984) 677-700. P F Clarke, Lancashire and the New Liberalism (London: Cambridge University Press, 1971). P F Clarke, Liberals and Social Democrats (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978). Ann Day, ‘The Forgotten ‘Mateys’: Women Workers in Portsmouth Dockyard, England, 1939-45’, Women’s History Review, 7 (1998).

38 Michael DaMson. ‘Liberalism in Devon and Cornwall: The “Old-Time Relig- ion”‘, Historital Journal, 38 (1995) 425-431. R Douglas. ‘Labour in Decline, 1910-1914’, in K D Brown, ed., Essays in Anti- Labour Histoty: Responses to the Rise oflabour in Britain (London: Macmillan, 1974). p. 125. E H H Green, ‘Radieal Conservatism: The Electoral Genesis of Tariff Reform’, Historital Journal, 28 (1985) 667-692. Peter Gumey. Co-operative Culture and the Politics of Consumption in England, 1870-1930 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996) p. 53. J M Haas. ‘Trouble at the Workplace: Industrial Relations in the Royal Dock- yards‘, Bulletin of the Instltute ofHistorica1 Research, 58 (1985) 210-225. J M Haas> A Management Odyssey: The Royal Dockyards, 1714-1914 (London, Maryland: University Press of America, 1994). Peter Hilditch. ‘The Dockyard in the Lotal Economy’, in M Duffy et al., eds., The New Maritime History of Devon, vol. 2 (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1994). Eric Hobsbawm. ‘The Labour Aristocracy in Nineteenth Centuty Britain’ in his Labouring Men (London: Weidenfeld, 1964). Christopher P Hosgood, ‘The “Pigmies of Commerce” and the Working-elass Community: Small Shopkeepers in England, 1870-1914’, Journal of Social His- tory, 22 (1989) 439-460. D Howell, British Workers and the Independent Labour Party, 1888-1906, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1983). A Howkins. ‘Edu-ardian Liberalism and Industrial Unrest: A Class View of the Decline of Liberalism’, History Workshop Journal, 4 (1977) 143-161. David Jarvis. ‘British Conservatism and Class Politics in the 192Os’, English Historital Review, 111 (1996) 59-84. Gareth Stedman Jones, ‘Working-elass Culture and Working-elass Politics in London 1870-1900: Notes on the Remaking of a Working Glass’, and ‘Rethinking Chartism’, in his Languages of Glass: Studies in English Working- elass Histov, /832-I982 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). Pstrick Joyce. Visions of the People: Industrial England and the Question of Glass, 1838-1913 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). Pstrick Joyce. Dernocratic Subjetts: The Self and the Social in Nineteenth Cen- tury England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). Neville Kirk. ‘In Defence of Class: A Critique of Gareth Stedman Jones’, Zn- temational Rexsiew of Social Histoq 32 (1987) 1-47.

39 Jon Lawrence, ‘Class and Gender in the Making of Urban Toryism, 1880-1914’. English Historieal Review, 108 (1993) 629-652. Jon Lawrence, ‘The Dynamits of Urban Politics, 1867-1914‘, in Jon Lawrence and Miles Taylor, eds., Party, State and Socie&: Electoral Behaviour in Britai,? sinte 1820 (Aldershot: Stolar, 1997). Jon Lawrence and Miles Taylor, eds., Party, State and Society: Electoral Be- haviour in Britain sinte 1820 (Aldershot: Stolar, 1997). K McClelland and A Reid, ‘Wood, Iron and Stecl: Technology. Labour and Trade Union Organisation in the Shipbuilding Industry. 1840-1914‘. in R Harri- son and J Zeitlin, eds., Divisions oflabour, (Brighton: Harvester. 1984). R McKibbin, The Evolution of the Labour Party 1910-1923 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974). R McKibbin, ‘Work and Hobbies in Britain 1880-1950’ and ‘Why Was There No Marxism in Great Britain?‘, in his The Ideologies of Glass: Social Relatioru in Britain, 1880-1950 (Oxford: Clarendon. 1990). Andrew Miles and Mike Savage, The Remaking of the British Working Glass, 1840-1940 (London: Routledge, 1994). Ralph Miliband, Parliamentary Socialism: A Study in the Politics of Labour (London: Merlin, 1972). Henry Pelling, The Origins of the Labour Party, 1880-1906 (London: Macmillan, 1954). Henry Pelling A Short History ofthe Labour Party (Basingstoke: Macmillan. 9th ed. 1991, first published 1961). Henry Pelling, ‘Labour and the Downfall of Liberalism’. in his Popular Politics and Society in Late Victorian Britain (London: Macmillan, 1968). Sidney Pollard, ‘Nineteenth Century Co-operation: From Community Building to Shopkeeping,’ in A Briggs and J Saville, eds., Essays in Labour History, vol. 1. (London: Macmillan, 1960). S Pollard and P Robertson, The British Shipbuilding Industry 1870-1911 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979). Martin Pugh, The Tories and the People, 1880-1935 (Oxford:Blackwell, 1985). Alastair Reid, ‘Old Unionism Reconsidered: The Radicalism of Robert Knight’. in Eugenio Biagini and Alastair Reid, eds., Currents of Radicalism: Popular Radicalism, Organised Labour and Party Politics in Britain, 1850-1913 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). Michael Savage, The Dynamits of Working-elass Politics: The Labour Movement in Preston, 1880-1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1987).

40 J Saville. ‘Trade Unions and Free Labour: The Background to the Taff Vale De- cision’, in A Briggs and J Saville, eds., Essays in Labour History in Memory of G D H Cole (London: Macmillan, 1967). Joan Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988). G R Searle, Country Before Party: Coalition and the Idea of National Govern- ment in Modern Britain, 1885-1987 (London: Longman, 1995). David Starkey, ‘The Ports. Seaborne Trade and Shipping Industry of South De- von, 1786-1914.’ in Duffy, et al., eds., The New Maritime History ofDevon, vol. 2, (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1994). Duncan Tanner, Politital Change and the Labour Party, 1900-1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). Barbara Taylor, Eve and the New Jerusalem: Socialism and Feminism in the Nineteenth Century (London: Virago, 1983). Paul Thompson, Socialists, Liberals and Labour: The Struggle for London 1885- 1914 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967). James Vemon, Politics and the People: A Study in English Politital Culture, c. 1815-1867 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Mavis Waters, ‘Dockyard and Parliament: A Study of Unskilled Workers in Chatham Yard’. Southern History, 6 (1984) p. 137. Stephen Yeo, ‘A New Life: The Religion of Socialism in Britain, 1883-1896’, History Workshop Journal, 4 (1977) 5-56. Stephen Yeo, ed., New Views of Co-operation (London: Routledge, 1988).

Unpublished Theses A F Alexander, ‘The Evolution of Multiple Retailing in Britain, 1870-1950: A Geographical Analysis’, (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Exeter, 1994). A M Dawson, ‘Politics in Devon and Cornwall 1900-1931’, (unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 1991). M K Hilson, ‘Working-Glass Politics in Plymouth, c.1890-1920’, (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Exeter, 1998). M T IIomsby, ‘Co-operation in Crisis: Challenge and Response in the Co-operative Retail Movement in England from the Later Nineteenth Century to the Mid Twentieth Century’, (unpublished MPhil thesis, University of York, 1989). G II Tredidga, ‘The Liberal Party in Cornwall, 1918-1939’, (unpublished MPhil thesis, University of Exeter, 1991).

41 G H Tredidga, ‘The Liberal Party in South West England. 1929-1959’, (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Exeter, 1995). Mavis Waters, ‘A Social History of Dockyard Workers at Chatham, Kent, 1860- 1914’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Essex, 1979).

42 Uppsala Papers in Economic History consists of the following series:

RESEARCH REPORTS

1. Bo Gustafsson: The Causes of the Expansion of the Publit Sector in Sweden during the 20th Century. 1983.

2. Mats Essemyr: Food Consumption and Standard of Living: Studies on Food Consumption among Dif- ferent Strata of the Swedish Population 1686- 1933. 1983.

3, Göran Ryden: Gammelstilla stångjärnssmedja - en manu- fakturindustri. 1984.

4. Alf Johansson: Market, Nature and Work: The basics of work organization in a nineteenth-century export sawmill. 1984.

5. Lena Sommestad: Strukturomvandling och yrkessammansätt- ning: Ala sågverk under mellankrigstiden. 1985.

6. Li Bennich-Björkman: Nationalekonomi och ekonomisk historia. In- ställningen hos nationalekonomer till ämnet ekonomisk historia 1929-1947. 1985.

7. Håkan Lindgren: International Firms and the Need for an His- torieal Perspective. 1985.

8. Alice Teichova: Economic Policies in Interwar East Europe: Freedom and Constraints of Action. 1985.

9. Lynn Karlsson & Kvinnoarbete och könssegregering i Ulla Wikander: svensk industri 1870-1950: Tre uppsatser. 1985. 10. Bo Gustafsson: Det antika slaveriets nedgång: En ekonomisk teori. 1985.

11. Mats Morell: Eli F. Heckscher, utspisningsstaterna och den svenska livsmedelskonsumtionen från 1500- talet till ISOO-talet. Sammanfattning och komplettering av en lång debatt. 1986.

12. Ragnhild Lundström & Methodological Problems in Business History: Kersti Ullenhag: Two Papers. 1986.

13. Kersti Ullenhag (editor): Books and Articles from the Department of Economic History at Uppsala University. 1986.

14. Georg Péteri: The Role of State and Market in the Regula- tion of Capita1 Imports: Hungary 1924- 193 1. 1987

15. Håkan Lindgren: Banking Group Investments in Swedish In- dustry: On the emergence of banks and associated holding companies exercising shareholder influence on Swedish industry in the first half of the 20th century. 1987.

16. Mats Morell: Om mått- och viktsystemens utveckling i Sverige sedan 1500-talet. Vikt- och rymdmått fram till metersystemets införande. 1988.

17. Juergen Salay: The Soviet Union River Diversion Project. From Plan to Cancellation 1976-1986. 1988.

18. Göran B. Nilsson: Kreditens jättekraft. Svenskt bankväsende i brytningstid och genombrottstid vid 1800- talets mitt. 1988.

19. Maurits Nyström: En spegel av ett sekel. Riksdagens resor i Norrbotten 1880-1988. 1988. 20. Lars Magnusson: Korruption och borgerlig ordning - naturrätt och ekonomisk diskurs i Sverige under Fri- hetstiden. 1989.

2 1. Hans Sjögren: Kreditförbindelser under mellankrigstiden. Krediter i svenska affärsbanker 1924- 1944 fördelade på ekonomiska sektorer och regio- ner. 1989.

22. Eskil Ekstedt: Knowledge Renewal and Knowledge Com- panies. 1989.

23. Karl-Gustaf Hildebrand: Om företagshistoria. 1989.

24. Gert Nylander: Företagsarkiv och företagshistorisk forskning. (Forthcoming)

25. Bo Gustafsson: Gunnar Myrdal 1898-1987. Liv och verk. 1990.

26. Gaim Kibreab: The State of the Art Review of Refugee Studies in Africa. 199 1.

27. Lena Schröder: Från springpojke till fullgod arbetare: Om bakgrunden till 1930-talets ungdomsreser- varbete. 1991.

28. Ulla Wikander: Delat arbete, delad makt: Om kvinnors un- derordning i och genom arbetet. 199 1.

29. Anders Flor& & Arbete, hushåll och region. Tankar om in- Göran Rydin: dustrialiseringsprocesser och den svenska järnhanteringen. 1992.

30. Maths Isacson: Arbetslivsforskaren i det offentliga samtalet. 1992. 3 1. Gunnar Nordström: Mo och Domsjö och arbetareorganisatio- nerna intill 1940. Frans Kempes personalpo- litiska program och Domsjö arbetareföre- ningen. 1993.

32. Conny Norling: Byråkrati och makt. Ingenjörer vs ekonomer. 1993.

33. Anita Göransson: Om teori och historia. Mening, makt och materialitet. 1993.

34. Bo Härmestrand: Finansieringssätt och attityder. Några erfarenheter ur ledarhundsarbetets historia. 1994.

35. Lars Magnusson: Eli Heckscher and Mercantilism - An Intro- duction. 1994.

36. Torbjörn Lundqvist: Industrialismens kritiker. Utopism, ämbets- mannaideal och samvetspolitik i Carl Lind- hagens ideologi. 1995.

37. Olov Åberg & Efter avslutad färd, en anständig begravning. Johan Öster: En karaktäristik av undantagsinstitutionen, Nederluleå och Råneå socken 1790- 1895. 1995.

38. Lars Magnusson & Konsumtion och industrialisering i Sverige Klas Nyberg: 1820-1914. Ett ekonomisk-historiskt forsk- ningsprogram. 1995.

39. Lynn Karlsson: Mothers as Breadwinners. Myth or Reality in Early Swedish Industry? 1995.

40. Lynn Karlsson: Women Workers in Figures. A Picture of Swedish Industry 1863-1912. 1996

41. Kersti Ullenhag: Managers, Institutions and Growth. Business History as an Approach to Industrial History. 1996. 42. Irma Irlinger: Lika lön for lika arbete - Ett nygammalt problem. Uppsala-utredning 1947-1949. 1997.

43. Bo Gustafsson: Scope and Limits of the Market. 1997.

44. Kersti Ullenhag: Ann Margret Holmgren. Den kvinnliga röst- rättens agitator. 1997.

45. Göran Rydén: Production and Work in the British Iron Trade in the Eighteenth Century - A Swedish Perspective. 1998.

46. Torbjörn Lundqvist: Organising the Industry. The Creation of Trade Associations, Cartels and Employers’ Associations in the Swedish Brewing In- dustry, 18851908. 1998.

47. Mary Hilson: Continuity and Change in the Rise of La- bour: Working-elass Politics in Plymouth, 1890-1912. 1999.

WORKING PAPERS

1 Alice Teichova: Rivals and Partners. Banking and Industry in Europe in the First Decades of the Twen- tieth Century. (Report j?om the Vienna Banking - Industry Symposium 1988.) 1988.

2. FritziKastneriLarsson: Banking and Bank Legislation in Europe 1880-1970. (Report from the Vienna Banking - Industry Symposium 1988.) 1989.

3. Elizabeth A Boross & Bank-Industry Connections in Hungary Håkan Lindgren: and Sweden. Two Studies. (Reportfrom the Vienna Banking - Industry Symposium 1988.) 1989. 4. Volker Wellhöner & Bank-Industry Relations in Theory and Harald Wixforth: Practise. Two Studies. (Reportfrom the Vi- enna Banking - Industv Symposium 1988.) 1989.

5. Ragnhild Lundström & Bank-Industry Relations in Sweden: Own- Jan Ottosson: ership and Interlocking Directorates. (Reports from the Vienna Banking - In- dustry Symposium 1988.) 1989.

6. Agnes Pogny & Banking and Industry In Hungary. György Kövér: (Reports @om the Vienna Banking - In- dustry Symposium 1988.) 1989.

7. Ulla Wikander (ed.): The Sexual Division of Labour, 19th & 20th Centuries. Six essays presented at the Ninth International Economic History Congress, Berne 1986. 1989.

8. Agneta Emanuelsson, Kvinnohistoria i teoretiskt perspektiv. Lynn Karlsson, Konferensrapport från det tredje nordiska Ulla Wikander & kvinnohistorikermötet. 13-16 april 1989. Ingrid Åberg (red.): 1990.

9. The Banking Project: The Network of Finantial Capital: Essays in Honour of Ragnhild Lundström. 1990.

10. Margarita Dritsas: Foreign Capita1 and Greek Development in a Historital Perspective. 1993.

BASK READINGS

1. Håkan Lindgren & Teorier och teoretisk tillämpning i före- Kersti Ullenhag (eds.): tagshistorisk forskning. Med bidrag av Herman Daems, Erik Dahmen, Håkan Lind- gren och Kersti Ullenhag. 1985. 2. Britta Jonell-Ericsson: Skinnare i Malung. 1987.

3. Håkan Lindgren & The Swedish Match Company in the Inter- Hans Modig: war Years. An International Perspective. 1987.

4. Bo Gustafsson: Den ekonomiska vetenskapens utveckling. Del 1: Från Aristoteles till Adam Smith. 1988.

5. Bob Engelbertsson & Seminarieuppsatsen. En genomgång av Lynn Karlsson: formella krav. 198911998.

6. Mats Larsson & Risktagandets gränser. Utvecklingen av Håkan Lindgren: det svenska bankväsendet 1850-1980. 1989.

7. Paulina De Los Reyes: Bortom Europa. Kall- och litteraturväg- ledning i u-landsstudier. 1992.

8. Håkan Lindgren (red.): Teori, empiri och metod i ekonomisk-historisk analys. 1992.

9. Juan Bergdahl: Den Europeiska Ekonomiska Gemenskapen - ursprung och fundament. 1994.

10. Klas Nyberg Att formulera och lösa vetenskapliga problem. En introduktion till uppsats-skrivande i ekonomisk historia. 1998.

UPPSALA PAPERS IN FINANCIAL HISTORY

1. Mats Larsson: Aktörer, marknader och regleringar. Sveri- ges finansiella system under 1900-talet. 1993.

2. Alexander Boksjö & Svenska finanskriser - orsaker, förlopp, Mikael Lönnborg- åtgärder och konsekvenser. 1994. Andersson: 3. Hans Sjögren (red.): Bankinspektör Folke von Krusenstjemas vitbok. Anteckningar från bankkrisen 1922- 1923. 1994.

4. Rolf Marquardt: Internationalisering av svenska banker. En process i fem faser. 1994.

5. Mikael Olsson: Corporate Govemance in Economies of Transition. The case of the Slovak Repub- lic. 1995.

6. Anders Ögren: Riksbankens penningpolitik. Kreditförsörj- ning och prisstabilitet 1869- 188 1. 1996.

7. Arne Håfors: En statlig affärsbank i Sverige. Drivkrafter och motiv 1910-1930. 1996.

8. Mats Larsson & Institutioner och organisationer på den Mikael Lönnborg- svenska bankmarknaden. Erfarenheter från Andersson (red.): bankkrisen. 1996197.

9. Karin Ky Hanson: Den svenska OTC-marknaden. Framväxt och funktionssätt. 1996/97.

10. Tom Petersson: Bankanknutna utvecklingsbolag 1962-1990. Tillkomst, drivkrafter och utveckling. 1996197.

WORKING PAPERS IN TRANSPORT AND COMMUNICATION HISTORY

1. Lena Andersson-Skog & Institutionell teori och den svenska kom- Jan Ottosson: munikationspolitikens utformning - bety- delsen av ett historiskt perspektiv. 1994.

2. Jan L. Östlund: Reglering av kollektivtrafik - striden på 1910-talet om tillkomsten av AB Stock- holms Spårvägar. 1995: 1. 3. Thomas Pettersson: Regionalpolitik och regional utveckling - med fallstudie för Arvidsjaurs flygplats. 1995:2.

4. Sven Gerentz: Vägverket och företrädarna for bilism och näringsliv - ett nätverks betydelse för transportpolitik och transportutveckling efter kriget. 1995:3.

5. Lars Fälting: Högtflygande planer i debatten om Arlanda 1946. 1995: 4.

6. Thomas Pettersson: Att kompensera för avstånd - en ekonomisk-historisk utvärdering av transportstö- dets effekter 1965-1995. 1995: 5.

7. Erik Tömlund: Vägen till försörjning. Vägbyggandet som arbete i Degerfors socken, Västerbotten 1920-1940. 1996:l.

8. Lars Magnusson: Vem och vad formulerar problemen? 1997:l.

9. Lars Magnusson & Transaction Costs and Institutional Change. Jan Ottosson: 1997:2.

10. Rikard Skårfors: Telegrafverkets inköp av enskilda telefon- nät. Omstruktureringen av det svenska tele- fonsystemet 1883-1918. 1997:3.

11. Carl Jeding: National Politics and International Agree- ments. British Strategies in Regulating Eur- opean Telephony, 1923-39. 1998: 1.

12. Thomas Pettersson: Perspektiv på transportstödet. Det regional- politiska transportstödet i ett jämförande historiskt perspektiv 1970-1995. 1999: 1. 13. Rikard Skårfors: Beslutsfattandets dilemma. Planarbete och opinionsyttringar rörande trafikleder i Stockholm 1945-1975. 1999:2.

14. Lena Andersson-Skog & På spaning efter “informationssamhället”. Thomas Pettersson: Ekonomiskt-historiskt perspektiv på IT- kulten. 1999:3.

15. Magnus Carlsson: Särintresset och staten. En studie av be- slutsprocessen rörande Mälarbanans tillkomst. 1999:4.

16. Eva Liljegren: Den stora förvirringen. Partipolitik och bil- intressen i riksdagsbehandlingen av bilskatternas utformning. 1999:5.