Social Transition in Kendal and Westmorland, c. 1760–1860

Abstract

ALTHOUGH THE STUDY of urban history is now well established in Britain, the attention of students of urbanism has, on the whole, been directed to the great towns and cities. The country town and its hinterland have been neglected as subjects contributing to the investigation of the deeper complexities of social change and evolution.! Even a cursory survey will show that important sections of the newer middle-class groups subsisted and wielded power in small towns, or, after business success and the accumulation of wealth, moved out to the countryside or to rural suburbs in pursuit of more traditional ways of life and of landed and gentry status. This evolution, and the migrations were associated with another crucially important development, whereby local moneyed elites had to come to terms with the increasing complexities, imperatives and tensions of social leadership, control and local government. It is fairly clear that this experience both accompanied and assisted the development of political democracy in England. The present article is less a piece of local history per se, therefore, than a thematic case-study, whereby the formation of Westmorland middle-class leadership and control is examined in some illustrative, though far from exhaustive, detail. It grew out of the work of a social history research team assembled at the University of Lancaster,2 and it may be thought to demonstrate that a concerted attack on such a theme at several levels can yield valuable results. .