Urban History in Lancashire and Cheshire

Abstract

Since the mid-1960s urban history in Lancashire and Cheshire has entered an age of enlightenment, in which new approaches to the subject have borne fruit, with deeper and more extensive research and publications of high quality. The tradition of urban history can be traced back to the nostalgic and antiquarian work of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, through the flowering of town history as a manifestation of civic pride in the late nineteenth century, to the mid twentieth century when the quality and quantity of work were both at a nadir. New themes in recent decades have included work on smaller market towns, cultural history, the evolution and experience of the resort towns, and a rich diversity of topics related to social history such as electoral politics, urban unrest, working-class housing, public health, and Irish migration. However, some areas and subjects remain under-researched — examples include post-1945 ethnic communities, twentieth-century urban topography, semiurban communities, and the demographic history of towns between 1500 and 1800. Overall, the last forty years have seen a remarkable resurgence of urban history in the region, and in the process many myths have been demolished, and the clichés have to a considerable extent been bypassed.