Market Town Research Articles

Harlequin's Stage: Recent Titles on Popular British Drama in the Eighteenth Century

The dominant form of in Britain during the eighteenth century was pantomime, a confection of music, spectacle, and dance, which outgrew its origins in the medley of afterpieces attached to regular drama to become the theater's most viable commercial form. Despite fierce resistance from the Augustan literary establishment, pantomime's freedom from traditional critical rules made it the vehicle of choice for many of the most important innovators of the period. Central to its success was the figure of Harlequin, a lord of misrule derived from the continental commedia dell'arte tradition, whose talismanic magic sword and priapic desire for his mistress Columbine provided a flexible template for a variety of different kinds of dramatic narrative from tragedy to farce to oriental tale. Appropriately for such an irrepressible character, Harlequin has undergone something of a renaissance in recent years and now finds himself lending his name to the titles of two recent books dealing with eighteenth-century popular British drama. John O'Brien's Harlequin Britain: Pantomime and Entertainment, 1690-1760 explores the origins of pantomime in the entertainment of the first half of the eighteenth century, taking a fine comb to its shifting cultural meanings and its gradual emergence from early controversy into a legitimate form patronized by the polite and tolerated by the literary. If O'Brien's focus is necessarily limited to the squabbles of a London elite coming to terms with the mass culture that the later Enlightenment took for granted, David Worrall's Harlequin Empire: Race, Ethnicity and the Drama of the Popular Enlightenment plots the wider results of this struggle for authority as its effects ripple out via the Anglophone world's theatrical network into provincial market towns and the former colonies in America. Resisting recent accounts that have emphasized the ideological content of Romantic-period drama, Worrall describes a transatlantic stage that is often wrong-headed and contradictory in its engagement with the wider world, but that also articulates surprisingly diverse and unpredictable attitudes to racial and national difference.

Rolling stone

Rolling stone

Weaving new retail and consumer landscapes in the Scottish Borders

New retail locations and formats and changing consumer capabilities and behaviours (including “switching”) have encouraged “outshopping” from rural to urban areas. Rural areas have been suffering from a decline in the provision of services, including retailing. One “solution” has been the strengthening of market towns in rural areas by the development of new major retail stores. The effects of this are perhaps not fully understood, particularly where the rural area comprises a network of towns rather than a single centre. Three comparable consumer surveys (1988, 1998, 2004) of shopping behaviour in the Scottish Borders are analysed. Consumer place and store switching data are used to examine the impact of new retail opportunities on shopping patterns. Two different switching strands are identified: clawback and redistribution. Redistribution within the rural network is a new finding.

The Uppingham Typhoid Outbreaks of 1875–1877: A Rural Case-Study in Public Health Reform

Uppingham, a small market town in the East Midlands, suffered repeated typhoid outbreaks in 1875-6, centred on its famous boarding school. A fierce battle developed between the school doctor and the local medical officer of health (MoH), with the Local Government Board (LGB) struggling to satisfy the various parties, many of which had a vested interest in controlling rate increases. Faced with ruin if nothing were done, the headmaster, Edward Thring, removed the school to the Welsh coast for an entire year. The town's shopkeepers, heavily dependent on the school, forced the Rural Sanitary Authority (RSA) to implement better drainage, while Thring and others set up a private company to supply water to the town. Writers such as Hamlin, Hennock and Wohl have already pointed to the formidable obstacles to public health reform facing authorities in urban areas. Uppingham's experience, unusually well documented for a small community, suggests that in rural areas these difficulties were equally great, and that local leaders were hopelessly ill-equipped for the task they faced.

Beneath the Republican Revolution, Beyond Revolutionary Politics: Elite Associations and Social Transformations in Lower Yangzi Towns, 1903-1912

Previous studies of the 1911 Revolution have usually focused on its national and metropolitan contexts but have rarely paid attention to its local arenas, such as market towns. They also have tended to stress political and cultural changes rather than the social transformation that occurred during this revolutionary movement. The prevalent opinion in early studies is that social regress shadowed the era because social elites, especially those at the local level, used reformist organizations and the Republican Revolution to strengthen their dominance over the populace. Recent investigation of these local elite associations, including those in Lower Yangzi towns, has begun to stress the contribution of their social mobilization to the anti-Qing revolution. However, neither the township elite associations themselves nor their influence on social changes beyond revolutionary politics have received enough scrutiny. Social changes are complex and comprehensive. They can range from the social mobility of a person and the gradual evolution of a family to abrupt, violent, and fundamental transformation of the entire society, or what is called “social revolution.” Although social transformation could lead to political

The Early Reformation Experience in a Warwickshire Market Town: Stratford-upon-Avon, 1530-1580

The Early Reformation Experience in a Warwickshire Market Town: Stratford-upon-Avon, 1530-1580

“On the Social-Economic Front”: The Polemics of Shtetl Research during the Stalin Revolution

ArgumentThis article explores the relationship between ideology and statistical knowledge in Soviet Yiddish scholarship during the first Five-Year Plan and Cultural Revolution. Specifically, it examines the political status of Yiddish-language socioeconomic research as a tool of state building in the shtetls (small market towns) of the former Pale of Jewish Settlement. Historically, many Jewish inhabitants of the shtetl worked as economic middlemen between city and countryside, a function that became politically untenable after 1917. The Soviet regime sponsored Yiddish socioeconomic data collection in order to monitor its efforts to transform the occupational structure of shtetl Jewry. Accordingly, this data was expected to demonstrate the steady self-disintegration of the shtetl as an obsolete artifact of the old regime. In fact, these Soviet Yiddish narratives inadvertently highlighted the endurance of the shtetl in Soviet life at both the concrete and discursive levels. A close reading of these sources provides insight into how a segment of the Soviet Jewish intelligentsia attempted to align itself within the new state's scientific establishment by fusing modern Jewish social scientific knowledge with Marxist-Leninist principles. In the polemics of the “shtetl problem” we find an example of how Soviet yidishe visnshaft registered the constantly shifting perceptions of ideological orthodoxy and deviation among Jewish Communists, and provoked international debate among Jewish demographers and economists as to the political use and abuse of statistics.

Fodbold i grænselandet. Kampen for ungdommen og illegalt arbejde i Tønder frem til 1945

Artiklen beskriver fodboldspillets rolle i grænselandet, for fastholdelsen af det danske sindelag for en befolkning, der var udsat for såvel tysk som dansk kulturel sindelagspåvirkning. 
 
 Jørn Hansen: Football in the border region. The struggle for the youth and illegal work in Tønder until 1945
 On November 18th 1944 Aage Buhl Rosenkjær died in a German work-camp for prisoners of war in Svesing near Husum. In 1920 Rosenkjær had been appointed as a teacher at Tønder State School, one of the new Danish ‘gymnasiums’ or high schools that were established after 1920 in Danish market towns. It was Rosenkjær’s activities as a teacher of ball games and gymnastics and his community work as voluntary head of Tønder Sports Association and Tønder County Athletics Association that left significant marks on the small border community in Tønder. His interest in sport and his sympathies for Denmark lead to an involvement in work with young people, which during the course of the 1930s developed into a battle between proponents of Danish and German sympathies in the recruitment of young people. The article takes a closer look at the role of football and Rosenkjær in the border region in retaining and extending Danish sympathies in relation to a population that was exposed to both German and Danish national consciousness. This is an influence in which – as far as the formation of national identity is concerned – sports history has most often accorded a decisive role to gymnastics and German »turnen« (gymnastics). However, particular circumstances relating to the border region meant that football played a more decisive role for those who were to choose a national standpoint.

What went wrong? The attempt to establish a Wesleyan day school in Wimborne minster in the 1880s

What can a local study tell us about the interaction between religion and education in the 19th century? This study looks at the interaction between these two important social factors in the later 19th century, at a time of change. It provides an interesting insight into the Wesleyan Methodists' attitudes towards community involvement and how this was changing. It also looks at the impact a religious denomination could have on a small market town such as Wimborne. By using a range of primary and secondary sources, this study sets out to investigate why Wesleyan Methodists in Wimborne sought to establish a day school and, crucially, the reasons behind their failure to do so.

Legislation and SME retailers – compliance costs and consequences

PurposeThe introduction, implementation and enforcement of new laws governing the conduct of business can result in substantial additional costs to retailers. Focusing on small to medium sized (SME) retailers in rural areas and market towns, the study reported here aims to provide an understanding of perceptions of potentially disproportionate implementation costs and the resulting consequences.Design/methodology/approachA three‐stage design was used. An exploratory focus group with representatives of the Rural Shop Alliance was followed by seven semi‐structured depth‐interviews with SME retail representatives. Thematic analysis of the qualitative findings formed the basis for a survey of SME retailers in five market towns.FindingsFindings show SME retailers' perceptions of the differential burden related to the impact of new legislation, with the key factors of direct cost, time costs and information costs. Consequently, business growth and the formalisation of staffing arrangements, in particular, can be obstructed. Generally, good relationships with Trading Standards and Environmental Health Officers are often driven by a need for reactive compliance rather than offering a proactive information and support mechanism.Practical implicationsFindings clarify the nature of the differential burden of legislation to retail SMEs. The need for an “outcomes‐for‐business” driven proactive stance by local delivery agencies is highlighted. Ongoing support visits, telephone help lines and leaflets and the press rather than the internet are identified as key information sources.Originality/valueBoth qualitative and quantitative evidence is brought together in the assessment of an area of concern to retail SMEs.

Hugh Hanley, Apprenticing in a market town: the story of William Harding's Charity, Aylesbury, 1719–2000. (Chichester: Phillimore, 2005.) Pages xi+180. £19.95.

Hugh Hanley, <i>Apprenticing in a market town: the story of William Harding's Charity, Aylesbury, 1719–2000</i>. (Chichester: Phillimore, 2005.) Pages xi+180. £19.95.

George Herbert Poetry Competition, 2008

�� ��� In September 2008, a George Herbert Festival was held in the Welsh market town of Montgomery, where Herbert was born more than four hundred years earlier. During one busy weekend, poetrylovers were offered guided walks around the town and castle, artistic and historical exhibitions, a presentation by the “Bemerton Group” which included new musical settings of poems from The Temple, and a festival service held in the parish church, in the shadow of the splendid Renaissance tomb erected by Magdalen Herbert in memory of her husband, George’s father. One of the high points of the festival was an evening of poetry and music in the ballroom of Powis Castle, hosted by the Earl of Powis, John Herbert, the poet’s closest living descendant. The evening concluded with the announcement of the winning and commended poems from the Festival Poetry Competition, for which entrants had been invited to write new poems inspired by Herbert’s own lyrical style. The following is the report of the judges of this competition, Rev. Prof. David Jasper (Professor of Literature and Theology at Glasgow University) and Prof. Helen Wilcox (Professor of English at Bangor University, Wales). The report was presented orally at Powis Castle and, through a discussion of the entries, investigates the ways in which the competition both revealed and sustained Herbert’s continuing influence on contemporary poetry. 1 Included in the report are the texts of the commended entries, and it concludes with the winning poem, “Joseph of Arimathea” by Tony Lucas.

Rural retailing: a sector in decline?

PurposeThe paper seeks to review dynamic forms of rural retailing, by location, that have innovated through a mixture of actions leading to growth, adaptation, diversification and differentiation.Design/methodology/approachReviews relevant academic literature and draws upon contemporary policy‐related material that details recent innovation within the sector. A rural retail typology by location is presented: retailing within market towns, village shops and stand‐alone retailing forms (farm shops and speciality rural retail outlets).FindingsSince, the nature together with form of what characterises dynamic and innovative rural retailing differs by location, the typology is based on the above schema. First, market towns have used growth and differentiation opportunities as strategic foci. Second, innovative village shops have applied strategies that seek to counter their structural weaknesses, harness the community and yield new revenue streams. Third, the manner in which stand‐alone retailing forms, such as farm shops together with speciality rural retail outlets, have grown and developed is reviewed.Practical implicationsReviewing dynamic forms of rural retailing allows for a greater understanding of the operational needs for success. A lack of relevant research is cited together with examples.Originality/valueStereotyping rural retailing is erroneous since marginalised enterprises are juxtaposed against more innovative forms. Contrary to perceptions of rural decline, the sector is multi‐faceted with prospering sub‐sectors. The paper focuses on these more dynamic and innovative forms of rural retailing. Much of the previous focus in this sector has been on negative issues and decline. A synthesis of the key contributory phenomena is presented.

Bridging the gap: An attempt to reconcile strategic planning and very local community-based planning in rural England

This paper reviews briefly the emergence of holistic governance at the strategic and very local levels in rural England before reporting a programme of action research designed to address the need to develop an effective ‘bridge’ between planning activity at those two levels. Attention is focused particularly upon the recent wave of parish and market town plans on the one hand and local strategic partnerships and community strategies on the other. Taking cognisance of relevant contextual literature relating to representative and participative democracy and to top-down and bottom-up planning, it draws conclusions about the challenge of developing a synergistic relationship between strategic and very local planning and about the prospects for reconciling some of the tensions pointed up in those theoretical debates.

MING TAIZU EX NIHILO?

Professor Schneewind's critique of my essay “Towns and Temples: Urban Growth and Decline in the Yangzi Delta, 1100–1500” is curious in that it proposes no alternative interpretation of the historical phenomena in question, nor does it adduce any new evidence relevant to the issues I raise. If I understand the implication of the title of her critique correctly, Schneewind believes I am too quick to resort to the stereotypical image of the founder of the Ming dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang (Emperor Taizu, r. 1368–98), as a tyrant to explain the sudden and sharp decline of the thriving market towns of the Yangzi Delta region (which, for sake of convenience, I will refer to as Jiangnan) in the early years of the Ming. The comments that follow endeavor to provide further support for my arguments by drawing on both contemporary writings and current historical scholarship.

Mobile mission bases in the countryside: a caravan in the market square

In large urban situations young people tend to gather on evenings at street corners, but in small market towns the market place tends to fulfil this role. This article is an examination of an experiment of Christian outreach to such young people in a small market town and provides an assessment of whether the project was successful, both from the point of view of the young people who came, and the church people who volunteered their services. It also offers pointers to how this method of mobile outreach can be effective in similar small market town situations.

Colonial appropriation of gaelic urban space: Creating the first ulster plantation town

Abstract Using a diverse range of source material this paper highlights the colonial appropriation of the existing Gaelic market town of Cavan, founded by the O'Reillys, in the establishment of the first Ulster plantation town. In contrast to what may be expected, a reading of the socio‐economic, political and cultural landscape of the newly incorporated town of Cavan in the early years of the 17th century, highlights the dominant position and important civic role played by families of Gaelic origins in the governance of the town. Unlike other plantation towns Cavan town remained ‘unplanned’ in its morphological layout with the colonisers utilising and modifying the existing Gaelic urban fabric. The decision by English colonial powers to use the pre‐existing urban settlement of Cavan town led to success for the colonial project on paper. Unlike other Ulster plantation towns, it also uniquely permitted the retention of a strong and distinct Gaelic presence and character which manifested itself in both the ...

The Danish urban system pre-1800: a survey of recent research results

In Denmark, the first actual towns can be dated to the eighth and ninth centuries. The establishment of towns became more significant in the eleventh and twelfth centuries in connection with the state-building process, and these towns were distinctly consumer towns serving as administrative, religious and military centres. From 1200 to 1350 Denmark, similar to the German area, underwent considerable urbanization; a large number of market towns were created, and in contrast to the older ones they were mercantile towns. Denmark thus clearly became the most urbanized country in Scandinavia. As Copenhagen grew in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the urban system decisively changed its character in the direction of a primate system. The characteristics of the primate system are particularly distinct within the boundaries of the Kingdom of Denmark, but less pronounced if the entire monarchy is included in the period in which Denmark was a conglomerate state. The institutional conditions must in general be attributed considerable importance in explaining Danish urban development. Thus, Denmark is one of the countries where town privileges were of great significance until the middle of the nineteenth century.

Hours of Idleness

No person is exposed to ridicule till he has deserved it, and if the noble lord had not published his Hours of Idleness, no human being would have guessed the quantity of time he had spent doing nothing. (The Satirist, 1807) At first sight life would appear to have been very pleasant for middle- and upper-class young people around 1800 - so long as the proceeds from tenants, trade, investment and slavery kept flowing in.1 But boredom was an ever-present enemy, and the popularity with both sexes of the craze for decorating furniture, print rooms, albums and screens is hardly surprising. Printsellers such as Rudolph Ackermann were kept busy supplying everything from decorative borders to caricature prints. In Pride and Prejudice Mr Bingley exclaims: 'It is amazing to me [...] how young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished [...]. They all paint tables, cover skreens, and net purses.'2 Beau Brummell whiled away his exile in France making a six-panel screen (now lost). His biographer, Captain Jesse, describes how the picture of Byron on the screen, surrounded by flowers, had a wasp at his throat. As Jesse comments, this 'was base ingratitude on the part of Brummell, for the noble lord spoke of and would have pasted him with more charitable feeling'.3 And Byron himself, of course, owned a four-panel screen celebrating pugilism and the theatre, which was rescued by John Murray when Byron's effects were being sold in 1816, and can now be seen at Newstead Abbey. For the past two years I have been studying a small, double-sided firescreen (in a private collection) displaying a collection of scraps, poems, songs and riddles. It was made by Elizabeth Pigot who, as Byronists will know, lived in Southwell, near Nottingham, with her three brothers and their widowed mother. The family was related to several comfortably-off neighbouring families including the Bechers, Lowes and Leacrofts. In 1803 the life of this small market town was suddenly enlivened by the arrival of new neighbours, renting the recently built Burgage Manor - Mrs Catherine Byron, the fifteen-year-old Byron and their pet dogs. Readers of this journal will recall that Byron's relations with his mother were so stormy that he often sought refuge across Burgage Green at the Pigot home. Although Elizabeth was six years older, there is evidence in Byron's letters of a blossoming friendship. In August 1804 he wrote to thank her for copying bookplates with his family coat of arms and urged her to knit a watch ribbon and purse for him. In 1805 John Pigot and Byron took leading parts in the Southwell amateur theatrical productions of Richard Cumberland's The Wheel of Fortune and John Allingham's The Weathercock. Byron wrote a witty prologue and flirted with Miss Pigot's cousin, Julia Leacroft. Elizabeth had quickly discovered Byron's talent for writing poetry. They exchanged verses. She made fair copies of his poems, correcting his spelling and punctuation and encouraged him to publish them during summer 1806 as Fugitive Pieces. Elizabeth was proud of this friendship and happy to share her memories in later life with Thomas Moore and John Murray. Megan Boyes, in her invaluable book Love Without Wings, says Elizabeth regretted having 'cut up original manuscripts in Byron's own handwriting' and sending off the fragments to collectors.4 She never married and stayed in Southwell until her death in 1866. The screen consists of two double-sided, glazed panels, each 24 inches square. It is in remarkably good condition, despite water and light damage. At first sight it presents a random collection of poetry, riddles, music manuscript, quirky caricatures and watercolour sketches. Hand-coloured shells, moths and butterflies are scattered around. In the centre of one panel there is a pastoral scene. The other three each feature a 'fancy' picture by Francis Wheatley: The Rustic Lovers, The Industrious Cottager Mending Cabbage Nets and an untitled one showing a boy stealing washing from a sleeping laundress. …

Rural governance, community empowerment and the new institutionalism: A case study of the Isle of Wight

This article compares two different institutional models—state-sponsored rural partnerships and community-based development trusts—for engaging and empowering local communities in area-based regeneration, using the Isle of Wight as a case study. Following a critical review of the literature on community governance, we evaluate the effectiveness of community involvement in the Island's small towns through a comparison of the performance of the two development trusts in Cowes and Ryde, on the one hand, and that of the partnerships established under the Market Towns Initiative in Sandown, Shanklin and Ventnor, on the other. We conclude that both models reflect the structuring effect of central, regional and local state steering of the Island's regeneration policy community but also that a ‘development trust effect’ is observable in one location (Ryde), due to a capacity to stimulate new forms of community enterprise and to successfully alter political relationships within the local community. These findings support a ‘new institutionalist’ account of community empowerment which emphasises the importance of contextual variation and locally specific processes of institutionalisation rather than the determining effect of institutional design per se.