James H. Treble - Urban Poverty in Britain 1830-1914

FOR MY MOTHER AND FATHER

This book is primarily concerned with three themes. Firstly, it attempts to delineate the principal causes of poverty. Secondly, it looks at those expedients which were employed to mitigate some of its social consequences. Thirdly, it tries to show what poverty actually meant in terms of food consumption and housing. But since it is devoted to urban society, it largely ignores the equally, or perhaps more, pressing problems posed by rural poverty. Partly the exclusion of the countryside has been dictated by the necessary limitations imposed by word length. But partly also it reflects my view that the rural problem could not be satisfactorily integrated within the thematic framework which has been adopted. In many important respects the experience of the rural worker differs from that of his urban counterpart. Rural society poses the problem of how to evaluate payments in kind at a time when they had largely disappeared in an urban setting. The nature of rural credit differed in certain important respects from that which was available to the town dwellers. There were marked differences between the urban and rural labour markets, although there were equally significant divergences, for at least part of this period, between the markets for agricultural labour in Scotland and England. Again, it would be difficult to discuss social suffering amongst the crofting community in the Scottish Highlands within the approach adopted in this volume. In short, rural poverty requires to be treated in a separate book.

Like most authors, I am indebted to many individuals and institutions. I am indebted, first of all, to Professor Asa Briggs who, at the University of Leeds, introduced me to the works of the nineteenth-century social analysts and who showed me, as an undergraduate, that the poverty question was an important subject for academic study in its own right. I am grateful, too, to the late Professor W.H.B. Court who, during my period as Research Assistant at the University of Birmingham, encouraged me to probe into the social literature of the post-1870 period and who helped to shape some of my early thoughts upon the nature of urban poverty. In the preparation and completion of this book, I owe most to Hamish Fraser and Tom Devine, my friends and colleagues at Strathclyde, who have read, and commented critically upon, most of the final draft. I have greatly benefited from their wise counsel. I am also indebted to my friend and colleague John Hume who looked at my section upon technological unemployment and who, in discussion, has increased my understanding of the relationship between economic growth and technical change. Another debt which must be acknowledged is to my former student, Dr. Norman Murray, . Bette Duncan of the University of Strathclyde gave invaluable assistance in collecting material on poverty and unemployment in the West of Scotland during the first decade and a half of the twentieth century. I am grateful also to the Staff of the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, the University of Glasgow Library, and the Reading Room and State Paper Room of the British Museum for their assistance in dealing with my queries; to my friend and colleague Tom McAloon, who on occasion kept my flagging spirits going; and to my uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Adam Manderston, who kindly provided me with a base from which to work when I was in London. I am also greatly indebted to Mrs. David Elder of Dunlop, Ayrshire, who has speedily and expertly produced an excellent typescript from a far from legible manuscript; to the late Rev. W.J. Moffat and Mr. L.V. Wells, successively Senior History Masters at Lawrence Sheriff School, Rugby, for introducing me to social history; and to Professor J.T. Ward for suggesting that I should tackle this topic. Again, I am grateful to my Honours Students, past and present, who have stimulated my interest in, and made me re-examine some of my views on, the nature of urban poverty. Finally, I wish to thank my parents who have profoundly influenced, through their own conversation, the way in which I have come to look upon the poverty question. To them, in gratitude and affection, this book is dedicated.