An Artisan Elite in Victorian Society: Kentish London 1840-1880

By Geoffrey Crossick

First published in 1978. Mid-Victorian Britain was relatively stable in comparison with the turbulent period that preceded it, and that stability is in part explained by the emergence of an artisan elite with a specific relationship to the society around it. This book examines that elite: its clubs and societies, co-operatives and building societies; its values and ideology, challenging the notion that these artisans directly absorbed middle-class values; its politics, tracing the evolution from Chartism through the Reform League and on to a radical liberalism which existed in constant tension with the local liberal middle class.

A careful reconstruction of the social, political and industrial life of these artisans is set within the context of the local communities, and their understanding of the mid-Victorian society in which they lived is seen as the explanation for their values and activities. This title makes a major contribution towards our understanding of the nineteenth-century working class.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 113864711X
• ISBN13: 9781138647114
• Release Date: December 2017
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 306 Pages
• Weight: 0.96 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.1" x 9.2"