Towns

The evolution of towns in northern Britain

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Context and local history are in purple.

Geographical context is in green.

1100

After the Norman Conquest people living in towns did retain some degree of autonomy and wealth. There was an influx of urban immigration resulting from the Conquest, but the indigenous urban population remained influential.

The royal elite classes established boroughs which became towns alongside their castles or in strategic sites such as road junctions and river crossings. Weekly markets encouraged trade, that in turn could be taxed. Yearly fairs brought rural populations to towns to trade. Charters were sold for a price.

The market place became the focal point of towns with burgages, plots of land, surrounding it. The owners were freemen and came to be known as burgesse, with associated rights and duties. The burgage was usually long and think.

Three early boroughs were established at Richmond, Pontefract and Tickhill south of Doncaster.

Boroughs were also established on church lands by the Archbishop of York including Beverley, Otley and Patrington. The Bishop of Durham established boroughs at Hedon and Northallerton.

There was a growth of:

· Primitive bankers (‘moneyers’)

· Moneylenders (including the Jewish communities)

· Goldsmiths

· Merchants

· Administrators and royal officers.

Life was not always straightforward. There was congestion and poverty. There were episodes such as Henry I’s purge on moneylenders leading to castration and hand amputations.

A new type of town, the borough, emerged in Norman England. In contrast to agricultural towns, they did not rely directly on agriculture, but on other means such as trade, crafts or other services. Often land was set out around castles for borough towns, for instance at Thirsk, Skelton and Scarborough.

Thirteenth century

Each borough developed in its own way. The town of Whitby moved away from the old village on the east cliff down to the waterside and absorbed the old Flora estate into Flowergate.

None matched the scale of York as a centre for craftsmen.

Fourteenth century

Population expansion led to new settlements growing in the countryside. Towns were created more rapidly than at any other time. Over 50 were established between 1200 to 1320.

London was the biggest with a population of circa 80k. Norwich was second at 20k. The next level of towns were perhaps circa 5k. Most towns had under 2k.

Many now held annual fairs.

Towns started to be defined as boroughs with their own charters and local systems of government evolved.

By 1377, York had 7,248 adults paying the poll tax, and may have had a population of about 15,000. It has absorbed many migrants from the countryside, particularly impacted by the devastation caused by the outbreaks of plague in rural areas.

A concentration of small crafts made York the industrial centre of Yorkshire and it developed specialities such as 11 goldsmiths, 12 pin makers, manufacturers of rivets, armour plate and locks as well as York pewterers.

Outside York, the largest boroughs were Scarborough (1,391 taxpayers), Whitby (641), Pickering (435) and Northallerton (373). Towns such a Kirkbymoorside (511) were about the same size, though included the by then populous Farndale.

Fifteenth century

The customs and liberties of the burgesses of Malton were recorded in writing. The burgesses had a free court with 2 bailiffs and 2 under bailiffs, a burgess clerk and 12 sworn burge4sses would form a jury. The court met twice a year around Michaelmas and on the morrow of St Hilary. They levied four pence fines or could impose prison, a pillory, a thew or the rack.

The Borough of Malton had gone a long way to removing control by the lord.

(John Rushton, The History of Ryedale, 2003, 142 to 143).

The Victorian Age

Coal, steam and machinery reshaped society by concentrating populations in towns around mines, factories and workshops..

In the 1851 census 54% of England’s population lived in towns (in France, only 19%).

In the following two decades:

· Total production nearly doubled.

· The length of the railways doubled.

· The number of railway passengers doubled.

· Freight tripled.

· The tonnage of steamships increased by 600%.

· About 1.5M new houses were built.

· The rate of income tax halved from 7d in £ (2.9%) to 4d (1.6%).

· Old buildings were demolished en masse.

The new towns were smelly, smoky and noisy. Development was uneven. There were new civic buildings, monuments and public utilities. This was accompanied by slums and rows of uniform red brick houses.

Cities were also starting to develop globally – New York, Calcutta, Shanghai, Essen, St Petersburg.

New literature from Dickens and later HG Wells reflected the change as did art.

Charing Cross Bridge, Fog on the Thames, 1903

In 1850 a quarter of the population lived in large towns of over 100,000, mostly industrial centres, like Bradford, Sheffield and Leeds.

The fragmentation of development was chaotic, and as pioneers of urban growth, Britain made many mistakes.

However death rates and infant mortality were low on the global scale, below Sweden, but above France, Germany, Spain, Russia and US. Inevitably infant mortality was higher in poorer areas.

The greater representation of government and the network of local authorities coped relatively well with the new growth.

By the 1880s:

· Britain strove to a better minimum health standard than other countries.

· Cities had invested in sewers and water facilities.

· Sanitary inspectors reduced over crowding and adopted measures to control pollution.

By the 1840s, the average number per house in the East End was 6.4 and 30% of homes were well furnished (ie including a piano!).

This was a period of exponential growth in the production of coal, pig iron and the consumption of raw cotton, dwarfing the equivalent in France and Germany.

The growth in non agricultural production meant the population had to be fed by imports. Since 1822 Britain’s balance of trade has remained permanently in deficit. It had to be balanced by invisible earnings from banking, insurance and shipping, and returns from foreign investments.

This brought new kinds of wealth (commerce, manufacturing, food and drink, tobacco) and new wealthy families, like the Rothschilds and the Guinness’s. Someone of the very richest, like the Duke of Westminster, continued to derive their wealth from their land holdings, but now because they benefitted from mineral rights.

There were very significant disparities of wealth:

By 1914, 92% of wealth was owned by 10% of the population.

In the 1860s:

· The population was around 20M.

· 4,000 people had incomes over £5,000 per year.

· 1.4M had around £100.

· A farm labourer might earn £20.

· Women workers earned about half of men’s wages.

There was a rise in wages from mid century, with a significant rise in 1873.

However in rural areas, wages lagged behind.

Living standard improved with a fall in the birth rate. The sharpest increase in spending was tobacco – the mechanically produced Wills Woodbines at 1d for five were popular from the 1880s to the 1960s. The consumption of alcohol fell sharply.

The Industrial Towns, depicted in Disraeli’s Sybil, established their own traditions and institutions.

· In textile towns such as in Lancashire and elsewhere, people played together, sang in choral societies together, voted together and holidayed together.

· Mining industries formed brass bands.

· New sports grounds and works teams emerged.

· Neighbourhood clubs provided some security for unemployment, burial costs, clothes, medicine and Christmas.

· Charities expanded.

· There was a multiplication of cooperative societies, savings banks and friendly societies (like the Independent Order of Oddfellows, and the Ancient Order of Foresters). By 1901 there were 5.47M members of friendly societies.

· There was a growth in trade unions.

o “Combination” by workers became legal in the 1820s.

o However the Master and Servants Acts 1823 and 1867 continued to punish workers for breaking contracts.

o The Employers and Workmen Act 1875 recognised a right to collective bargaining and soon led to unionisation being seen as a right.

o This was a contrast to the position in France, Germany and US. The British workforce became more unionised.

o Unions tended to be peaceful but adversarial with employers.

o The Victorian Working Class had a recognised and independent place in the social order.

· Medical insurance developed.

· Voluntary hospitals were funded by donations.

There were increasing attempts to improve the quality of life in towns.

· A growth of parks, gardens and allotments.

· New suburban districts with villas with gardens.

· Gardeining became a popular hobby.

· The planned urban estates of Regency London, Bath and Edinburgh.

· Communities of workers were created by such people as Titus Salt.

There was a new sentiment for rural England from the towns. In many cases, these new organisations were largely driven by the provision of amenity for town dwellers.

· The Commons Preservation Society 1865

· The English Dialect Society 1873

· The Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings 1877

· The Folklore Society 1878

· The Lake District Defence Society 1883

· The Society for the Protection of Birds 1889

· The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty 1895

· The Folk Song Society 1898

· The English Folk Dance Society 1911

· The National Trust Act 1907 allowed the Trust to declare land inalienable.

· Thomas Hardy novels

· A E Housman’s A Shropshire Lad 1896

(Robert Tombs, The English and their History, 2023, 477 to 492).