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Western Mediterranean Europe: A historical geography of Italy, Spain and Southern France since the neolithic
Journal of Historical Geography, 7, 3 (1981) 307-340
Reviews
The British Isles and the European mainland DAVID CANNADINE,Lords and Landlords: The Aristocracy and the Towns 1774-1967 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1980. Pp. 494. E19.00) The central conclusion which emerges from this important study is that urban development fits the deterministic view of history. Or, more accurately, the predeterministic view for topography, location, economic and thus social structure, and demographic features are afforded primary places in the explanation of urban expansion. The influence of the land-ownership pattern is therefore subordinated to the “logic inherent in the economic and social structure of the town”. Hence estate decisions and restrictive leasehold covenants, while not unimportant, were themselves governed by the level of demand and the balance of middle and working-class incomes. Explicitly, then, Cannadine argues that the issues of consolidated aristocratic control versus fragmented land-ownership and leasehold versus freehold tenure as determinants of urban expansion are of secondary importance, and that the contribution of the aristocracy to the evolution of towns has been overestimated. This relegation of the aristocratic function is summarised, on page 416, where Cannadine concludes, “All the evidence advanced here suggests that London and the great provincial cities would probably have developed essentially as they did whether they boasted aristocratic owners or not because identical patterns of urban zoning can be seen to exist where there are diametrically opposite structures of landownership”. To this forceful argument two areas of qualification are readily conceded. Firstly, in the seaside resorts a more creative, innovative role is accorded to the aristocracy. Here the conception and initiation of a new resort town placed the onus more firmly upon the landowner who, in addition to shouldering greater risks and expenses and lower short term returns compared to the suburban developer in an already established town, was also called upon to subscribe to notoriously ‘lumpy’ social overhead capital projects indispensable to the success of the resort-promenades, parks and public utilities. Secondly, and at a different level of analysis, the character and timing of development on any one estate-house types, street widths, architectural styles-owed much to individual circumstances of the landowner even if he was dependent on the wider ‘social and economic realities” which formed the backcloth to urban estate development. These conclusions are presented in five ‘thematic’ chapters, themselves mainly derived from 22 chapters and 300pages of two detailed estate histories, the Calthorpes’ Edgbaston lands in Birmingham and the Devonshires’ Eastboume estate. These two case studies are a typical : “ill-chosen” is the author’s self-confessed term. Both landowners dominated their respective areas; the Devonshires owned 66% of Eastboume and the Calthorpes 85 % of Edgbaston. It was this concentration of ownership which allowed both families, in conjunction with the skilful professional advice of their estate officers, to develop and superintend the similar strategies of a controlled release of building land with strict limitations on the type of building to be undertaken. Enforcement of the restrictive covenants attached to the leaseholds was aided by the zealous watchfulness of residents
308
REVIEWS
themselves in defenceof their vested interests in maintaining the tone of the neighbourhood. Adherence to the bans on industry, trade, noise (including the Salvation Army), and other forms of pollution was absolute and when Eastbourne became incorporated as a borough 169 restrictive clauses represented the inheritance of the Devonshire estate policy. “A whale among minnows”, the Devonshires possessed hereditary titles and estate acreages far superior to other seaside landowners; the .Calthorpes, the smallest landowners connected with the major English industrial towns, were politically impotent, yet established themselves in the aristocracy by virtue of their sizeable urban rentals. It is precisely because of their atypicality, however, that they are well chosen examples of the aristocratic role, contrary to Cannadine’s view, for here with extreme degrees of land consolidation is the acid test of the landowners’ impact on urban development. If high class estate development policies could not succeed in Edgbaston and Eastbourne under the auspices of quasi-monopolistic landowners, the ability of landed interests elsewhere to stamp their development strategies on estates was more questionable. While the exclusivity of Edgbaston and Eastbourne bear testimony to the successful estate development policies of the two families, it was only achieved by acknowledging economic constraints and through geographical good fortune. Landlords could not for long ride roughshod over other interests. The pace of high class villa developments in Edgbaston was governed by the size of the middle class itself, business fluctuations, alternative suburban housing developments, land grants to churches, schools and hospitals, public opinion, death duties, demands for through routes for trams which punctured idyllic suburban quietude, and the varying financial fortunes of the family’s other estates. In Eastbourne, the catalogue of constraints was similar-the size of demand, the absence of a rail connection with London, the intrusion of trams and ducal donations and subscriptions to essential public services without which the overall viability of the resort was at risk. A greater measure of independent action existed for the Devonshires, partly because of their enormous holdings elsewhere, but neither family was in its urban development programme able to exert its will irrespective of wider market forces. The relative strengths of the two estates is captured by Cannadine: “While the Calthorpes needed Birmingham more than the town needed them, Eastbourne needed the Devonshires more than they needed it. Birmingham made the Calthorpes; the Devonshires made Eastbourne” (p. 388). Passages such as this make for an eminently good read. For this reason, as well as for the detailed documentary work and the wide sweep to the secondary literature on towns, this volume is likely to find a permanent place amongst the footnotes of future researchers. The standard of production is predictably high from a publisher with a lengthy urban history pedigree, though whether author or publisher is to be chided on the period ostensibly covered is uncertain. The dust-jacket proclaims the years 17741967. It is tantamount to misrepresentation for the years after 1920 are virtually unconsidered. Furthermore, a dozen pages of superficial comment on the twentieth century detracts from the quality of this essentially nineteenth-century study. Elsewhere the sleight of hand, the contradictions, are more conspicuously the author’s. We are told, for example, that house valuations of up to g499 are working class and conclusions on the social composition of areas are derived from such inflated and rather arbitrary bands of house valuations, which themselves take no account of considerable price fluctuations. We are asked to accept that twentieth-century aristocratic mayors and university chancellors are indicative of the continuing involvement of landowners with the town. And why were the English aristocracy in contrast to their continental counterparts more kindly disposed towards the development of their urban rentals? Such a fundamental issue is never faced. Mercifully Cannadine does not push his six-stage ‘model’ of aristocratic urban involvement. No doubt this too will find its way into the literature but the author himself diffidently embraces it, enshrouded as the stages are with numerous qualifications. No, methodologically Cannadine makes a more important contribution, for he challenges
REVIEWS
309
the notion that there is an identifiable discipline called ‘urban history’; here it is replaced by the study of history in the context of city. And the subject is the richer for his efforts. University of Leicester
HUGH CUNNINGHAM, Leisure
R. G. RODGER in the Industrial Revolution c. 1780-c.
1880 (London:
Croom Helm, 1980. Pp. 222. 01.95 and S6.50 softback) This is the first book to provide a full analytical treatment of the development of leisure and recreations in England in the crucial century after 1780; and it is remarkably successful. The author has kept abreast of the flood of new work in his chosen territory with commendable energy, and his bibliography of secondary sources is comprehensive and up-to-date with the latest work. He has also read widely in contemporary printed sources, including the Parliamentary Papers. This is a work of genuine scholarship; but it is also a lively and iconoclastic book, for Cunningham seeks to challenge an emergent orthodoxy about the relationship between industrialization and leisure, and to put forward an alternative interpretation of his own. He avoids the problems of definition, which can bedevil this subject, with commendable skill, and he offers a wide-ranging argument rather than the comprehensive approach of the orthodox text-book. He argues for the growth of popular leisure during the first half of the nineteenth century, pointing to the resilience and adaptability of older modes of enjoyment and the appearance of new forms of commercial entertainment; he demonstrates the complex variety of attitudes to leisure at all levels of society, while insisting on the centrality of the relationship between leisure and class; he stresses that the impetus to recreational change continued to come from below as well as from the middle classes; and he argues that the true period of transition in the emergence of a recognizably modern leisure culture, in attitudes and content, was the third quarter of the nineteenth century, although he admits that many changes which began then were to become much more visible at a later stage. A provocative conclusion attempts to explain the prevailing orthodoxies about the impact of the Industrial Revolution on leisure in terms of the deficiencies of the general historiography of the period. This stimulating book deserves a wide audience, and raises more issues than can be handled in a short review. Cunningham’s approach leaves historical geography on the sidelines for most of the book, but spatial considerations sometimes come to the fore, and geographers will be particularly interested in chapter 3, ‘Public leisure and private leisure’, which contains an interesting discussion of changing attitudes to the provision and use of recreational space. They may be surprised by the statement on page 79 that by about 1840 “the growth of towns entailed class segregation and a breakdown of any customary sense of community”; but this is an unusual lapse. It probably reflects the importance of London evidence to much of Cunningham’s argument, although he usually shows a keen awareness of the importance of variations from region to region and, indeed, from trade to trade. The current state of published research, however, makes it impossible for him to attempt a full analysis of regional differences and the reasons for them; we shall have to wait a long time for such a study. Here and there, indeed, Cunningham is led into error by the inadequacies of existing material. This is especially apparent in his treatment of wakes, and his remarks about the relationship between railways, resort growth, and patterns of investment and demand at the seaside are also open to criticism. Indeed, geographers may well be disappointed at the limited treatment of the relationship between transport and leisure more generally. But it would be churlish to end on a negative note. This is a very good book indeed, and historical geographers will read it with profit. Leisure and the Industrial Revolution is easily the best treatment of this important subject, and it should become essential reading for all serious students of the period. University of Lancaster
JOHN K. WALTON
Reviews
The British Isles and the European mainland DAVID CANNADINE,Lords and Landlords: The Aristocracy and the Towns 1774-1967 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1980. Pp. 494. E19.00) The central conclusion which emerges from this important study is that urban development fits the deterministic view of history. Or, more accurately, the predeterministic view for topography, location, economic and thus social structure, and demographic features are afforded primary places in the explanation of urban expansion. The influence of the land-ownership pattern is therefore subordinated to the “logic inherent in the economic and social structure of the town”. Hence estate decisions and restrictive leasehold covenants, while not unimportant, were themselves governed by the level of demand and the balance of middle and working-class incomes. Explicitly, then, Cannadine argues that the issues of consolidated aristocratic control versus fragmented land-ownership and leasehold versus freehold tenure as determinants of urban expansion are of secondary importance, and that the contribution of the aristocracy to the evolution of towns has been overestimated. This relegation of the aristocratic function is summarised, on page 416, where Cannadine concludes, “All the evidence advanced here suggests that London and the great provincial cities would probably have developed essentially as they did whether they boasted aristocratic owners or not because identical patterns of urban zoning can be seen to exist where there are diametrically opposite structures of landownership”. To this forceful argument two areas of qualification are readily conceded. Firstly, in the seaside resorts a more creative, innovative role is accorded to the aristocracy. Here the conception and initiation of a new resort town placed the onus more firmly upon the landowner who, in addition to shouldering greater risks and expenses and lower short term returns compared to the suburban developer in an already established town, was also called upon to subscribe to notoriously ‘lumpy’ social overhead capital projects indispensable to the success of the resort-promenades, parks and public utilities. Secondly, and at a different level of analysis, the character and timing of development on any one estate-house types, street widths, architectural styles-owed much to individual circumstances of the landowner even if he was dependent on the wider ‘social and economic realities” which formed the backcloth to urban estate development. These conclusions are presented in five ‘thematic’ chapters, themselves mainly derived from 22 chapters and 300pages of two detailed estate histories, the Calthorpes’ Edgbaston lands in Birmingham and the Devonshires’ Eastboume estate. These two case studies are a typical : “ill-chosen” is the author’s self-confessed term. Both landowners dominated their respective areas; the Devonshires owned 66% of Eastboume and the Calthorpes 85 % of Edgbaston. It was this concentration of ownership which allowed both families, in conjunction with the skilful professional advice of their estate officers, to develop and superintend the similar strategies of a controlled release of building land with strict limitations on the type of building to be undertaken. Enforcement of the restrictive covenants attached to the leaseholds was aided by the zealous watchfulness of residents
308
REVIEWS
themselves in defenceof their vested interests in maintaining the tone of the neighbourhood. Adherence to the bans on industry, trade, noise (including the Salvation Army), and other forms of pollution was absolute and when Eastbourne became incorporated as a borough 169 restrictive clauses represented the inheritance of the Devonshire estate policy. “A whale among minnows”, the Devonshires possessed hereditary titles and estate acreages far superior to other seaside landowners; the .Calthorpes, the smallest landowners connected with the major English industrial towns, were politically impotent, yet established themselves in the aristocracy by virtue of their sizeable urban rentals. It is precisely because of their atypicality, however, that they are well chosen examples of the aristocratic role, contrary to Cannadine’s view, for here with extreme degrees of land consolidation is the acid test of the landowners’ impact on urban development. If high class estate development policies could not succeed in Edgbaston and Eastbourne under the auspices of quasi-monopolistic landowners, the ability of landed interests elsewhere to stamp their development strategies on estates was more questionable. While the exclusivity of Edgbaston and Eastbourne bear testimony to the successful estate development policies of the two families, it was only achieved by acknowledging economic constraints and through geographical good fortune. Landlords could not for long ride roughshod over other interests. The pace of high class villa developments in Edgbaston was governed by the size of the middle class itself, business fluctuations, alternative suburban housing developments, land grants to churches, schools and hospitals, public opinion, death duties, demands for through routes for trams which punctured idyllic suburban quietude, and the varying financial fortunes of the family’s other estates. In Eastbourne, the catalogue of constraints was similar-the size of demand, the absence of a rail connection with London, the intrusion of trams and ducal donations and subscriptions to essential public services without which the overall viability of the resort was at risk. A greater measure of independent action existed for the Devonshires, partly because of their enormous holdings elsewhere, but neither family was in its urban development programme able to exert its will irrespective of wider market forces. The relative strengths of the two estates is captured by Cannadine: “While the Calthorpes needed Birmingham more than the town needed them, Eastbourne needed the Devonshires more than they needed it. Birmingham made the Calthorpes; the Devonshires made Eastbourne” (p. 388). Passages such as this make for an eminently good read. For this reason, as well as for the detailed documentary work and the wide sweep to the secondary literature on towns, this volume is likely to find a permanent place amongst the footnotes of future researchers. The standard of production is predictably high from a publisher with a lengthy urban history pedigree, though whether author or publisher is to be chided on the period ostensibly covered is uncertain. The dust-jacket proclaims the years 17741967. It is tantamount to misrepresentation for the years after 1920 are virtually unconsidered. Furthermore, a dozen pages of superficial comment on the twentieth century detracts from the quality of this essentially nineteenth-century study. Elsewhere the sleight of hand, the contradictions, are more conspicuously the author’s. We are told, for example, that house valuations of up to g499 are working class and conclusions on the social composition of areas are derived from such inflated and rather arbitrary bands of house valuations, which themselves take no account of considerable price fluctuations. We are asked to accept that twentieth-century aristocratic mayors and university chancellors are indicative of the continuing involvement of landowners with the town. And why were the English aristocracy in contrast to their continental counterparts more kindly disposed towards the development of their urban rentals? Such a fundamental issue is never faced. Mercifully Cannadine does not push his six-stage ‘model’ of aristocratic urban involvement. No doubt this too will find its way into the literature but the author himself diffidently embraces it, enshrouded as the stages are with numerous qualifications. No, methodologically Cannadine makes a more important contribution, for he challenges
REVIEWS
309
the notion that there is an identifiable discipline called ‘urban history’; here it is replaced by the study of history in the context of city. And the subject is the richer for his efforts. University of Leicester
HUGH CUNNINGHAM, Leisure
R. G. RODGER in the Industrial Revolution c. 1780-c.
1880 (London:
Croom Helm, 1980. Pp. 222. 01.95 and S6.50 softback) This is the first book to provide a full analytical treatment of the development of leisure and recreations in England in the crucial century after 1780; and it is remarkably successful. The author has kept abreast of the flood of new work in his chosen territory with commendable energy, and his bibliography of secondary sources is comprehensive and up-to-date with the latest work. He has also read widely in contemporary printed sources, including the Parliamentary Papers. This is a work of genuine scholarship; but it is also a lively and iconoclastic book, for Cunningham seeks to challenge an emergent orthodoxy about the relationship between industrialization and leisure, and to put forward an alternative interpretation of his own. He avoids the problems of definition, which can bedevil this subject, with commendable skill, and he offers a wide-ranging argument rather than the comprehensive approach of the orthodox text-book. He argues for the growth of popular leisure during the first half of the nineteenth century, pointing to the resilience and adaptability of older modes of enjoyment and the appearance of new forms of commercial entertainment; he demonstrates the complex variety of attitudes to leisure at all levels of society, while insisting on the centrality of the relationship between leisure and class; he stresses that the impetus to recreational change continued to come from below as well as from the middle classes; and he argues that the true period of transition in the emergence of a recognizably modern leisure culture, in attitudes and content, was the third quarter of the nineteenth century, although he admits that many changes which began then were to become much more visible at a later stage. A provocative conclusion attempts to explain the prevailing orthodoxies about the impact of the Industrial Revolution on leisure in terms of the deficiencies of the general historiography of the period. This stimulating book deserves a wide audience, and raises more issues than can be handled in a short review. Cunningham’s approach leaves historical geography on the sidelines for most of the book, but spatial considerations sometimes come to the fore, and geographers will be particularly interested in chapter 3, ‘Public leisure and private leisure’, which contains an interesting discussion of changing attitudes to the provision and use of recreational space. They may be surprised by the statement on page 79 that by about 1840 “the growth of towns entailed class segregation and a breakdown of any customary sense of community”; but this is an unusual lapse. It probably reflects the importance of London evidence to much of Cunningham’s argument, although he usually shows a keen awareness of the importance of variations from region to region and, indeed, from trade to trade. The current state of published research, however, makes it impossible for him to attempt a full analysis of regional differences and the reasons for them; we shall have to wait a long time for such a study. Here and there, indeed, Cunningham is led into error by the inadequacies of existing material. This is especially apparent in his treatment of wakes, and his remarks about the relationship between railways, resort growth, and patterns of investment and demand at the seaside are also open to criticism. Indeed, geographers may well be disappointed at the limited treatment of the relationship between transport and leisure more generally. But it would be churlish to end on a negative note. This is a very good book indeed, and historical geographers will read it with profit. Leisure and the Industrial Revolution is easily the best treatment of this important subject, and it should become essential reading for all serious students of the period. University of Lancaster
JOHN K. WALTON