PATRICK GEDDES AND THE EDINBURGH SOCIAL UNION
planning - poverty - philanthropy
by Graham Urquhart

This paper examines the relationship between social thought and social action as it was applied to the social problems of the Old Town of Edinburgh in the late nineteenth century. Patrick Geddes's evolutionary social thought enshrined in 'Place, Work and Folk' was in stark contrast to statutory attempts to deal with urban social problems. The utopian strand of Geddes's social thought is contrasted with the practical social action undertaken by the Edinburgh Social Union, a philanthropic society that Geddes was instrumental in forming to apply his ideas to the social problems of Old Edinburgh.

The paper is composed of three main parts. Firstly, I analyse the background to the slum conditions prevalent in Edinburgh's Old Town in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and assess statutory solutions to deal with them, primarily through the legislation of the Improvement Scheme. I argue that this mode of social thought was part of a discourse that privileged place over people and only exacerbated the housing problem. Secondly, I will briefly assess Geddes's criticism of these schemes and attempt to link his social thought to the social problems of the Old Town. This can be encapsulated in his thinking machine triad Place, Work, and Folk. I will argue that Geddes outlined a utopian, visionary appeal for social and civic renewal in which place and people could not be viewed in isolation. The final part of the essay examines the primary sources of the Edinburgh Social Union that was formed by Geddes in 1885. I attempt to show how the society accommodated a number of Geddesian ideas, but fundamentally evolved into a professionalised, philanthropic body that conceptualised place and the poor much more in line with the modernising philanthropic thought of the late nineteenth century. In summary, what I attempt to show are the complexities, subtleties and contrasts in how social thought can impact on the social problems and the social change of place. This argues against any simple linear or causal explanation but encompasses a variety of dynamically changing relationships between social thought, social action and social change.

Place in Context: the Old Town of Edinburgh

The slum residents were vagrants and semi-pauperized orders from all parts of the country, a mixture of rural Scots and Irish immigrants who were befouling Edinburgh's proud face by their dissolute behaviour.

Society must do something to protect itself against disease and vice.

In the late nineteenth century, the Old Town of Edinburgh suffered from many of the contemporary social problems of urban environments such as poverty, overcrowding, squalor and disease. This had largely arisen following the construction of the Georgian New Town in the eighteenth century. Edinburgh's upper and middle classes had gradually abandoned the high tenement buildings and narrow closes of the Old Town. Former aristocratic and middle class homes were subsequently subdivided into one-room dwellings and additional buildings were erected creating a warren of passages and closes. This accelerated severe population overcrowding, which combined with a complete lack of sanitary facilities created urban slum conditions populated by the working classes. The contrast between population density is evident with 204.4 persons per acre in the Old Town Grassmarket area compared to 63.4 persons per acre in the Upper New Town. Similarly, death rates were 26.9 per thousand and 15.1 per thousand respectively.

The Old Town, and its inhabitants, was increasingly marginalised and ignored by the affluent New Town dwellers. Mid-nineteenth century attitudes to the poor and debates on poverty were characterised by two pamphlets by George Bell that had a similar effect on the affluent New Town dwellers as Andrew Mearns Bitter Cry was later to have in London in 1883. As Cooke says, these pamphlets were 'the voice of fear' and attempted to link poverty, [lack of] religious faith and the 'immoral' conditions that Bell found in the closes of the Old Town. The evangelical Bell viewed the slum conditions as housing 'many immortal souls in danger' and the middle class readership were warned of the 'disease, violence and disorders' that could potentially erupt from the Old Town. The slums were therefore characterised as a threat to the upper and middle class city. A more considered, dispassionate, account of the slum problem was published in 1865 by Dr Littlejohn. Littlejohn had been appointed as the first Medical Officer of Health for Edinburgh in 1862. His Report on the Sanitary Condition of the City of Edinburgh recommended many improvements including the 'redevelopment' of the worst of the slums around the Old Town. The desire to address the slum problem received further impetus when William Chambers, the 'reforming' Lord Provost was appointed in 1865. Chambers wanted the slums to be redeveloped as he believed they were a disgrace to Edinburgh's stature and undermined its contemporary reputation and symbolic value as a repository of 800 years of Scottish history.

This theme had powerful emotional appeal to the affluent dwellers of the New Town and typically took the form that the Old Town could not be restored to its proper place in the community until it was once again lived in by a 'superior' class of people. The Chambers Improvement Act for Edinburgh, was passed in 1867. Whilst there was a implicit view that slum residents were to be the intended beneficiaries of the 1867 scheme, Smith reveals how, in practice, the Improvement Scheme, between 1867 and 1900, simply became a device for getting rid of 'unhealthy houses'. It ceased to be a metaphor for a wide ranging vision of municipal progress and instead became a technical legal instrument of local government by which the pockets of bad housing were cleaned out one by one. By 1890, Smith argues that the Improvement Scheme was: 'accepted as a public health measure rather than a device for providing the poor with better houses.' Slum residents had no voice in the Improvement Scheme process and were never consulted in the planning exercises. However, participation was solicited from the elite classes and particularly members of prominent organisations who could be expected to have influence on the population of enfranchised householders who would have to bear the public costs. Even during statutory enquiries in the 1890s the residents of the clearance areas were never represented. Hearings were heard solely for the benefit of absentee landlords.

The major impact of the Improvement Schemes on the poor in the Old Town was the simple failure to replace the housing stock that was demolished. Unlike the principle enshrined in the Cross Act of 1875, that total working class housing supply should not be diminished, the Edinburgh Corporation had no legal obligation to replace the housing stock. Morris highlights that out of the 2,741 buildings that were demolished, only 340 were rebuilt to replenish the housing stock. The other problem was that the vast majority of rebuilding was undertaken by private developers. It was impossible for private enterprise to satisfy all sanitary requirements in new buildings and to secure a reasonable return by charging rents that the poorest slum dwellers could afford. The housing that was built was intended for the superior working classes: 'the artisans, and tradesmen, not for casual labourers or rag pickers and certainly not for drunkards, criminals or prostitutes of all descriptions which the slum population was so widely believed to comprise.' The resulting outcome was not altogether surprising. The displaced population were simply absorbed into the surrounding areas, increasing the overcrowding in the rest of the Old Town and exacerbating the social problems. Rather than addressing the working class housing problem, the Improvement Scheme arguably did not reduce the slums but merely shifted the inhabitants around.

The attitude to the poor revealed in the practical implementation of the Improvement Scheme appears to rest in the moral judgement of the 'unforgiving side of Scottish Puritanism.' There was a belief that it was the poor themselves who were largely to blame for the persistence of the slums and, as Smith says, slum clearance began to look uncomfortably like a punishment for unrespectable behaviour in the eyes of the middle classes. A municipal utilitarianism was also evident in that the corporation's actions could be justified under the criterion of responsibility to ratepayers which was perceived to be for the greater civic good rather than the health and welfare of the slum population. In summary, I would argue that the social discourse behind the Improvement Acts was to focus attention on place rather than people. The slum inhabitants are almost absent from any debate about solving the slum problem and little attempt was made to address the structural forms of poverty, particularly the sufficient supply of affordable working class housing. By clearing the insanitary areas, the belief was that the moral failings of the slum inhabitants would be dispersed.

One of the key critics of the slum clearance policy was Patrick Geddes who believed that it had a devastating and destructive impact on the slum community. In addition to homes being lost, social ties were ruptured and the subsequent lack of affordable new housing meant that displaced families were left with little alternative but to redraw the map of the slums. Geddes concluded that as a method of relieving overcrowding congestion, the Improvement Scheme was spurious. The chief beneficiaries of the schemes were the rack-renting landlords with the social costs borne by the poor.

The Social Thought of Patrick Geddes: Place, Work and Folk

We are learning to view history, not as mere archaeology, not as mere annals, but as the study of social filiation. That is the determination of the present by the past […] and the tracing of this process in the phases of transformation, progressive or degenerative, which our city has exhibited throughout its various periods.

A city is the superstructure erected on the basis of place work and folk.

Many claims are made for the social thought and ideas of Patrick Geddes. From the vantage point of the present day he is claimed as the founding father of city planning and environmentalism, a social evolutionist, pioneer of sociology and promoter of a cosmopolitan Celtic nationalism. In this part of the essay, I concentrate on the social thought of Geddes in relation to his attitudes to the poor and the social problems of Edinburgh's Old Town. I will argue that whilst Geddes was very much a man of his time, grappling with a critique of the social consequences of the Industrial Revolution, the idealistic utopianism of his social thought was tempered with pragmatic social action, particularly with the founding of the Edinburgh Social Union. His vision was the cultural renewal and regeneration of Old Edinburgh using art, beauty and education as his tools. This vision was a secular humanism that stressed the value of urban life. Consequently, he believed that even the most degraded city, and its people, could be renewed by improving existing buildings, rather than indiscriminate demolition, avoiding social segregation and integrating housing and recreational space.

Geddes returned to live in Edinburgh in 1880 after a period of study with T.H. Huxley in London and at the Sorbonne in Paris. Geddes was struck by the duality of Edinburgh. The clean open spaces of the New Town contrasted vividly with the dark overcrowded squalor of the Old Town. Geddes was also aware that rent payments from the slum inhabitants helped to 'maintain the comfortable citizenry on the other side of Princess Street.' In Geddes's view this had led to:

A disastrous increase in the social separation of classes, who had been in Old Edinburgh so peculiarly mingled, so that the upper and middle classes have been wont to traverse Edinburgh by viaducts high above the festering squalor below and to live and die in practical indifference to it.

The Improvement Schemes had placed emphasis on slum clearance, but the human dimension had been largely ignored. Geddes, strongly influenced by Frederic Le Play, emphasised his thinking machine triad of Place Work and Folk to conceptualise his central idea that social processes and spatial form are intimately related. This emphasised the holistic connection between physical environment, economic activity and community. Geddes saw Place, Work and Folk as a counterpart to biology's rudimentary triad of Environment, Function and Organism. People were therefore an index of their environment and neither could be viewed in isolation. Geddes viewed the city as a carrier of culture and civilisation that could be understood as an evolutionary organism and like many commentators on the effects of the Industrial Revolution, Geddes took the view that social relationships had been deeply damaged by unregulated pursuit of profit during industrialisation. Geddes drew from Ruskin and Carlyle, Comte's positivism and Spencer which together with his training as a botanist in the evolutionary theories of Darwin and Huxley, resulted in an interdisciplinary outlook that treated society as the focus of the problem and not the deficiency of individual morals. This was in stark contrast to the initiators of the Improvement Schemes. Geddes produced a number of papers in the 1880s that engaged with the progressive thought of the times. His paper on statistics reflected the late nineteenth century interest in statistics as a force for social change, whilst his various papers on economics and political economy were critical of what he viewed as the economist's ignorance of the social effect of occupation on man. ['Work']. He also drew from his botanical background to criticise political economy's failure to draw parallels between man and the two causes of degeneration in the organic world: deprivation and overabundance. However, unlike Marx, rather than overtly dealing with any notion of redistributive economics, Geddes views deprivation in terms of food, light and clean air. ['Place']. In another paper, Geddes outlines a belief that co-operation is a fundamental human characteristic and therefore he rejected Spencer's survival of the fittest doctrine as it denied man's altruistic nature. However, Geddes found no appeal in state socialism which he viewed, perhaps somewhat misguidedly, as: 'dreaming dreams and nothing getting done.'

Some similarities can be drawn with the ideas of the thinkers behind Toynbee Hall when Geddes moved from the New Town to take up residence in St James Court situated in one of the most run down areas of the Old Town. This move confounded many of his Edinburgh contemporaries and marked out Geddes as an anti-establishment figure. This was further compounded by the type of people who visited Geddes to lecture at his educational summer schools. They included Peter Kropotkin and the anarchist geographer Elis¾e Reclus. Kitchen makes the point that Geddes's own thought was closest to these two people, eschewing organised political mechanisms to achieve social change in favour of an individualistic humanism. Geddes also saw the University as a means of cultural renewal and he worked to bring students back to live in the Old Town where the great eighteenth century scholars had lived. Geddes attracted a core of student acolytes to help him in his work but unlike the reforming Christian zeal of the University Settlement movement, Geddes operated from a secular agenda that privileged art and culture as the civilising agents that would take society forward. This was to be led by an intellectual elite operating from 'the cloister'. His objective was to transform the nineteenth century ideal of progress from: 'an individual race for wealth into a social crusade of culture.'

I would argue that Geddes's ideas in the context of the late nineteenth century look highly Utopian. It is difficult to envisage how someone living in an overcrowded slum dwelling would respond to the call for a new classless culture city, directed by a theocratic elite. However, there is evidence that Geddes was aware of the idealism in his social thought:

North, south, east and west are only ideals of direction: you will never absolutely get there; yet you can never get anywhere, save indeed straight down into a hole without them.

Our Civic Survey […comprises] fullest civic idealism on one hand to the most direct and ruthless realism on the other […] the town as Place, as Work, as Folk and the power of seeing things as they may be - the City of Ethno-Polity, Culture and Art.

Our report […] is a City design and thus is not only of material progress, but of idealistic progress.

In summary, in Geddes's thought we see a strong linkage between people and place and the evolutionary potential of both if addressed holistically. This is quite a contrast to much prevailing social thinking on the poor who were only conceived as a problem with moral failings. The clear criticism that can be argued is that whilst he was against physical segregation of the classes, like the Oxford Idealists, he does not fundamentally seem to question any perceived inequalities in economic distribution or address the economic, structural causes of poverty. Similarly, the criticism can be made that Geddes envisaged civic renewal being driven by a theocratic elite who would essentially 'civilise' the poor through the imposition of their own values and definitions of art, beauty and culture. Nonetheless, Geddes's social thought outlined a normative ideal to address the Old Town's social problems as part of a larger plan for civic renewal. I will now look at how Geddes's social thought was applied and accommodated through the work of the Edinburgh Social Union.

The Edinburgh Social Union

Geddes's first foray into engaging with the slum problem does appear highly idealistic. His initiatives involved finding young artists to carve statues and provide drinking fountains in the St Giles district. In addition, together with a circle of friends, Geddes began to cultivate any waste ground by making small gardens and planting trees, trying to encourage the tenement dwellers into a dynamic relationship with their environment. Later, in 1911, Geddes would write:

What can be done, here and there, with moderate means and ordinary folk with such labour as they can spare […] open space amid the slums […] within the historic mile, despite its overcrowding, amount to 75 pieces measuring about 10 acres in all. This survey leads to plan, to action and a ten or dozen of these have already been reclaimed [… ] into gardens accessible to school and street children and to the people in general. As a practical point it may be added that despite all that is too commonly said of rough population and the rest, no mischief worth mentioning is ever done. Quite the contrary, the gardens are thoroughly appreciated and their educating civilising influence already plain, and spreading in ways too varied and complex for consideration here.

This suggests that Geddes viewed his garden schemes as a success and as a means of engaging people with place.

If Geddes's ideas were arguably utopian, I will argue that his foray into philanthropic work was grounded in an almost Gramscian praxis. Philanthropic work was a means towards Geddes's vision of civic, social evolution, therefore, pragmatic attempts to address the slum problem were required. Geddes invited a number of friends to form the Edinburgh Social Union in 1885 and the opening minutes reveal a brief statement of purpose for which the meeting had been summoned:

Their immediate aim was to raise the standard of comfort mainly by laying more stress on the value of beauty and order in the surroundings of life. They intended to begin by decorating public halls and other places especially where the poorer classes meet; by encouraging window gardening, especial among children and by providing entertainments.

Cognisance is also made in the opening minutes of the work of the Kyrle Society and the Nottingham Social Guild reflecting familiarity with contemporary social thinking. An executive committee was formed of six people with Geddes appointed Head of the Decorative Committee. I would argue that these opening minutes reflect the utopian strand of Geddes's thought. When faced with the abject conditions of the slums, to lay stress on beauty and order and decorating public halls reveals a high purpose that would likely mean little to the average slum dweller. It is interesting to note that in the ESU's first annual report, the social purpose had been somewhat extended:

To bring together all those who feel that the misery of the poor arises in large measure from the want of sympathy and fellowship between different classes, and that all charitable effort […] should apply those methods which economic science suggests as tending most permanently to the mental and moral development of the community. The members of this society believe the most immediate question to face is how to make the best of present conditions; how to raise the standard of comfort without waiting for the operation of legislative changes. They recognise […] the chief material hindrances to the well being of the poor in the unwholesomeness and discomfort of their homes […] lack of healthy enjoyments, and they propose to crusade against intemperance and other such evils by providing opportunities for higher tastes and pleasures.

The essence of Geddes's idealism remains in that the quality of the lives of the poor can be addressed by tackling the physical environment, however, there are also clear moral judgements made regarding the poor in the 'crusade against intemperance and other evils.' The first annual report shows how the ESU had grown from the initial six members to over fifty. Notable is the number of churchmen who had joined the General Committee and presumably had some influence. Also notable is that almost all of the members resided in the middle class New Town showing that the ESU had clearly been successful in engaging the middle classes in the slum problem of the Old Town. In 1885, Geddes, as representative of the ESU, visited Octavia Hill in London. The housing activities of the society began to develop closely modelled on the five percent philanthropy model. Beginning with two properties in 1885, by 1897, the ESU was responsible for 23 properties housing 450 families.

Geddes appears to have embraced the 5% philanthropy concept as a means of contributing to his vision of social and cultural renewal. This system worked without questioning the present distribution of economic resources but did allow for properties to be made sanitary and habitable and gave the opportunity for tenants to engage with art beauty and culture, albeit directed from a middle class perspective. The ESU typically took over as factor of the property for a private landlord. The total annual rent equated to c.9% per annum and after 5% return was paid to the landlord, the remainder was used to improve the properties and fund the ESU's other activities.

By examining the ESU's records, it is possible to glean how the relationship between tenants and rent collectors developed and how the rent collectors thought about the poor. There are clear echoes of the 'benevolent despotism' of Octavia Hill:

The whole appearance of the houses bears evidence of greater cleanliness and comfort. In numbers of instances the tenants clean their children and their houses, and dress themselves in clean caps and aprons for the reception of collectors of rent on the morning on which they are expected.

Rent collectors are perceived as friends and counsellors, while at the same time there is no relaxation of discipline and the tenants thoroughly understand the business footing on which the relationship between them is based.

Perceptions of the 'progress' of the tenant's behaviour can be monitored through the ESU annual reports. By 1888, 'most of the houses show a distinct improvement, [with] many of the tenants taking a pride in keeping their houses tidy […] much of the surplus rent has been used in painting and papering the houses, putting cans on to cure smoky chimneys.' By the time of the fifth annual report, in 1889, the ESU had become a professionalised, philanthropic body and initiated a form of 'surveillance' whereby the rent collectors submitted quarterly reports. These commented on the keeping and lighting of stairs and passages, cleaning of sinks, cisterns and closets and the character and conduct of the tenants. Special note was made of the proportion of tenants who had readily carried out the rules. One rent collector states: 'still too many cases of drunkenness and dirty houses.' Another reports that 'daily sweeping is regarded as a 'fad of the landlady' whilst also hoping to make the children a 'little more gentle in their play.'

Geddes left the executive committee of the ESU in 1889, although he continued to remain a member. By this time the scale and activities of the ESU had arguably moved from Geddes's high-minded idealism of transforming place through beauty to a pragmatic property management company, operating within the discourse of late nineteenth century philanthropic capitalism. This arguably embraced many middle class assumptions regarding the poor and place and raises questions of whether social control or social reform had become the main driving force. The composition of the ESU by this time embraced ministers of religion, schoolteachers and professors with the rent collectors consisting primarily of young, unmarried women. There is little doubt that despite benevolent intimations the relationship between rent collector and tenant was conducted on strict business principles and in accordance with views of how the tenants should behave. Families who 'lowered the tone of a stair' were requested to leave and as one rent collector says: 'there seems no doubt that the tone of a stair does rise under our management. There was also a clear hierarchy by which tenants were deemed suitable for elevation to higher quality properties only if they had obeyed the rules: 'it still seems a dubious experiment to move a tenant to a superior type of house until he has learned to appreciate its authority.' However, as O'Day makes the point the social control argument cannot be stretched too far. Families voluntarily applied for the Society's houses and demand was greater than supply. The families who did live in ESU managed properties, largely chose to abide by the rules and it is interesting to note that rent defaults were minimal. There is also evidence that when tenants became unemployed, the rent collectors helped them in their search for work. Some families did move on to better accommodation: 'we find it an advantage to have properties of different grades and occasionally we have the great satisfaction of passing a family on from a lower to a higher-grade tenement. It is pleasant to find that our tenants as a rule prefer to move on to another of our properties and still be 'under the ladies'.

The foregoing leads me to conclude that by 1889, the ESU had evolved into a professionalised philanthropic body that sought to impose social values aligned with the modernising social thought of late nineteenth century philanthropy. However, I would also argue that the ESU did accommodate aspects of Geddes vision and evolutionary thought. From the outset, funds were used for window box gardens and flower shows and art classes were given to 'help to render homes beautiful.' These classes included: wood-carving, brass beating, stencilling, mosaic, and leather stamping. Entertainments were given in a number of properties on Saturday evenings consisting of music, recitations, magic lantern entertainments and tableaux. Libraries were also installed in many properties. These entertainments were deemed - at least by the ESU - as very successful. At the AGM in 1887, Professor Baldwin Brown stated that the objective was not only to beautify the homes of the poor but to teach them to do so themselves. Geddes as Head of the ESU art committee was also responsible for the introduction of decorative art into various public buildings. Some were quite modest such as placing copies of Millais's Parables in a Grassmarket Mission Hall whilst a history of corn in six panels was commissioned from Charles Mackie. One of the major projects undertaken was the decoration of the mortuary chapel of the Sick Children's hospital undertaken by Phoebe Traquair in 1885. Also, as Glendinning and Page say, Geddes 'almost single handedly set about the revival of mural painting in Scotland in the hope that decorating homes, schools and workplaces with scenes of national history and legend might help regenerate modern materialistic society'.

After Geddes left the executive committee in 1889, the work of the ESU continued to evolve under the 5% philanthropy model and the Burgh authorities noted that the work of the ESU 'laid the foundations for an upward lift to our lapsed masses. Arguably, a phrase pregnant with moral judgement. A more holistic assessment was given in the Manchester Guardian. This report acknowledged that 'the Society recognised that it had a duty to art and history as well as philanthropy. Under its able administration, houses that were falling to ruin and would shortly have been raised to the ground have been restored on the old architectural lines with modern sanitary improvements.'

The question has to be asked as to whether Geddes viewed the work of the ESU as a success? Writing in 1910, he said: 'Old Edinburgh […] is already in progress of renewal as a living city; reviving as a home of industry and art, of health and education, of social life and civic influence and even of spiritual intensities no less than of old. […] We venture more and more boldly upon that social and cultural evolution at once civic and educational, which surely expresses the best tradition and highest hope of Edinburgh Old and New. This would suggest that Geddes viewed this work as a success.

Conclusion

In summary, what I have attempted to show in this essay is to show the complexities, subtleties and contrasts in how social thought was applied to place and the poor in the Old Town of Edinburgh in the late nineteenth century. This argues against any simple linear or causal explanation but encompasses a variety of dynamically changing relationships between social thought and social action. Geddes's evolutionary social thought, enshrined in Place Work and Folk, was in stark contrast to the privileging of place over people under the Improvement Schemes. Whilst the records of the ESU reveal many prevailing middle class attitudes and assumptions about the poor as exhibited in late nineteenth century philanthropy, it also continued to accommodate some aspects of Geddes's thought. By at least linking the evolutionary potential of people and place holistically and fostering the tools of art, beauty and education, Geddes's utopian vision of a vibrant re-generated Edinburgh Old Town was at least partly accommodated in practical social action.

© Graham Urquhart May 2003.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. PRIMARY SOURCES

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Mearns, Andrew, The Bitter Cry of Outcast London (Bath: Cedric Chivers Limited, 1969).

O'Day, Rosemary, 'Social Thought and Social Action', Block 3, Social Problems, Social Thought and Social Action in Urban Britain 1870-1914 (Milton Keynes: The Open University, 2002).

O'Day, Rosemary, 'The East End of London 1870-1899', Block 5, Social Problems, Social Thought and Social Action in Urban Britain 1870-1914 (Milton Keynes: The Open University, 2002).

Perkin, Harold, The Rise of Professional Society (London: Routledge, 1989).

Webb, Beatrice, My Apprenticeship, vol.1 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1938).

Wohl, Anthony S, 'The bitter cry of outcast London', International Review of Social History, vol.XIII, part2, pp.189-245.

The Open University, Charles Booth and Social Investigation in Nineteenth Century Britain (Milton Keynes: The Open University, 1997), on CD ROM.

Texts: Theoretical Perspectives

Jenkins, K, Rethinking History (London: Routledge, 1991).

Joyce, Patrick, ed, Class (Oxford: OUP, 1995).

Kozicki, H, ed, Developments in Modern Historiography (London: Macmillan, 1993).

Munslow, Alun, The Routledge Companion to Historical Studies (London: Routledge, 2000).

Tosh, J, The Pursuit of History, third edition (London: Longman, 2000).