British and Public Policy 1776–1939
An Economic, Social and Political Perspective

An account of the evolution of British public policy from the Industrial Revolution to 1939.

Sydney Checkland (Author)

9780521270861, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 26 September 1985

444 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 2.7 cm, 0.722 kg

' … an impressive monument to the traditional skills of the best economic and social historians.' Economica

The evolution of British public policy through the industrial revolution, the Victorian age and the inter-war years to 1939 is an essential element of British history. It is also a necessary preliminary to the understanding of today's policy choices as they confront governments. It has not previously been viewed as a totality, embodying the economic aspects, both macro and micro, together with social and welfare provision and the patterns of ideas affecting both. Sydney Checkland's treatment, first published in 1983, embraces all these aspects, and is set within the changing configuration of class and politics as the franchise extended. As successive governments responded to these challenges they sought to improve the operation of the market economy and to ease the social pressures that it generated. They had to find an acceptable level of consent to what they were doing; this often involved limiting the choices of individuals and of groups. Of the latter, in large-scale business the trade unions were an increasing problem. Reciprocally these interests tried both to limit the actions of governments as these affected themselves and, indeed, to influence the general course of policy. Account is taken of the fact that Britain was not one nation, but four, each with its perspective and aspirations. The pattern increases in complexity with the passage of time, so that the discussion of the First World War and the troubled decades of the twenties and thirties comprise the largest section of the book.

Preface
Introduction
Part I. Industrialisation and War, 1776–1815: 1. The state and the proto-industrial economy of Britain
2. Core and periphery: England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland
3. Social values and social policy
Part II. Assimilating the Industrial Revolution, 1815–51: 4. The trend to economic laissez-faire
5. The social action equation and the zeitgeist
Part III. The Victorian Apogee, 1851–74: 6. The market triumphant
7. The state and the claims of labour
8. The advance of social collectivism
Part IV. Industrial Maturity and the Ending of Pre-Eminence, 1874–1914: 9. The continued freedom of the market mechanism
the state-induced changes in its operating conditions
10. Land and rule in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland
11. The emergence of a public sector, chiefly at the local government level
12. The assertion of the power of labour in industry and politics
13. Welfare and the social democratic urge
Part V. Total War and Troubled Peace, 1914–39: 14. The policy imperatives of war
the reconstruction debate and the dismantlement of control, 1914–21
15. The strains of nationalism: Wales, Scotland and Ireland
16. The advent of peacetime macro-economic management
17. Micro-management: the restructuring of industry and agriculture
the regions
18. Micro-management: the public sector
19. The business response
20. The political and industrial attitudes of labour
21. The welfare share: its elements and adequacy
22. Public policy by 1939
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], British & Irish history [HBJD1]