Property and Politics 1870–1914
Landownership, Law, Ideology and Urban Development in England

This book presents an innovative study on the history and impact of landed property, urban development and taxation between 1870–1914.

Avner Offer (Author)

9780521129985, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 11 February 2010

464 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.68 kg

Landed and urban property exercised a powerful influence on social policy, urban development and national party politics in Victorian and Edwardian England. This book presents an innovative study of the economic, legal and social foundations of the British State. It contains a history of the law of land transfer, estimates of landed property and landed debt, and descriptions of the urban property market and of the impact of taxation upon urban development. Agrarian and urban property owners embraced conflicting doctrines of taxation. These doctrines, held rigidly for many decades, helped to form the identies of the Conservative and Liberal parties, and determine their policies in office. This book also analyses the stormy period from 1909 to 1914 where the urban crisis was compounded of collapsing property values, rising taxes and unsatisfied social demands as well as Lloyd George's provocative budgets and his ambitious and abortive land schemes.

List of figures and illustrations
List of tables
Preface
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
Part I. Law as Property - Solicitors, the Land Market and Legal Reform: 1. Solicitors: profile of a profession
2. A Benthamite project: land-law reform 1826–1870
3. Lawyers and Liberals 1870–1895
4. Solicitors and the property cycle 1895–1925
5. Benthamism blunted 1895–1925
Part II. Dimensions of Tenure: 6. Clergy, corporations and junior property professions
7. Landowners and entrepreneurs: Domesday revisited
8. Mortgagees
9. The ramparts of property
Part III. Tenure and Taxation 1850–1900
10. Banners or spoils? The doctrines of taxation
11. The country versus the city in Parliament 1850–1885
12. Henry George and local taxation 1885–1895
13. Mr Goschen's finance 1887–1892
14. Doles for squire and parson 1895–1902
Part IV. Municipal Enterprise and Private Capital: 15. towns against the Tories 1890–1902
Forging a weapon - the taxation of land values 1901–1906
17. The property cycle in London 1892–1912
18. Property values, local taxation and local politics
Part V. Edwardian Climax 1906–1914
19. Towards the People's Budget 1906–1909
20. Romantic residues
21. Back to the land
22. People's Budget and rural land campaign 1909–1914
23. The urban question again 1910–1914
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], British & Irish history [HBJD1]