The Identification of Social (Class) Areas and Their Place in Nineteenth-Century Urban Development

Dados Bibliográficos

ID8964259
AutoresKeith A Cowlard (autor correspondente)
Ano1979
Volume4
Fascículo2
Páginas239-239
Data de publicação1979-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoTransactions of the Institute of British Geographers (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0020-2754 • E-ISSN: 1475-5661
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.2307/622037
OpenAlexW2325693799
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas3
Referências citadas9

A method for the determination of social (class) groups in Victorian towns is proposed, using evidence of occupations, servants, lodgers, children at work or school, wives in employment and shared dwellings derived from the enumerators' returns of the census 1851 -61. The eighteen-class scheme is used to identify social (class) areas in Wakefield, West Riding. Valuation and perception evidence confirms these areas as distinctive milieux in the contemporary mind. Through the examples of St John's, Nelson Street, and Lower York Street it is demonstrated that such milieux positively affected the structural growth processes at work in Wakefield. By both passive and active behaviour, the inhabitants of the areas perpetuated the individuality of their milieux and influenced the character of physical space, social space, and urban growth potential. The literal translation of ecological and economic theories of urban structure, derived from studies of modern cities, is considered inappropriate to Victorian Wakefield; instead it is proposed that the identification of social (class) areas provides an alternative starting point for investigations of nineteenth-century urban settlement. STUDIES of urban structural growth have mostly rested upon either the foundations of ecological theory, with its mechanistic adjustments of society to physical form,' or normative rationales within which society disposes itself in response to predetermined economic frameworks.2 Appeals have been made for alternative emphases giving more weight to the active role played by society in structuring its own environment: Walter Firey called for 'a different order of concepts, corresponding to the valuative, meaningful aspect of spatial adaptation'.3 W. H. Form,4 Anne Buttimer,s and David Harvey6 have reinforced the plea expressed by Emrys Jones for 'a better appreciation of the part played by society in fashioning the city'.7 A social component has been incorporated in a number of studies8 and yet rarely has it been given prominence as a factor in structural articulation. The purpose of this paper is to provide such an alternative perspective for nineteenth-cen- tury urban studies. A methodology for the identification of social (class) areas, using the unpublished census returns, is first presented. The examination of three representative areas shows that they created their own distinctive milieux and that these milieux were of consider- able moment in the structural development of the study area. It is argued that realistic appraisals of nineteenth-century urban growth could begin, not end, with social stratification and its expression in social (class) areas. Wakefield, West Riding, was chosen as the study area since it experienced steady, though unremarkable, population growth during the nineteenth century,9 and exhibited classic peri- pheral expansion of its urban area (Fig. i). Yet, it also suffered a marked relative decline in industrial growth rates when compared with its neighbours Bradford, Leeds, and Halifax.'0 Local commentators so frequently attributed this remarkable decline to the intervention of the socially advantaged, that it seemed possible that investigation of the character of Wakefield's

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