The study makes a comparative analysis of the provision of public buildings in the twelve principal vlest Ridir..g tmIDs betvJeen 1600 and 1840. It includes an illustrated survey of the changes in the physical form and ru~enities of buildings over the period and a 170-page gazetteer with details of all the public buildings provided in the towns between 1100 and 1840. Over six hundred buildings were provided beh:een 1600 and 1040. Approximately three-quarters were purpose-built, the reli1ainder being existing premises converted for public use. l~e rate of provision rose sharply in the second half of the eiGhteenth century, coinciding with the onset of the Industrial Revolution and rapid population growth. This acceleration was accompanied by a high level of expenditure (£1.2 million between 1750 and 10~0) and a notable rise in spending on individual buildings. Despite differences in the type and size of buildin~s erected in each town, little important variation in per capita spendinr, is apparent; only in the "county town", vlakefield, was expenditure significantly above average. The promotion and oq;anization of building projects could be a complex and drawn-out affair. 'rhe typical structure took about two years to erect, but the larger ones miCht take up to five or six years. The public sector played a subordinate role in provision, cont.ributing no mOre than one-third of the finance throu[';hout our period. ntis was not purely the product of )aissez-fnire attitudes since lack of funds proved n serious problem; SOHle public bodies engaged enthusiastically in building activities. of finance ca11e from the private sector. The remaining two-thirds Althou[h its activities often were motivated by benevolence, self-preservation, desire for amenity, and civic pride, not infreq"o.lently buildings were regarded as sound economic investments. ~~o factors exerted considerable influence on the timing of the provision of buildings. The first was a combination of urban rivalry, emulation, and civic pride: the provision of an a~enity in one town sometimes set off a chain reaction elsewhere. TIle second was the state of the economy. It is evident that building provision rose and fell in association with pronounced upturns and downturns in general economic activity. Assessing the contribution of public buildings to economic development is a hazardous, if not impossible, task. Suffice it to say that,. if the West Riding's experience was typical, between 1750 and 1840 the acceleration of investment in them compared favourably with that occurring in other sectors of the British economy.

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Mapping the generational contours of cultural change in eighteenth-century England sheds new light on a period that straddles the divide between the early modern and modern historical eras. This reveals an ongoing social process, rather than searching for an emphatic transformation or determining a specific turning point. Using age relations as a tool of historical research lends the investigation a chronological structure without imposing predetermined boundaries or a hierarchy of causation. At the same time, viewing England from the banks of the Tyne provides a vista that is national in scope without either assuming a metropolitan perspective that can too easily relegate the regions to the peripheries of society, or presenting a fragmented mosaic of discrete provincial experiences. The investigation is centred upon a generational fault line discernable in the propaganda produced during the general election campaign that unfolded in Newcastle upon Tyne over the summer months of 1774. The research is not, however, confined to the political arena. Each chapter forms a distinct line of enquiry tracing the social context in which age became politicised, encompassing the nurseries and schoolrooms in which formative years were spent, the volatile terrain of youth transition, and shifting fashions in the adult world. This allows the ripples of generational change to be considered from the perspective of different age cohorts, and exposes a rich and dynamic social fabric. While age relations were only one of the factors shaping cultural change, they permeated every aspect of society and so provide a useful vantage point from which to survey a wide range of topics that will be more familiar to those who study the eighteenth-century.

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No description available.

This study provides an analysis of agricultural change between about 1600 and 1875 in the extreme south-east of the old West Riding of Yorkshire. Commentators have regarded the area as of little economic value, as easily flooded flatlands whose inhabitants eked out a living as hunters, gatherers and cattle keepers. The adjoining townlands were also seen as poor prospects for farming. One element of this view is that the Dutch drainage of the 1620s led to a transformation of the local economy. The early chapters of the thesis challenge this interpretation by showing how openfield farming had developed since at least as early as Domesday. Traditionally, the efforts of the 'the great Dutch engineer' Cornelius Vennuyden to drain the meres at the confluence of the rivers Don, Idle and Tome have been seen as successful, but little attempt has been made to measure the impact of drai nage on the agricultural system. This thesis aims to make such an analysis, and to argue that the improvements were only moderately successful and that less credit than has been accorded should go to the inexperienced Vennuyden. On many farms, wetness of the soil was so permanent that oats and grass were the only possible activities until the introduction of artificial warping in the mid-eighteenth century. The cvidence of change in estate papers and probate inventories (which has received little scholarly attention) indicates gradual agricultural development, over a wide part of the research area, from the seventeenth centurv. The study seeks to show how, over some two centuries, insufficient industry and capital investment was directed to the drained flatlands but the more barren townlands of the area gradually became not only a commercially valuable part of the county but also one of the most technically innovativc. Reasons for this change are advanced in the later chapters of the study.

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No description available.

No description available.

No description available.