This dissertation traces the economic and social transformation of two remote and mountainous parishes in north-west Monmouthshire from the middle of the eighteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth, with the aim of analysing some of the important characteristics of an industrial society in the most exciting stages of its development. Following an Introduction in which the parishes of Bedwellty and Aberystruth are located and the changes broadly surveyed, the first part of the dissertation discusses the nature of the transformation in detail. Attention is given in Chapter II to the coming of industry : the founding of iron works, the opening of coal mines, the improvement of means of transport, and the basic elements of industrial organization locally. The other main instrument of change, namely the growth of population, is the theme of Chapter III, which includes a study in depth of the census of 1851. To close the section, Chapter IV looks at the socio-economic groupings created by these industrial and demographic factors. In the second part, major aspects of life in the parishes are examined in order to judge how far the influence of industry did in fact permeate the warp and woof of society. Chapter V discusses the quality of life; Chapter VI, religion, education, cultural activities, and recreation; Chapter VII, the government of the district; and Chapter VIII, local politics, both parliamentary and unofficial, with particular reference to industrial disturbances, the Scotch Cattle, and Chartism. In each case emphasis is placed on the relationship between the role of the entrepreneur and that of other members of the rapidly growing communities. On the basis of the evidence of these chapters, an attempt is made in Chapter IX to show that, while this society apparently lived, moved, and had its being in industry, it was the persistence of non-industrial elements which constituted perhaps the most significant of all the features of this particular industrial society at the middle of the nineteenth century
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:293524 |
| Date | January 1980 |
| Creators | Davies, J. G. |
| Publisher | Aberystwyth University |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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