Publisher's Synopsis
The middle class of the northern industrial towns played a key role in economic development and the creation of a class society. This book draws upon a computer-based nominal record linkage to show the complex economic and social structure of that middle class.;Party and sectarian loyalties disrupted class formation, whilst the stability of social relations and family strategies was disrupted by the nature of the market economy, and by working-class trade-union and political challenge. The middle classes built their own culture and relations with other social classes through a network of voluntary societies, which expressed and overcame sectarian, party and status divisions. What emerged was a class led by an elite of merchants and professional men, whose culture acknowledged inequality and hierarchy within a class society. The elite accepted responsibility for the stability of the society on which their wealth depended.;By trying to correct misunderstandings about the nature of middle-class culture in this period of rapid economic growth, the author aims to dismiss the notion of middle-class "failure" and asserts the long-term influence of the culture and social formation created in this period.
