Captain Swing and rural popular consciousness : nineteenth-century southern English social history in context
Captain Swing and rural popular consciousness : nineteenth-century southern English social history in context
This thesis considers the disturbances in the English countryside in 1830 - the so-called 'Captain Swing riots' - within their own social and cultural context. Despite the fact that they have attracted considerable academic interest over the years (not least from social historians) this aspect of the historiography remains incomplete. The underlying premise of this work is that the events of 1830 make no social or historical sense outside the cultural context within which they unfolded, and that a reliance solely on normative empirical sources is inadequate to illuminate this context.
The study itself is divided into three parts. The first is an investigation into the 'body language' of the Swing disturbances, an attempt to understand the behaviour of the Swing crowd or the lone arsonist as they may have understood it themselves. It is essentially an exercise in uncovering social meaning, placing the rich symbolism of the 'action' of Swing at the forefront of the historiography, according it a status equivalent to that more commonly applied to the major structural conditions affecting early-nineteenth century rural labourers.
The second is a much wider exploration of the cultural context of the disturbances, locating a coherent and sophisticated value-system in the popular culture of the rural labouring poor - and in particular, the ballads and songs of the first half of the nineteenth century - which in turn can be seen to have been applied during the disturbances of 1830.
The final part is an investigation into the place held by land in the consciousness of the rural labouring poor. It is argued that not only was the engrossment of land by farmers identified as the main obstacle to harmonious rural social relations but that a coherent alternative social model to that which existed as a result of engrossment was at work within rural popular consciousness by 1830.
University of Southampton
Jones, Peter Daniel
9d2ae5ac-7094-40d5-93f1-2e26ba4b460b
2002
Jones, Peter Daniel
9d2ae5ac-7094-40d5-93f1-2e26ba4b460b
Jones, Peter Daniel
(2002)
Captain Swing and rural popular consciousness : nineteenth-century southern English social history in context.
University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.
Record type:
Thesis
(Doctoral)
Abstract
This thesis considers the disturbances in the English countryside in 1830 - the so-called 'Captain Swing riots' - within their own social and cultural context. Despite the fact that they have attracted considerable academic interest over the years (not least from social historians) this aspect of the historiography remains incomplete. The underlying premise of this work is that the events of 1830 make no social or historical sense outside the cultural context within which they unfolded, and that a reliance solely on normative empirical sources is inadequate to illuminate this context.
The study itself is divided into three parts. The first is an investigation into the 'body language' of the Swing disturbances, an attempt to understand the behaviour of the Swing crowd or the lone arsonist as they may have understood it themselves. It is essentially an exercise in uncovering social meaning, placing the rich symbolism of the 'action' of Swing at the forefront of the historiography, according it a status equivalent to that more commonly applied to the major structural conditions affecting early-nineteenth century rural labourers.
The second is a much wider exploration of the cultural context of the disturbances, locating a coherent and sophisticated value-system in the popular culture of the rural labouring poor - and in particular, the ballads and songs of the first half of the nineteenth century - which in turn can be seen to have been applied during the disturbances of 1830.
The final part is an investigation into the place held by land in the consciousness of the rural labouring poor. It is argued that not only was the engrossment of land by farmers identified as the main obstacle to harmonious rural social relations but that a coherent alternative social model to that which existed as a result of engrossment was at work within rural popular consciousness by 1830.
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Published date: 2002
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Local EPrints ID: 464916
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/464916
PURE UUID: bfacc282-0552-4622-a43b-ba829796fae3
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Date deposited: 05 Jul 2022 00:09
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 19:49
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Author:
Peter Daniel Jones
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