Glasgow 1830 To 1912

This book challenges conventional wisdom and provides new insights into Scottish social and economic history. Christopher A. Whatley argues that the Union of 1707 was vital for Scottish success, but in ways which have hitherto been overlooked. He proposes that the central place of Jacobitism in the historiography of the period should be revised. Comprehensive in its coverage, the book is based not only on an exhaustive reading of secondary material but also incorporates a wealth of new evidence from previously little-used or unused primary sources.

This book provides an in-depth analysis of the economic, social, intellectual and political factors that shaped police reform, development and policy in Scottish burghs during the 'Age of Improvement'. In doing so, it moves beyond many of the 'problem-response' interpretations which have preoccupied many police historians, and locates reform within the wider contexts of urban improvement, municipal administration and Scottish Enlightenment thought.

Volume 2 of this two-volume companion study into the administration, experience, impact and representation of summary justice in Scotland explores the role of police courts in moulding cultural ideas, social behaviours and urban environments in the nineteenth century. Whereas Volume 1, subtitled Magistrates, Media and the Masses, analysed the establishment, development and practice of police courts, Volume 2, subtitled Boundaries, Behaviours and Bodies, examines, through themed case studies, how these civic and judicial institutions shaped conceptual, spatial, temporal and commercial boundaries by regulating every-day activities, pastimes and cultures. As with Volume 1, Boundaries, Behaviours and Bodies is attentive to the relationship between magistrates, the police, the media and the wider community, but here the main focus of analysis is on the role and impact of the police courts, through their practice, on cultural ideas, social behaviours and environments in the nineteenth-century city. By intertwining social, cultural, institutional and criminological analyses, this volume examines police courts’ external impact through the matters they treated, considering how concepts such as childhood and juvenile behaviour, violence and its victims, poverty, migration, health and disease, and the regulation of leisure and trade, were assessed and ultimately affected by judicial practice.

This book provides the first single overview of Labour's electoral progress in Glasgow from its hesitant steps in the shadow of Liberalism to the moment it became the dominant party in the city in parliamentary and municipal politics. The unfolding narrative is not one of uninterrupted progress but a more complex story of partial breakthroughs and setbacks. Labour's electoral challenge is detailed over forty years and focuses on local elections more than parliamentary. This allows a broader and fuller picture to be presented rather than the narrower emphasis on the 'Red Clydeside' period of the Great War and immediately after. The Great War was the critical turning point. After 1918 Labour emerged from being a permanent minority to a position where it could genuinely seek to present itself as the major political voice in Glasgow. The nature of this transformation is identified as both the radicalising effect of the war itself and the attendant changes this provoked in Labour's attitude to its actual and potential constituency. Unlike other studies of the franchise system, the view expressed here is that the franchise was biased against the working class and this operated against Labour. However, Labour was effectively handicapped by its own ambivalence towards complete democracy, fuelled by fear of the poor and belief in the reactionary tendencies of the existing female local electorate. While the war resolved the franchise issue for Labour, in Glasgow the Party's own mobilisation over housing provided the means to appeal to the new female electorate.

Taking the form of two companion volumes, Police Courts in Nineteenth-Century Scotland represents the first major investigation into summary justice in Scottish towns, c.1800 to 1892. Whereas Volume 1, subtitled Magistrates, Media and the Masses, analysed the establishment, development and practice of police courts, Volume 2 explores, through themed case studies, the role of police courts in moulding cultural ideas, social behaviours and urban environments in the nineteenth century.

Taking the form of two companion volumes, Police Courts in Nineteenth-Century Scotland represents the first major investigation into the administration, experience, impact and representation of summary justice in Scottish towns, c.1800 to 1892. Each volume explores diverse, but complementary, themes relating to judicial practices, relationships, experiences and discourses through the lens of the same subject matter: the police court. Volume 1, subtitled Magistrates, Media and the Masses, provides an institutional, social and cultural history of the establishment, development and practice of police courts. It explores their rise, purpose and internal workings, and how justice was administered and experienced by those who attended them in a variety of roles. Special attention is given to examining how courtroom discourse was represented in print culture, the role of the media in providing a discursive commentary on summary justice, and the ways in which magistrates and the police engaged in a law and order dialogue with the press. Throughout, consideration is given to uncovering the relationship between magistrates, the courts, the police and the wider community, and to charting the implications of the rise of summary justice and the ’police-man’ state for the urban masses (as evidenced through prosecution, conviction and punishment patterns). Volume 2, subtitled Boundaries, Behaviours and Bodies, examines, through themed case studies, how these civic and judicial institutions shaped conceptual, spatial, temporal and commercial boundaries by regulating every-day activities, pastimes and cultures. As with Volume 1, Boundaries, Behaviours and Bodies is attentive to the relationship between magistrates, the police, the media and the wider community, but here the main focus of analysis is on the role and impact of the police courts, through their practice, on cultural ideas, social behaviours and environments in the nineteenth-century city.