One of England's grand masters of history provides a clear and persuasive interpretation of the creation of "respectable society" in Victorian Britain. Integrating a vast amount of research previously hidden in obscure or academic journals, he covers not only the economy, social structure, and patterns of authority, but also marriage and the family, childhood, homes and houses, work and play.

By 1900 the structure of British society had become more orderly and well-defined than it had been in the 1830s and 1840s, but the result, Thompson shows, was fragmentation into a multiplicity of sections or classes with differing standards and notions of respectability. Each group operated its own social controls, based on what it considered acceptable or unacceptable conduct. This "internalized and diversified" respectability was not the cohesive force its middle-class and evangelical proponents had envisioned. The Victorian experience thus bequeathed structural problems, identity problems, and authority problems to the twentieth century, with which Britain is grappling.

First published in 2006. This book contributes towards a more just appreciation of the relative importance of the different major social groups in the life of the country. It deals in the main with the economic history of the landed interest, and with its role as a social group and includes much agrarian and some industrial history as seen from the landowners' point of view. The first seven chapters of the book aim to present an analysis and description of the main elements in the institutions and way of life of the landed classes, suggesting their significance for society at large, and emphasizing the forces of change which were at work within an order which in many ways presented a remarkably stable appearance to the outside world. The last five chapters take up the theme of change and examine the dynamic elements in the economic social and political life of the group, in a sequence of chronological subdivisions of the century and a half with which this book is concerned.

First published in 2006. This book contributes towards a more just appreciation of the relative importance of the different major social groups in the life of the country. It deals in the main with the economic history of the landed interest, and with its role as a social group and includes much agrarian and some industrial history as seen from the landowners' point of view. The first seven chapters of the book aim to present an analysis and description of the main elements in the institutions and way of life of the landed classes, suggesting their significance for society at large, and emphasizing the forces of change which were at work within an order which in many ways presented a remarkably stable appearance to the outside world. The last five chapters take up the theme of change and examine the dynamic elements in the economic social and political life of the group, in a sequence of chronological subdivisions of the century and a half with which this book is concerned.

The final volume discusses the institutions that affected social conditions and influenced values and attitudes. Social policies were made for the most part by the comfortably off and those in power for the supposed good of the less fortunate. Contributors to this volume examine these initiatives with regard to, among others, the development of health care, philanthropy and the voluntary sector, the police and crime, professional associations and unions. The reaction of the populace to the authorities' measures is also assessed to show the disparities and the similarities between the social beliefs of those in power and the opinions of the people.

Whilst in certain quarters it may be fashionable to suppose that there is no such thing as society historians, they have had no difficulty in finding their subject. The difficulty, rather, is that an outpouring of research and writing is hard for anyone but the specialist to keep up with the literature or grasp the overall picture. In these three volumes, as is the tradition in Cambridge Histories, a team of specialists has assembled the jigsaw of topical monographic research and presented an interpretation of the development of modern British society since 1750, from three perspectives: those of regional communities, the working and living environment, and social institutions. Each volume is self-contained, and each contribution, thematically defined, contains its own chronology of the period under review. Taken as a whole they offer an authoritative and comprehensive view of the manner and method of the shaping of society in the two centuries of unprecedented demographic and economic change.

Whilst in certain quarters it may be fashionable to suppose that there is no such thing as society historians have had no difficulty in finding their subject. The difficulty, rather, is that the advance has occurred through such an outpouring of research and writing that it is hard for anyone but the specialist to keep up with the literature or grasp the overall picture. In these three volumes, as is the tradition in Cambridge Histories, a team of specialists has assembled the jigsaw of recent monographic research and presented an interpretation of the development of modern British society since 1750, from three complementary perspectives: those of regional communities, of the working and living environment, and of social institutions. Each volume is self-contained, and each contribution, thematically defined, contains its own chronology of the period under review. Taken as a whole they offer an authoritative and comprehensive view of the manner and method of the shaping of society in the two centuries of unprecedented demographic and economic change.

This book covers the architectural image of the university as well as the people involved and courses available, with expert authors for each section.

This two-volume set brings together the essential and extensive publications by Professor Thompson otherwise scattered in many journals. These pieces form a major supplement to his classic book English Landed Society.Volume 1 Contents: Victorian England: the horse-drawn society. Inaugural lecture as Professor of Modern History, Bedford College, 1970; The end of a great estate, Economic History Review, 2nd ser. 8, (1955); The land market in the nineteenth century, Oxford Economic Review, new. Ser. 9 (1957); English landownership: The Ailesbury Trust, 1832-56, Economic History Review, 2nd ser. 11 (1958); English Great Estates In The 19th Century, 1790-1914, First International Conference of Economic Historians, Stockholm, 1960; Land and Politics in England in the nineteenth century, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser. 15 (1965); The social distribution of landed property in England since the sixteenth century, Economic History Review, 2nd ser. 19 (1968); The Second Agricultural Revolution, 1815-1880, Economic History Review, 1, 4, 1968; Landownership and economic growth in England in the eighteenth century, from E.L. Jones and S.J. Woolf (eds.) , Agrarian change and economic development: the historical problems (1969); Nineteenth-century horse sense, Economic History Review, 2nd ser. 29 (1976); Social control in Victorian England, Economic History Review, 2nd ser. 34 (1981).Horses and hay in Britain, 1830-1918, from F.M.L. Thompson (ed.), Horses in European economic history: a preliminary canter(British Agricultural History Society, 1983); English landed society in the nineteenth century, from Pat Thane, Geoffrey Crossick and Roderick Floud (eds.), The power of the past: essays for Eric Hobsbawm (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1984); Aristocracy, gentry, and the middle classes in Britain, 1750-1850, from Adolf M. Birke and Lothar Kettenacker (eds.), Burgertum, Adel; und Monarchie (Munich, 1989).

This two-volume set brings together the essential and extensive publications by Professor Thompson otherwise scattered in many journals. These pieces form a major supplement to his classic book English Landed Society.Volume 2Contents: Rural society and agricultural change in nineteenth-century Britain, from George Grantham and Carol S. Leonard (eds.), Agrarian organisation in the century of industrialisation: Europe, Russia, and North America (Greenwich, Conn., JAI Press, 1989); Life after death: how successful nineteenth-century businessmen disposed of their fortunes, Economic History Review, 2nd ser, 43 (1990); English landed society in the twentieth century, 1, Property: collapse and survival, (Presidential address), Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser. 40 (1990); English Landed Society in the Twentieth Century. 1: Property: Collapse and Survival, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., Vol. 40., 1990; English landed society in the twentieth century, 2: new poor and new rich, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser. 1 (1991); English landed society in the twentieth century, 3, Self help and outdoor relief, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser. 2 (1992); English landed society in the twentieth century, 4, Prestige without power? Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser. 3 (1993).Desirable properties: the town and country connection in British society since the late eighteenth century, Historical Research, 64 (1991); Stitching it together again (Reply to W.D. Rubinstein), Economic History Review, 2nd ser. 45 (1992); Changing Perceptions of Land Tenure in Britain, 1750-1914, from Donald Winch and Patrick K. O'Brien (eds.), The Political Economy of British Historical Experience 1688-1914 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002); Moving frontiers and the Fortunes of the Aristocratic Town 1830-1930, The London Journal, Vol.2, No.1, 1995; The Land market, 1880-1925: A reappraisal reappraised, The Agricultural History Journal, Vol.55, Part II, 2007; The Strange Death of the English Land question, from Matthew Cragoe and Paul Readman (eds.), The Land Question in Britain, 1750-1950 (Houndsmill, Palgrave, 2010).

The long-running debate on Britain's apparent economic decline in the last 120 years has generated a large economic and statistical literature and a great deal of heat in rival social and cultural explanations. The 'decline' has been confidently attributed to the permeation of the business elite by the anti-industrial and anti-commercial attitudes communicated by public schools and the old universities through their propagation of aristocratic and gentry values; and the readiness of the buiness elite to be thus permeated has been ascribed to the persistent tendency of new men of wealth to transform themselves into landed gentlemen. There have been equally confident claims to have overturned this traditional view that wealthy merchants and industrialists sought to acquire landed estates and country houses, and to have established that 'gentlemanly values' were in fact economically advantageous to Britain because she never was a primarily industrial economy. In this book, Professor Thompson subjects these interpretations to the test of the actual evidence, and firmly re-establishes the conventional wisdom on the characteristic desire of new money to acquire land and a place in the country, an aspiration which continues to be manifest today. At the same time, he shows that aristocratic and gentry cultures have not by any means been consistently anti-industrial or anti-business, and that many of the businessmen-turned-landowners have in fact not turned their backs on industry, but have founded business dynasties. Gentrification has indeed occurred on a large scale over the last two hundred years, but has had no discernible effects one way or the other on Britain' economic performance.

In this book F. M. L. Thompson, with his typical blend of elegance and erudition, makes an incisive contribution to the longstanding debate over gentrification and entrepreneurialism in Britain. Professor Thompson provides an expert analysis of the links between economic performance and the penetration of industrial wealth into landed society.

One of England's grand masters of history provides a clear and persuasive interpretation of the creation of "respectable society" in Victorian Britain. Integrating a vast amount of research previously hidden in obscure or academic journals, he covers not only the economy, social structure, and patterns of authority, but also marriage and the family, childhood, homes and houses, work and play.

By 1900 the structure of British society had become more orderly and well-defined than it had been in the 1830s and 1840s, but the result, Thompson shows, was fragmentation into a multiplicity of sections or classes with differing standards and notions of respectability. Each group operated its own social controls, based on what it considered acceptable or unacceptable conduct. This "internalized and diversified" respectability was not the cohesive force its middle-class and evangelical proponents had envisioned. The Victorian experience thus bequeathed structural problems, identity problems, and authority problems to the twentieth century, with which Britain is grappling.