Abstract
In those days, the stonemasons, like the miners, were the aristocrats of labour. On the occasion of the marriage of my father and mother, they were driven to church in a four in hand with a postillion rider in front. As a symbol of affluence, my father wore a suit of white moleskins, whilst my mother wore a brand new Paisley shawl. The wedding supper was held in the public hall to which special invitations were issued to a large circle of friends. (Tom Bell, Pioneering Days, London 1941, p. 14)
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References and Further Reading
John Field, ‘British Historians and the Concept of the Labour Aristocracy’, Radical History Review, 19 (Winter 1978–9).
E. J. Hobsbawm, The Labour Aristocracy in Nineteenth Century Britain, and Trends in the British Labour Movement’, in Labouring Men (London, 1964).
John Foster, Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution. Early Industrialism in three English Towns (London, 1974).
Patrick Joyce, Work, Society and Politics. The culture of the factory in later Victorian England (Brighton, 1980).
Geoffrey Crossick, An Artisan Elite in Victorian Society. Kentish London 1840–1880 (London, 1978).
Robert Gray, The Labour Aristocracy in Victorian Edinburgh (Oxford, 1976).
R. J. Morris,’ skilled Workers and the Politics of the “Red” Clyde’, Journal of Scottish Labour History, no. 18 (1983).
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© 1989 ReFRESH
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Morris, R.J. (1989). The Labour Aristocracy in the British Class Structure. In: Digby, A., Feinstein, C. (eds) New Directions in Economic and Social History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20315-4_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20315-4_14
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