Campaigner, Watchdog or Municipal Lackey? Reflections on the inter-war provincial press, local identity and civic welfarism

Bromley, Michael; Hayes, Nick

doi:10.1080/1368880022000030559

Cited by 25 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…A complex array of motives, from the pragmatic to the utopian, was driving such policy responses, and study of the decisions by councils and of contemporaneous representations in the press reveal much about the essence of local civic character, culture and discourse in the early twentieth century. 49 The writings of Bernard Gilbert are a particularly inviting medium through which to explore the contextual complexity, and how the processes of expediency and idealism, and of the generally ranging and the locally distinctive, fused.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Civic identity, municipal governance and provincial newspapers: the Lincoln of Bernard Gilbert, poet, critic and ‘booster’, 1914

Jackson

2014

Urban History

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The provincial press played a significant role in forming local attitudes and senses of civic identity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Local and regional newspapers often adopted a 'boosterist' language, a style that enthusiastically promoted the particular qualities of places. The persistence of boosterism into the early twenty-first century makes it a concept worthy of further exploration. This study considers just one 'booster', Bernard Samuel Gilbert, and his illuminating series of articles on Lincoln for the Lincolnshire Echo in 1914. His correspondence illustrates the contrasting stances towards improvement typically employed within the local press -including the boosterist alongside the more critical. Provincial newspapers, local politics, and civic boosterismLocal and regional newspapers became well established in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain. The lifting of stamp duties, advances in communication, printing and transportation, the expansion of literacy, and the growth of local democracy were among the various processes stimulating far greater levels of output and bringing much wider press representation. Newspapers performed a range of important political, economic, social and cultural functions on behalf of their host towns and cities. They were essential agents in promoting long-standing and new civic institutions and organisations. The stance of newspapers could be a critical factor in determining the fortunes of local associations and individuals. The press also assisted in the creation and consolidation of geographical spheres of political influence and of economic and financial exchange. In addition, publications articulated local senses of place identity: uncontested and contested, as well as real and imagined. The significance of provincial newspapers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has, correspondingly, stimulated considerable historical research, including numerous general studies evaluating the role of the press in British society.1 The historiography also Hobbs, 'When the provincial press was the national press c. 1836-c.1900', International Journal of Regional and Jackson, Andrew J.H. (2015. 'Civic identity, municipal governance and provincial newspapers: the Lincoln of Bernard Gilbert, poet, critic and "booster", 1914', Urban History, 42, 1, final version, 8 September 2014. 2 incorporates much local study, which considers individual publications and the urban centres that they represented in a broader social, political and cultural context. 2 Furthermore, some historians have placed great emphasis on the appealing qualities -if also the methodological challenges -of using newspapers as a primary source: 'There is certainly no contemporary document more redolent of local identity and municipal pride'. 3The political function of newspapers became very sophisticated. The growth of the provincial press coincided with the expansion of local democracy and inclusiveness, the development of civic pride and municipal self-expression, and prog...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Civic identity, municipal governance and provincial newspapers: the Lincoln of Bernard Gilbert, poet, critic and ‘booster’, 1914

Jackson

2014

Urban History

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“…62 The local press was eager to draw attention to this purpose, operating as a 'municipal booster'. 63 Leading the way was the Western Morning News, the title with the biggest circulation in the region in 1920. Founded in 1860 as politically independent but with Liberal leanings, by the late nineteenth century its sympathies had become more Conservative.…”

Section: Anglo-saxonism and Transatlantic Rapprochementmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Mayflower and ‘Mother Plymouth’: Anglo-America, Civic Culture and the Urban Past

Hulme

2021

Cultural and Social History

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Historians are now well-attuned to the development of modern urban rituals and civic identities, and how both can depend on expressions of local and national historical character. In this article I take a different approach, by demonstrating how the idea of an Anglo-American shared past could also inflect urban culture. I use a case study of the Mayflower in Plymouth, tracing this seventeenthcentury voyage's afterlife, from its romantic and nonconformist Victorian origins to its emergence as a symbol of transatlantic 'Anglo-Saxon' bonds in the opening decades of the twentieth century, and all the way to its use as 'heritage' in the city today.

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“…On the other, the press might adopt an overtly critical or radical line, exploiting or exacerbating issues of local debate and conflict, and, where fitting, representing and supporting views of a popular readership set against the consensus position held by institutions and the local power elite. 12 Newspapers were generally enthusiastic supporters of the towns and cities that they represented. Indeed their commercial success to a great extent depended upon this.…”

Section: Practicing 'Research-informed' Teaching and Co-production: Pmentioning

confidence: 99%

REF, TEF, and KEF; and the “Research-Informed” Teaching and Co-Production Traditions in Local History: Analysing Provincial Newspapers

Jackson

2018

International Journal of Regional and Local History

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REF, TEF, and KEF; and the 'research-informed' teaching and coproduction traditions in local history: analysing provincial newspapers In the present universities are facing the introduction of a revised Research Excellence Framework, the extension of the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework to subject-level assessment, and the emergence of a Knowledge Exchange Framework. Against this background are particular interests in, or imperatives surrounding, the development of research-informed activity involving undergraduate students, and in university public engagement. The practice of local history has a long and proud tradition of internally and externally collaborative and enquiry-led co-production in higher education and more broadly, and is now a fitting reference point and a timely source of inspiration. This research discusses the development of, and relationships between, REF, TEF and KEF, the place of research-informed teaching, and the contemporary significance of local history. The study also reports on some of the results of a student-engagement activity involving the indexing, analysis and interpretation of a provincial newspaper, for Ilfracombe, in Devon. Such a choice of primary source is particularly apt, not least because its demanding material format invites group reading and collective scrutiny. In addition, provincial-press publications yield and test knowledge of what the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries brought to districts and communities; they also demand an appreciation of conceptual and critical understanding; and, in addition, support diverse and advanced methodological experimentation.

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Campaigner, Watchdog or Municipal Lackey? Reflections on the inter-war provincial press, local identity and civic welfarism

Cited by 25 publications

References 24 publications

Civic identity, municipal governance and provincial newspapers: the Lincoln of Bernard Gilbert, poet, critic and ‘booster’, 1914

Civic identity, municipal governance and provincial newspapers: the Lincoln of Bernard Gilbert, poet, critic and ‘booster’, 1914

The Mayflower and ‘Mother Plymouth’: Anglo-America, Civic Culture and the Urban Past

REF, TEF, and KEF; and the “Research-Informed” Teaching and Co-Production Traditions in Local History: Analysing Provincial Newspapers

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