The British Class System

“British society was so obsessively conscious of status distinctions that it was singularly lacking in class consciousness. Divergent social identities within classes and between communities were always much more significant than perceptions of a uniform class interest.” Was this equally true for all classes throughout the period 1870-1951?


Class has been one of the most dividing topics in modern British social history. Its nature has been notoriously difficult to define. Perhaps the polar opposite views come from Marx and Thatcher : the former seeing a simple division in society between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat with extreme class consciousness and an emphasis on class warfare. Thatcher reduced class to nothing more than a mere “communist creation”. We, therefore, may begin to look between these two more extreme views to assess how the nature of class affected British societal life. For where Marx may well be criticised is in attempting to fit a uniform pattern of class to all industrialised countries - this was a key mistake, as it must be recognised that Britain has its own unique set of institutions, cultural habits and political norms. With regards to politics : a clear divide among historians has developed, between those who believe that the growth of the trade unions and rise of the political Labour Party reflected a growing class consciousness among the working classes, and those who refute these claims : arguing that the British political scene was never as polarised as others made out. We must recognise, however, that Labour, the Liberals and the Conservative Party were never single class parties, and the trade unions were never wholeheartedly behind the Labour Party, its membership rarely over 50% of the industrial workforce throughout the whole period. This was not merely a political pattern : evidence has been cited to support the view that there was little homogeneity in working-class communities. Furthermore, that upon the exclusion of the middle classes from party politics (after the decline of the Liberals after 1918) they retreated to comfortable lives, often in the suburbs, caring not for perceptions of a uniform class interest.

A fitting starting point would, however, be the quintessential theorist on class : Marx. The oft-quoted, “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles” provides a telling glimpse into the nature of the Marxist argument. Marx’s solution, which proved immensely influential, was to classify individuals in collective groupings, according to their different positions to the means of production. In the land-owners, bourgeois capitalists and proletarian workers Marx classed all of human society, and it was the perpetual conflicts between them that the essential motor of the historical process was to be found. The struggle between the groups represented, initially, an economic one : finally resulting in a political conflict in which the proletariat would seize power and engender socialism. Yet the extent to which Marxist ideology permeated through the British classes is highly questionable. There was very little political agitation, especially in comparison with other Western European states. The Chartist upheavals of 1839, 1842 and 1848 brought about what seemed to be serious social trouble - but they soon fell flat and it was decades before the working class recovered any sense of identity and political will. For some historians, the failure of the working class to carry through a successful proletarian revolution during the early part of the 19th century created an example of something which Marx had said would happen, which had failed. Marxist theorists have responded with the argument that during the late 19th century the pace of social change began to pick up again, bringing with it a renewal of class consciousness and supposed conflict. The rising bourgeoisie and declining aristocracy fused together into a composite capitalist ruling class - exemplified through the era of Tory dominance, rigid imperialism, Joseph Chamberlain and the Boer War. The continued growth of big business and the scale of production involved meant that the working class supposedly developed into a new and self-conscious force : reformed with two interconnected institutional expressions, the trade unions and the newly emergent Labour Party.

There can be no denying that trade union membership grew rapidly : from 759,000 in 1888 to 4.1 million in 1914. This coincided with the political growth of the Labour Party, and after 1918, it succeeding the Liberals as the natural party of opposition. Indeed, Labour’s adoption of Clause 4 in 1918 alluded to Marxist theory, calling for “the common ownership of the means of production.” With the fall of the Liberals the way was open therefore for political class conflict, as the party of industrial capital confronted the party of organised workers. Many have thus argued that it was in this context in which we may view the social and political conflict of the 20th century, culminating in confrontations such as the General Strike in 1926 and strikes in 1979 and 1984. However, the consensus reached before the end of World War II does seem to challenge this view of the polarisation of party politics. Attlee’s program of nationalisation and welfare spending was not changed dramatically upon the return of the Conservatives to power in 1951. Furthermore, Stanley Baldwin often sought conciliation with the Labour Ministers in the House of Commons : showcasing that perhaps politics were not so divided between “right” and “left”. However, detailed empirical research has consistently undermined these speculations. It is now clear that the pattern of economic development, which provided the basis for the Marxist model, was not as simple as a three-tiered society. Significant changes in the economy (such as the growth of industrialisation and subsequent urbanisation) were never so straight-forward or so pervasive as to bring about the creation of those homogenous, self-conscious classes of landlords, capitalists and labourers locked in perpetual economic and political conflict with one another. We may further identify inherent divisions within Marx’s societal groupings. For example the divisions between aristocrats and landed gentry, bankers and businessmen, industrialists competing for the same markets and the many gradations of skilled and unskilled labour : the two biggest industries, textiles and coal, both labelled as ‘proletariat’ often had contrasting ways of life, societal norms and political allegiance.

The social structure of modern Britain was more elaborate, integrated and layered than Marx had allowed. The simple, direct connections so previously readily assumed between economic change, the making of a class and subsequent class antagonism must all be vigorously challenged. Furthermore, McKibbin has furthered this school of thought, arguing that there was no place for the development of Marxist politics in Britain : and that the Labour Party was a party based on moderate reform, rather than class warfare. Groups like the Social Democratic Federation under its Marxist leader Hyndman claimed to follow some form of Marxist ideology : yet they were either absorbed into the Labour Party or torn apart from internal bickering and debates about theory and tactics. McKibbin stresses that Britain, by the 20th century, was by definition a working-class nation. About 85% of the total working population were employed by others - 75% as manual workers and always less than 12% in agriculture. However, on closer analysis the huge British proletariat disperses itself, and its ‘collective’ element becomes remarkably thin. Trade union membership was never particularly strong - in 1901 of an employed workforce of 13.7 million, little under 2 million, 15%, were unionised. On the eve of World War I 75% of the male work force were still non-unionised. In many cases trade unions were not the radical organisations employers often perceived them to be - often using their block vote to stop reform and 40% did vote against joining the Labour Party. Furthermore, the comparative failure of the unions in the unskilled trades implies that any political party would have as much difficulty organising them into a cohesive body. It is certainly highly unlikely that unskilled or even service sector occupations which were so resistant to unionisation would be any more susceptible to an ideologically specific political party - particularly as so many of the trades encouraged an individualistic, rather than a collectivist, attitude.

McKibbin draws further attention to the argument that class consciousness was unlikely to be in a relatively advanced state through arguing that, “the industrial organisation of the British economy was small scale.” Yet, it is certainly not true that size necessarily discourages the transmission of political radicalism. It is noticeable that the SDF flourished in Burnley, a town of small textile plants. However, because the patterns of employment were so fragmented localised political communications and group loyalties became multi-layered. Such fragmentation tended to impede working class politics : the structure of the economy thus tended to narrow the base of any political collectivism. Furthermore, capitalism, with its enduring entrepreneurial essence, was never truly despised : the success of the Hornbys’ in Blackburn and Chamberlain in Birmingham demonstrated how the structure of industry could foster a political and social affinity between masters and the common man. Poverty has also been highlighted as a factor : the sheer struggle for survival demanded so much time and physical energy that there was little of either left for any kind of active politics. The instability and overcrowding of working class domestic life discouraged any sense of collectivity, in such conditions, R. A. Bray wrote, “people drift apart, the one from the other”. Tensions within working class communities almost certainly undermined local solidarity, many communities were undivided with real differences of income and status causing acute resentment. Therefore, it is possible to view many directly influencing factors contributing to a non-perception of uniform class interest. Rising real wages has been suggested as a further factor inhibiting the spread of socialism or any other ideology linking the proletariat together. Sombart, in his U.S study, argued that high real wages in themselves partly accounted for the lack of socialism there. However, in Britain, wages rates well into the 20th century had nowhere near reached a point where socialism ‘must’ become unattractive. It seems plausible that they can be considered a part of a wider social context - wages did permit most activities that made up working-class pastimes such as the development of organised hobbies, mass sport, popular betting and commercial affordable entertainment. Working class parties hoping to unite the proletariat politically therefore had to contend with an existing and entrenched working class culture which was stable and relatively sophisticated. Popular culture had always provided contexts within which workers could mix irrespective of status or skill. Street markets, public holidays, fairs and parliamentary and local elections had always been arenas in which workers mixed regardless of their status or skill.

McKibbin thus makes for a convincing case that the context of British industry, rather than aggregating and collectivising the workforce as Marx suggested, in fact scattered it throughout an industrial and mercantile world where the collectivised part of the workforce was in minority to the whole. Masterman wrote of the ‘English working man’ that he is, “much more allied in temperament and disposition to some of the occupants of the Conservative back benches.” Joyce has furthered this claim, emphasising the importance of territorial aspects of ‘community’. Concepts and beliefs in nation, region, town and neighbourhood produced a multiplicity of outcomes, class being only one of the ways in which people patterned and gave meaning to a wider, all-encompassing social order. His remark that, “class in England was largely built up out of the often mismatching components of distinctive local and regional experiences” carries considerable validity. However, the area that has spawned the most heated debated has been in the relation of the rise of the Labour Party to the question of working class consciousness. Savage and Miles have been leading exponents of the view that despite some inherent weaknesses within the Labour movement, the rise of the Labour Party was still an even of considerable importance to the working class. Early Labour historians, such as Pelling, also regarded its rise as a dramatic event, which marked the entry of the working class into the political arena - thereby signalling the beginning of a new political era. McKibbin argued, as has been shown, that there is no reason to entirely suppose that the working class is necessarily attached to Labour politics. Clarke has further emphasised the popularity of the Liberal Party during the period 1900-1914, in which it attempted to devise policies which would appeal to working class voters (Lloyd George’s People’s Budget 1909, for instance). The ability of the Conservatives to appeal to the working class has also often been underestimated, Joyce demonstrated the strength of popular Conservatism in areas such as industrial Lancashire. In the period after 1900 it was the Conservatives who led the way in adjusting to the increasingly democratic franchise by providing a range of popular bodies and institutions to garner electoral support : after all, the Conservatives held office for 18 out of 21 inter-war years. Reid has further claimed that the rise of the Labour Party was not due to any explicit enthusiasm for socialist politics, or to the development of a more militant or united working class, that the growth of Labour did not mark a fundamental break from older patterns of trade union loyalties and sectionalism, but simply their continuance under a different guise.

Debate thus shrouds the extent to which the growth of the Labour Party influenced working class unity. Savage and Miles remark that, “while the Liberals were able to contain the Labour movement, the were not able to absorb it.” This claim is justified : after the defection of the mining union MP’s to the Labour Party in 1908 trade unions no longer sought political influence through the Liberals. Furthermore, after World War I, the dependence of the parliamentary Labour Party upon the trade unions became much less and, according to Savage and Miles, the crucial factor behind the consolidation of the Labour Party lay in its growing role as an urban party able to draw upon the neighbourhood bases of support from uniquely working class communities. They further criticise the view that the stable monolithic working class never existed : “the working class is constantly being made and remade, and the political implications of class formation are often ambiguous and uncertain.” Did, therefore, the working class develop an unprecedented social and political presence in British society? Lawrence questions just how strong trends were towards working class homogenisation, with specific reference to refuting the belief that classes were ‘segregated’ in British communities. Exponents of this argument have referred to the flight of the urban middle classes out to the new suburbs, leaving Britain’s towns and cities to become dominated by increasingly cohesive working-class communities. These communities, it is argued, were no longer subject to the social and political influence of middle class elites, and became core areas for the growth of the new Labour politics. Savage and Miles offer an account of urban changes around the turn of the century, stressing particular that it was during this period that Britain’s cities began to become more stable social environments as migration slowed and households tended to move less frequently. Yet the exaggerate the growth of social segregation. Migration to the suburbs was by no means a uniquely middle class phenomenon and there is at least as much evidence of intra-class as inter-class residential segregation, with even the poorest areas often retaining their smaller middle lass elite of shopkeepers and publicans. To use the term ‘working class neighbourhoods’ can easily obscure processes of residential segregation between different groups of manual workers. The Board of Trade’s 1908 inquiry into the cost of living for the working class says of East Ham, “the whole of the borough is working class in general character”, even thought the 1901 census suggests that almost 30% of the adult male population were employed in clerical, professional or commercial enterprises. The report offers further revealing insights into the residential patterns of Edwardian Britain. Analysis of 115 British towns does not provide substantial support for the existence of monolithic one-class communities by the 1900’s. 19 % refer to some degree of clear physical segregation between manual and non-manual workers. A further 12% refer either to working class housing being scattered throughout the borough or to significant working class migration to the new suburbs, whilst 16% refer to some degree of physical segregation between skilled and unskilled workers, or between artisans and the ‘poor’.

There are therefore strong grounds for rejecting the idea that growing working class homogeneity provided the vital catalyst either for the emergence of independent Labour politics or more generally for the rise of class politics. All this is not to say that some extent of class antagonism never existed in Britain. Historians have often been struck by the violent imagery of class discourse throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Bullock remarks that the 1926 General Strike represented “the frank recognition by both sides that industrial relations had become a running class war and the concession or rejection of wage demands symbols of victory or defeat for one side or the other.” Many have further noted that the First World War effectively marginalized the middles class from the political scene, Askwith noting that, “the war tended towards big organisations in both capital and labour.” The Liberal Party was the political vehicle of the liberal and intellectual professions - Masterman saw “Liberalism crushed between truculent labour and an equally truculent capital.” Waites agrees that there was a shit towards ‘class conflict’ and general consciousness : and cites Edwardian amateur sociology as having identified working class colloquialisms of the era. They reported the working classes using phrases such as “the likes of us” and “the higher ups”, indicating a growing awareness of societal status. It would, surely, be generalising to give the entire impression that the simple class dichotomy of capital and labour entirely replaced the discussion of class in three-fold terms. Yet it is true that by 1919 organised labour and the working class were more interrelated than they had ever been : and social problems such as low wages were seen more in the light of capital-labour conflicts. Waites proposes that “the war was conducive to a more deeply divided society” and there is some evidence to support this. The editorial on “the class war” from the 1922 Transport and General Workers Union journal states : “the war of today is not a war between armies, equipped upon a basis of equality, but a war between an impoverished multitude, against a handful of well-fed financiers and captains of industry.” Of the middle classes, McKibbin cites that they were in some cases united behind their class interests : but this was never antagonistic as has been identified with their working class compatriots. The common theme is that the middle classes lived relatively separate and individualistic lives away from one another, united only in dislike of that which threatens them. We must not ignore the creation of proactive organisations such as the Middle Class Defence Organisation in 1919. Yet, as similarly experienced by the different sub-sections of the British proletariat, the diversity of interests was highlighted acutely by the war, the relative impoverishment of sections of the middle class led directly to the relative prosperity of others. This is, to a large extent, due to the huge diversity of professions evident within the broad term ‘middle class’. Coupled with the growing trend of suburbanisation, which resulted in clear separation between work and home lives, resulting in a general restricting of social horizons. This led to many middle class men and especially women (usually forced to leave work when they got married or had their first child) becoming socially narrow, and therefore contributing to a minimal sense of class consciousness.

Evidence has thus been given to provide support for the argument that there was a clear lack of class awareness : throughout the period distinctions of status and region were far more important than perceptions of a uniform class interest. Of course, there are opportunities for claiming that this might not have been the case as strongly with the working class. However, the figures of trade union membership and voting statistics show that members of the working class often had very different principles and political loyalties. They were, by no means, a uniformed class, neither economically nor politically, and therefore Marx’s socialist prophecy could not be fulfilled.


Bibliography

J. Lawrence, Speaking for the People
A. Reid, Social classes and social relations in Britain 1850-1914
P. Joyce, Visions of the People
B. Waites, “War and the language of class” Extract 46 in P. Joyce (ed.) Class
D. Cannadine, Class in Britain
M. Savage and A. Miles, The remaking of the British working class 1840-1940
R. McKibbin, Classes and Cultures 1918-1951
R. McKibbin, “Why was there no Marxism in Great Britain?” in English Historical Review 1984
J. Benson, The working class in Britain 1850-1939