Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-hqlzj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-02T11:23:28.562Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

8 - Clubs, societies and associations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
R. J. Morris
Edited by
F. M. L. Thompson
F. M. L. Thompson
Affiliation:
University of London
Get access

Summary

When in 1837, in the pages of his first periodical, Master Humphrey's Clock, Charles Dickens celebrated the doings of the Mudfog Association, with all its little formalities, its concern for rules, and its sense of importance and purpose, he was recording one of the most pervasive, diffuse and amorphous social developments of the past 200 years. The creation of formal voluntary associations was not new in his generation but what was new was the increase in their number, variety and public importance which took place, especially after 1780. That increase was to continue for many decades. The basis of that growth was in the adult male urban middle classes, but this adaptable and flexible form of social institution could never and was never limited to this group.

As society became more complex, those with power, those with no power and above all those with slender fragments of power which they sought to defend and extend began to organise themselves in a variety of specific ways. A whole new series of words came into common use in the English language, often changing or adding to their meaning – the association, the society, the chairman, the agenda, the membership, the rules and constitution and the annual report. After the mid-eighteenth century voluntary organisations appeared in increasing numbers. Their defining characteristics were minimal, a set of rules, a declared purpose and a membership defined by some formal act of joining. These organisations acted independently of the family, household, neighbourhood, firm or work group.

Information

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Social History of Britain, 1750–1950 , pp. 395 - 444
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Abel-Smith, B., The Hospitals, 1800–1948 (London, 1964)Google Scholar
Allen, D., ‘Political Clubs in Restoration London’, Historical Journal, 19 (London, 1976)Google Scholar
Anderson, G., Victorian Clerks (Manchester, 1976)Google Scholar
Anning, S. T., The General Infirmary at Leeds, vol. 1: The First 100 Years (London, 1963)Google Scholar
Ashton, T. S., ‘Early Price Associations in the British Iron Industry’, Economic Journal, 30 (London, 1920)Google Scholar
Bailey, P., Leisure and Class in Victorian England: Rational Recreation and the Contests for Control, 1830–1885 (London, 1978)Google Scholar
Banton, M., The Coloured Quarter: Negro Immigrants in an English City (London, 1955)Google Scholar
Beckwith, F., The Leeds Library (Leeds, 1950)Google Scholar
Bernard, Thomas, ‘An Account of the Ladies' Schools and Some Other Charities at Leeds’, Report of the Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor, 4 (London, 25 Dec. 1803).Google Scholar
Berresford Ellis, P., and Mac A'Ghobhain, S., The Scottish Insurrection of 1820 (London, 1970)Google Scholar
Bladen, V. W., ‘The Association of the Manufacturers of Earthenware, 1784–86’, Economic History, a Supplement to the Economic Journal, 1 (London, 1926–7)Google Scholar
Borsay, P., ‘The English Urban Renaissance: The Development of Provincial Urban Culture, c. 1680–c. 1760’, Social History, 5 (London, 1977)Google Scholar
Braine, John, Room at the Top (London, 1957).Google Scholar
Brown, C., The Social History of Religion in Scotland since 1730 (London, 1987)Google Scholar
Brown, K., ‘The Lodges of the Durham Miners' Association, 1869–1926’, Northern History, 23 (London, 1987)Google Scholar
Chalmers, T., The Christian and Civic Economy of Large Towns, 3 vols. (Glasgow, 1821)Google Scholar
Colley, Linda J., ‘The Loyal Brotherhood and the Cocoa Tree: The London Organization of the Tory Party’, Historical Journal, 20 (London, 1977)Google Scholar
Corr, Helen, ‘The Schoolgirl's Curriculum and the Ideology of the Home, 1870–1914’, in Glasgow Women's Studies Group, Uncharted Lives: Extracts from Scottish Women's Experiences, 1850–1982 (Glasgow, 1983)Google Scholar
Crossick, G., An Artisan Elite in Victorian Society: Kentish London, 1840–1880 (London, 1978)Google Scholar
Crossick, G., and Haupt, H.-G., eds., Shopkeepers and Master Artisans in Nineteenth Century Europe (London, 1984)Google Scholar
Croston, James, The History of the County Palatine and Duchy of Lancaster, 5 vols. (London, 1888–93), vol. 2.Google Scholar
Cunningham, H., The Volunteer Force (London, 1975)Google Scholar
Daiches, D., Jones, P., and Jones, J., eds., A Hotbed of Genius: The Scottish Enlightenment, 1730–1790 (Edinburgh, 1986)Google Scholar
Davidoff, Leonore, and Hall, Catherine, Family Fortunes, Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780–1850 (London, 1987)Google Scholar
Davidoff, Leonore, The Best Circles (London, 1973)Google Scholar
Davies, M. L., Maternity: Letters from Working Women, with introduction by Dallas, G. (London, 1978)Google Scholar
Denvir, J., The Irish in Britain from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Parnell (London, 1892)Google Scholar
Durkheim, E., Suicide, A Study in Sociology (London, 1952)Google Scholar
Durkheim, E., The Division of Labour in Society (New York, 1964)Google Scholar
Edwards, P., Duffield, I., et al, ‘Blacks in Britain’, History Today, 31 (London, 1981)Google Scholar
Edwards, P., ed., Equianos Travels (London, 1967)Google Scholar
Emerson, R. L., ‘The Social Composition of Enlightened Scotland: The Select Society of Edinburgh, 1754–1764’, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 114 (London, 1973)Google Scholar
Gaffin, J., and Thomas, D., Caring and Sharing: The Centenary History of the Co-operative Women's Guild (London, 1983)Google Scholar
Gallacher, T., ‘Catholics in Scottish Polities’, Bulletin of Scottish Politics, 2 (London, 1981)Google Scholar
Gallacher, W., Revolt on the Clyde (London, 1936)Google Scholar
Gartner, L. P., The Jewish Immigrant in England, 1870–1914 (London, 1960)Google Scholar
Geiss, I., The Pan African Movement, trans. Keep, A. (London, 1974)Google Scholar
Gibbs, F. W., Joseph Priestley (London, 1965)Google Scholar
Giddens, A., Capitalism and Modern Social Theory: An Analysis of the Writings of Marx, Durkheim and Max Weber (Cambridge, 1971)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilley, S., ‘Catholic Faith of the Irish Slums, London, 1840–70’in Dyos, H. J. and Wolff, M., eds., The Victorian City, 2 vols. (London, 1973), vol. 2Google Scholar
Gosden, P. H. J. H., Self-Help: Voluntary Associations in Nineteenth Century Britain (London, 1973)Google Scholar
Graham, H. G., The Social Life of Eighteenth Century Scotland (London, 1906)Google Scholar
Gray, R. Q., The Labour Aristocracy in Victorian Edinburgh (Oxford, 1976)Google Scholar
Hall, Catherine, ‘The Early Formation of Victorian Domestic Ideology’, in Burman, Sandra, ed., Fit Work for Women (London, 1979)Google Scholar
Hamilton, Sheila, ‘The First Generations of University Women’, in Donaldson, G., ed., Four Centuries. Edinburgh University Life, 1583–1983 (Edinburgh, 1983)Google Scholar
Harrison, B., ‘Animals and the State in 19th Century England’, English Historical Review, 88 (London, 1973)Google Scholar
Harrison, B., Drink and the Victorians: The Temperance Question in England, 1815–1872 (London, 1971)Google Scholar
Harrison, B., ‘Philanthropy and the Victorians’, Victorian Studies, 9 (London, 1966)Google Scholar
Harrison, B., ‘Philanthropy and the Victorians’, in Harrison, B., Peaceable Kingdom (Oxford, 1982)Google Scholar
Harrison, J. F. C., Learning and Living, 1790–1960: A Study in the History of the English Adult Education Movement (London, 1961)Google Scholar
Hayburn, R. H. C., ‘The Voluntary Occupational Centre Movement, 1932–39’, Journal of Contemporary History, 6 (London, 1971)Google Scholar
Hill, Sir Francis, Georgian Lincoln (Cambridge, 1966)Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, E. J., Labouring Men (London, 1964)Google Scholar
Hollis, Patricia, ed., Pressure from Without in Early Victorian England (London, 1974)Google Scholar
Home, H. O., The History of Savings Banks (Oxford, 1847)Google Scholar
Hudson, J. W., The History of Adult Education (London, 1951)Google Scholar
Hume, A., The Learned Societies and Printing Clubs of the United Kingdom (London, 1847)Google Scholar
Hunter, J., Hallamshire: The History and Topography of the Parish of Sheffield, new edn, ed. Gatty, A. (London, 1879)Google Scholar
Hutton, W., An History of Birmingham (2nd edn, Birmingham, 1783)Google Scholar
Hyde, C., Technological Change and the British Iron Industry, 1700–1870 (Princeton, 1977)Google Scholar
Inkster, I., and Morrell, J., eds., Metropolis and Province: Science in British Culture, 1780–1850 (London, 1983)Google Scholar
Johnson, T. J., Professions and Power (London, 1972)Google Scholar
Kargon, R. H., Science in Victorian Manchester (Manchester, 1977)Google Scholar
Kelly, T., Early Public Libraries in Great Britain before 1850 (London, 1966)Google Scholar
Kettle, Ann J., ‘Lichfield Races’, Transactions of the Lichfield and South Staffordshire Archaeological Society, 6 (London, 1964–5)Google Scholar
King, Elspeth, The Scottish Women's Suffrage Movement (Glasgow, 1978)Google Scholar
Kirby, R. G., and Musson, A. E., The Voice of the People: John Doherty, 1798–1854, Trades Unionist, Radical and Factory Reformer (Manchester, 1975)Google Scholar
Knoop, D., and Jones, G. P., The Genesis of Freemasonry (Manchester, 1947)Google Scholar
Langton, J., and Morris, R. J., Atlas of Industrializing Britain, 1780–1914 (London, 1986)Google Scholar
Liddington, Jill, The Life and Times of a Respectable Rebel, Selina Cooper, 1864–1946 (London, 1984)Google Scholar
Liddington, Jill, and Norris, Jill, One Hand Tied Behind Us: The Rise of the Women's Suffrage Movement (London, 1978)Google Scholar
Liddington, Jill, Respectable Rebel: Hannah Mitchell, the Hard Way Up (London, 1968)Google Scholar
Lipman, V. D., A Social History of the Jews in England, 1850–1950 (London, 1954)Google Scholar
Little, K. L., Negroes in Britain: A Study of Racial Relations in English Societyo (London, 1947)Google Scholar
Little, K. L., West African Urbanization: A Study of Voluntary Associations in Social Change (Cambridge, 1965)Google Scholar
Mackenzie, E., A Descriptive and Historical Account of the Town and County of Newcastle upon Tyne (Newcastle, 1827)Google Scholar
Marshall, J. D., ‘Nottinghamshire Labourers in the Early 19th Century’, Transactions of the Thornton Society of Nottingham, 64 (London, 1960)Google Scholar
Marx, Karl, Early Writings, with introd. by Colletti, Lucio (London, Penguin edn, 1975)Google Scholar
McCann, P., and Young, F. A., Samuel Wilderspin and the Infant School Movement (London, 1982)Google Scholar
McCullough Thew, Linda, The Pit Village and the Store (London, 1985)Google Scholar
McElroy, D., Scotland's Age of Improvement: A Survey of 18th Century Literary Clubs and Societies (Washington, 1969)Google Scholar
McLeod, H., Class and Religion in the Late Victorian City (London, 1974)Google Scholar
McShane, H., and Smith, Joan, No Mean Fighter (London, 1978)Google Scholar
Melling, J., Rent Strikes: People's Struggle for Housing in West Scotland, 1890–1916 (Edinburgh, 1983)Google Scholar
Millerson, G., The Qualifying Associations: A Study in Professionalisation (London, 1964)Google Scholar
Milne Rae, Lettice, Ladies in Debate, Being a History of the Ladies Edinburgh Debating Society, 1865–1935 (Edinburgh, 1936)Google Scholar
Milton, N., John MacLean (London, 1973)Google Scholar
Mitchell, A., ‘The Association Movement of 1792–1793’, Historical Journal, 4 (London, 1961)Google Scholar
Mitchison, R., ‘The Making of the Old Scottish Poor Law’, Past & Present, 63 (London, 1974)Google Scholar
Money, J., Experience and Identity: Birmingham and the West Midlands, 1760–1800 (Manchester, 1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris, B., ‘Ernest Thompson Seton and the Origins of the Woodcraft Movement’, Journal of Contemporary History, 5 (London, 1970)Google Scholar
Morris, R. J., ‘Middle Class Culture, 1700–1914’, in Fraser, D., ed., A History of Modern Leeds (Manchester, 1980)Google Scholar
Morris, R. J., ‘Voluntary Societies and British Urban Elites, 1780–1850: An Analysis’, Historical Journal, 26 (London, 1983)Google Scholar
Morris, R. J., ‘Samuel Smiles and the Genesis of Self Help: The Retreat to a Petit Bourgeois Utopia’, Historical Journal, 24 (London, 1981)Google Scholar
Mudie Smith, R., The Religious Life of London (London, 1904)Google Scholar
Muir, A., Nair's of Kirkcaldy: A Short History, 1847–1956 (Cambridge, 1956)Google Scholar
O'Neill, Julie, ‘Self Help in Nottinghamshire: The Woodborough Male Friendly Society, 1826–1954’, Transactions of the Thornton Society of Nottingham, 90 (London, 1986)Google Scholar
Orange, A. D., Philosophers and Provincials: The Yorkshire Philosophical Society from 1822 to 1844 (London, Yorkshire Philosophical Society, 1973)Google Scholar
Owen, D., English Philanthropy, 1660–1960 (London, 1964)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Patterson, Audrey, ‘The Poor Law in 19th Century Scotland’, in Fraser, D., ed., The New Poor Law in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1976)Google Scholar
Pelling, H., Popular Politics and Society in Late Victorian Britain (London, 1968)Google Scholar
Phillipson, N. T., ‘Culture and Society in the 18th Century Province: The Case of Edinburgh and the Scottish Enlightenment’, in Stone, Lawrence, ed., The University in Society (Princeton, 1974)Google Scholar
Pollard, S., ‘Nineteenth Century Co-operation: From Community Building to Shopkeeping’, in Briggs, A. and Saville, J., eds., Essays in Labour History (London, 1960)Google Scholar
Pooley, C. G., ‘The Residential Segregation of Migrant Communities in Mid Victorian Liverpool’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, n.s., 2 (London, 1977)Google Scholar
Pope, S., ‘The Development of Freemasonry in England and Wales’, Ars Quator Coronatorum (London, 1956–8)Google Scholar
Poynter, J. R., Society and Pauperism: English Ideas on Poor Relief, 1795–1834 (London, 1969)Google Scholar
Price, R., ‘The Working Men's Club Movement and Victorian Social Reform Ideology’, Victorian Studies, 15 (London, 1976)Google Scholar
Price, R., Masters, Unions and Men: Work Control in Building and the Rise of Labour, 1830–1914 (Cambridge, 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prochaska, F. K., Women and Philanthropy in Nineteenth-Century England (Oxford, 1980)Google Scholar
Prynn, D., ‘The Clarion Clubs, Rambling and the Holiday Associations in Britain since the 1890s’, Journal of Contemporary History, 11 (London, 1976)Google Scholar
Prynn, D., ‘The Woodcraft Folk and the Labour Movement, 1925–70’, Journal of Contemporary History, 8 (London, 1983)Google Scholar
Rawcliffe, J. M., ‘Bromley: Kentish Market Town to London Suburb, 1841–1881’, in Thompson, F. M. L., ed., The Rise of Suburbia (Leicester, 1982)Google Scholar
Roberts, J. M., ‘Freemasonry, Possibilities of a Neglected Topic’, English Historical Review, 84 (London, 1969)Google Scholar
Roberts, J. M., The Mythology of Secret Societies (London, 1972)Google Scholar
Roberts, M. J. D., ‘The Society for the Suppression of Vice and its Early Critics, 1802–1812’, Historical Journal, 26 (London, 1983)Google Scholar
Rowntree, B. S., Poverty and Progress: A Second Social Survey of York (London, 1941)Google Scholar
Rowntree, B. S., and Lavers, G. R., English Life and Leisure (London, 1951)Google Scholar
Royle, E., ‘Mechanics Institutes and the Working Classes, 1840–1860’, Historical Journal, 14 (London, 1971)Google Scholar
Scott, Gill, ‘The Women's Co-operative Guild’, Bulletin of the Society for the Study of Labour History, 48 (London, 1984)Google Scholar
Shairp, L. V., ‘Leeds’, in Bosanquet, Bernard HelenMrs, ed., Social Conditions in Provincial Towns (London, 1912)Google Scholar
Shapin, S. A., ‘The Pottery Philosophical Society, 1819–1835: An Examination of the Cultural Uses of Provincial Science’, Science Studies, 2 (London, 1972)Google Scholar
Simey, Margaret B., Charitable Efforts in Liverpool in the Nineteenth Century (Liverpool, 1951)Google Scholar
Smith, D., Conflict and Compromise: Class Formation in English Society, 1830–1914 (London, 1982)Google Scholar
Smith, Joan, ‘Class, Skill and Sectarianism in Glasgow and Liverpool’, in Morris, R. J., ed., Class, Power and Social Structure in British Nineteenth Century Towns (Leicester, 1986)Google Scholar
Summers, Anne, ‘A Home from Home – Women's Philanthropic Work in the Nineteenth Century’, in Burman, Sandra, ed., Fit Work for Women (London, 1979)Google Scholar
Taylor, Barbara, Eve and the New Jerusalem: Socialism and Feminism in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1983)Google Scholar
Thompson, Dorothy, ed., The Early Chartists (London, 1971).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, F. M. L., Hampstead: Building a Borough, 1650–1964 (London, 1974)Google Scholar
Timbs, J., Clubs and Club Life in London (London, 1872)Google Scholar
Todd, Henry John Rev., A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson … with Numerous Corrections and Additions (London, 1818)Google Scholar
Tylecote, Mabel, The Mechanics Institutions of Lancashire and Yorkshire before 1851 (Manchester, 1957)Google Scholar
Walker, B., ‘The Anacreontic Society’, Transactions of the Birmingham Archaeological Society, 63 (London, 1939–40)Google Scholar
Walmsley, R., Peterloo: The Case Re-Opened (Manchester, 1969)Google Scholar
Warren, A., ‘Sir Robert Baden-Powell, the Scout Movement and Citizen Training in Great Britain, 1900–1920’, English Historical Review, 101 (London, 1986)Google Scholar
Western, J. R., ‘The Volunteer Movement as an Anti Revolutionary Force, 1793–1801’, English Historical Review, 71 (London, 1956)Google Scholar
Wild, P., ‘Recreation in Rochdale, 1900–40’, in Clarke, J., Critcher, C. and Johnson, R., eds., Working-Class Culture: Studies in History and Theory (London, 1979)Google Scholar
Wilkinson, P., ‘English Youth Movements, 1908–30’, Journal of Contemporary History, 4 (London, 1969)Google Scholar
Williams, B., The Making of Manchester fewry, 1740–1875 (Manchester, 1976)Google Scholar
Wirth, L., ‘Urbanism as a Way of Life’, in Wirth, L., On Cities and Social Life, ed. Reiss, Albert J. (Chicago, 1964)Google Scholar
Withers, C. W. J., ‘Kirk, Club and Cultural Change: Gaelic Chapels, Highland Societies and the Urban Gaelic Sub-Culture in Eighteenth Century Scotland’, Social History, 10 (London, 1985)Google Scholar
Wright, D., Gould's History of Freemasonry, 5 vols. (London, 1931–6)Google Scholar
Yeo, S., Religion and Voluntary Organisations in Crisis (London, 1976)Google Scholar

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×