Cricket Witness No 1 - Class Peace

77 Chapter Eight Cricket and Class up to 1914 With little or no ‘civil convulsion’ and precious little military conflict abroad that troubled such domestic calm, industrialised Britain enjoyed, despite occasional setbacks, much economic prosperity. So it continued until the outbreak of the First World War. As for many decades the leading imperial as well as industrial power, the watchwords of the United Kingdom’s economy were free trade, untramelled marketing and bold private entrepreneurship. This display of boundless activity, with its creed at one time summarised as ‘Manchesterism’ triumphant, is how Victorian Britain is recalled in the popular mind, and rightly so. But there was another side to the national medallion, one duller and less exhilarating, that is perhaps less well remembered in the public consciousness. This was, from the 1830s onwards, the efforts of governments of all colours, to legislate for the encroachment of the state into the private realm and the erection of a fast growing public sector. At first sight, that marriage of a wholly free economy with a prominent public infrastructure may appear incompatible. Nevertheless, the Victorian authorities, their potency much boosted by reformed and energetic local government, were eager Collectivists. It was by no means altogether altruistic. The lesson had been learned, for example, that a decently housed work force, with fresh water and sanitation, was not only a healthier but a moderately more willing one, while the improvement of and the better cleansing of streets allowed quite literally for the wheels of commerce to run more freely. From the viewpoint of the class divide, there was what the great social historian Asa Briggs called the ‘many forces making for collaboration rather than confrontation’, a movement which continued, as he succinctly traced, well into the 20 th century. 1 This might be viewed as a virtuous spiral of government rewarding the working class for good conduct. The classic example is the gradual extension of the franchise. It is, for instance, generally accepted that the granting of the vote to urban workers in 1867 was influenced by the impressive peacefulness of the Lancashire mill- hands during the slump and famine consequent on the American Civil War and their resolve to uphold the moral case against slavery. For their part governments seemed determined to ensure that, as modern facilities were introduced, working men and women would not be excluded. An act of 1844 insisted that every railway company should run what became known as a ‘Parliamentary’ train at least once a day on every route and service. The Libraries Act of 1850, which encouraged local authorities to levy a penny rate for the establishment of municipal