ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that politics and ideological debate were very relevant to the formulation and implementation of health policy in Sheffield, in the decades prior to the National Health Service (NHS). For most of the nineteenth century, the administration of Sheffield had been conducted along the lines of a minimal local state. Bodies such as, the Town Trustees, the Cutlers Company, and the Church Burgesses had a variety of seignorial, industrial and religious origins and performed functions which were largely uncoordinated. Urbanisation and its industrialisation forged the basis of the social and political character of Sheffield. The prospect of Labour taking control of the council resulted in Liberal and Conservative forces uniting in a single political entity, the Citizens Alliance, which was in office from 1919 to 1926. From 1926, urban governance in Sheffield became synonymous with municipal socialism. The Labour Party in Sheffield appropriated the term 'municipal socialism' from critics as a positive expression of their civic vision.
