ABSTRACT
Politics in the 19th-century railway town of Crewe were highly distinctive. From the town's inception through the two Intimidation Affairs of 1885 and 1889, to its official ending with the dramatic London and North-Western Railway Company (LNWR) Shareholders' meeting of 1890, 'employer Politics' appeared to rule the day, as it did in so many other towns and villages of the period. Forming a definition of paternalism, and its corollary, deference, is to some degree problematic. A highly complex, ambivalent and organic relationship, paternalism has been seen to have existed between many very diverse social groups, and at various periods of history. In Crewe, although company paternalism appeared to have been so well accepted by the people of the town for so long, it was suddenly and most dramatically rejected by at least certain townspeople during the height of the events which became known as the Intimidation Affairs in 1885 and 1889.
