ABSTRACT
The year 1829 was an ordinary year in the history of the commercial and industrial town of Leeds. There was no slump, no major strikes, epidemics, riots, political campaigns or reforms. For that reason it is well suited to the purpose of this chapter, which is to examine the nature and meaning of certain social forms that had been developing in British urban society for at least a hundred years. Central to this enquiry was a series of meetings which were recorded in the local newspaper press. Each was to some degree 'public' and transparent. Each was linked to some form of organization, state, commercial or voluntary. Each displayed evidence of the customs, rules and rituals which characterized 'the meeting'. Many were linked to the voluntary society with its constituent elements, the committee, the annual general meeting, the public meeting, the subscription, the published subscription, the printed notice, the annual report and the rules and regulations. These elements were those of the subscriber democracies which had grown in influence and number since the 1780s but they were shared in varying degrees by local government, commercial organizations, property owning trusts and other non profit service providers like the Friendly Societies. 1
