ABSTRACT
Working-class trust is discussed throughout the book. Chapters 3 and 4 examine the somewhat limited involvement of the poor in formal networks, Chapter 8 looks at the trust that existed within families and Chapter 10 investigates the relationship between workers and employers. This chapter concentrates on two general ways of raising confidence – the adoption of norms and the membership of a variety of informal and formal associations. The first section describes how workers followed and signalled their adoption of either non-respectable or respectable norms and became involved in neighbourhood networks. These comprised most of the families living in a community, were almost wholly managed by women and generated trust through the exchange of gifts. Their strength largely depended on the presence of competing kinship loyalties and levels of residential mobility and prosperity. The second section looks at other working-class associations: leisure and employment networks and the friendly society and the trade union. All generated trust, but could equally breed division and disunity. The final part of the chapter discusses class antagonism. Until midcentury, the relationship between the working and middle classes was often acrimonious. Thereafter, the sustained economic upswing and various other factors inaugurated a period of relative social peace.
