ABSTRACT
The new principles of government were not introduced deliberately, suddenly or universally: they gradually emerged in different decades in different places, with varying degrees of awareness on the part of their promoters and opponents. This chapter discusses some of the novel concepts and new methods of thought that partly arose from, and partly gave birth to the changes in the material environment. The main forces transforming the environment of English local institutions between the Revolution and the Municipal Corporations Act were the Industrial Revolution doubling the numbers, altering the geographical distribution and transforming the status and the circumstances of the English people. For the first half of the eighteenth century, all the evidence leads to the impression that crime and disorder were much less prevalent in the rural districts and the provincial towns than in the Metropolis.
