ABSTRACT
In both Birmingham and Sheffield a coalescence between the leaderships of the old rurally-oriented order and urban industrial society was well under way by the end of the century. However, this process occurred half a generation earlier in South Yorkshire than in the West Midlands. Furthermore, in Sheffield it was focused upon regional and national social networks while in Birmingham it occurred at the municipal level of integration. Finally, in Birmingham this process of osmosis was complemented by a subtle mingling of old and new values and practices in key institutional orders, facilitating a complex intermeshing of social groups within the middle, lower middle and working classes in that city. By contrast, the growing intimacy between leading Sheffield industrialists and the occupants of country houses and metropolitan corridors of power was accompanied by a rigidification and further institutionalisation of the social barriers between classes and status groups within Sheffield itself. In the longer term the refusal of the masters of Sheffield’s heavy industry to share authority in the workplace left them open to a drastic and direct industrial challenge during the First World War. Indeed, representatives of their employees sought, with eventual success, to achieve total control in the sphere of local government. By contrast, in Birmingham education, industry and local government were managed in a way which fostered compromise between traditional and modern practices and dispersed conflict between social classes. In Sheffield these three institutional orders were arenas of bitter conflict between the advocates of old and new ways and their management perpetuated class hostilities.
