Victorian period regional studies in a bourgeois context: The exploration and expression of the local past in nineteenth-century English towns

Abstract

The study of local history and culture became an integral part of the intellectual life of Victorian urban communities. Civicminded intellectuals organized a host of historical and antiquarian societies at both the local and county levels, and investigated their history and popular traditions in an urban context. For example, there was a preoccupation with collecting local historical documents, campaigning for the preservation of ancient monuments, and discovering native folk arts and customs. Such cultural concerns were markedly demonstrated in such public institutions as civic reference libraries and historicist displays of municipal buildings. Although undoubtedly a result of nostalgia to some extent, such enthusiasm for the past should by no means be regarded simply as a retreat into antiquated memories, for such studies significantly entailed vigorous expression of local patriotism and a high-minded feeling of community-based citizenship. A radical strand of Victorian liberalism regarded such activity as a vital mission, considering that a moralized sense of community life was imperative in an age of rapid urbanization and mass democracy. Thus, the exploration of all-embracing, communal memories of the native locality became for bourgeois intellectuals active in provincial urban centres a way to kindle the notion of civic unity and achieve consensus among the ever-growing masses closing in on them. Moreover, local historians and antiquaries eagerly defined historical events and native customs of their localities as vital components of a common, national history of the English people. In this sense, it is difficult to conclude that a pronounced focus on national history necessary leads to a decline in local historical interest. Indeed, the provincial intellectual's notion of local patriotism was a far cry from narrow-minded provincialistic attitudes, as exemplified by such civic leaders as Joseph Cowen, who envisaged the love of locality as comparable to national identity. By embracing such a multi-faceted idea of patriotism, the provincial bourgeois intelligentsia sought to retrieve a local past that would not only sustain a unique awareness of one's hometown, but also enact a broader empathy with the nation as a whole.