Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

credit furnished by gentlemen and gentlewomen before the era of provincial bankers. 318
Members of the influential Dewes family may serve as examples. 319
In addition to
buying land Alcester’s wealthier inhabitants contributed to capital deepening by investing
their money in industry. 320
The 1831 census records that Alcester, (as one may expect of
a market town), had a much higher percentage of capitalists, bankers, professionals and
educated men than the other zones. 321
Men from the upper strata of town life played a part in the running of the town as
officials appointed by the manor court or (increasingly) by the parish vestry. Typically,
Alcester’s high bailiff (the equivalent of a mayor) and his deputy, the low bailiff, were
from amongst the town’s influential business families. Lesser roles such as overseer of
the highways, overseer of the poor, constable and ale-taster were often carried out by men
from the next stratum of society. These often burdensome jobs were generally held for
one year, with no payment apart from expenses. So amateurs were carrying out
important roles which in the nineteenth and twentieth century would be transferred to
paid professionals.
Perhaps from the lower end of the middling sort, the parish-clerk received meagre
payment, possibly holding the job for many years, if not life. Those who served the town
in this capacity in the first half of the eighteenth century were all literate, and included a
318 Holderness, ‘Credit in English rural society before the nineteenth century, with special reference to the
period 1650-1720’, pp. 99-105.
319 WoRO, probate of William Dewes, Alcester, gentleman, 1717, £1298-16-6 (of which £830 was in bonds
and other debts due to him). WoRO, probate of Jane Dewes, Alcester, widow, 1719, £166-7-0.
(of which 85% was in the form of bonds.)
320 Local ‘gentlemen’ and ‘esquires’ invested in land, canals, turnpikes and in the larger factories or
workshops in the needle trade from 1780. Compare with J. Atack, et al, ‘Capital deepening and the rise of
the factory’, Econ. Hist. Rev., 58, (2005).
321 See Appendices 5 and 6. Table 4.8 (1841 census) shows the important role of women in this sector, for
instance as governesses and schoolmistresses.
133