What do you think?
Rate this book
Lancastrians: Mills, Mines and Minarets: A New History
This popular history explores the cultural heritage and identity of Lancashire, stretching from the Mersey to the Lake District. Paul Salveson charts the county’s transformation from a largely agricultural region noted for its religious learning into the Industrial Revolution’s powerhouse, as an emerging self-confident bourgeoisie drove economic growth. This capital boom came with a cultural blossoming, creating today’s Lancashire.
Industrialists strongly committed to the arts endowed galleries and museums, producing a diverse world of science, technology, music and literature. Lancashire developed a distinct business culture, but this was also the birthplace of the world co-operative movement, and the heart of democracy campaigns including Chartism and women’s suffrage. Lancashire has generally welcomed incomers, who have long helped to inform its distinctive fourteenth-century Flemish weavers; nineteenth-century Irish immigrants and Jewish refugees; and, more recently, ‘New Lancastrians’ from Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe.
This long-overdue book explores contemporary Lancastrian culture, following modern upheavals and Lancashire’s fragmentation compared with its old rival Yorkshire. What future awaits the 6 million people of this rich historic region?
Industrialists strongly committed to the arts endowed galleries and museums, producing a diverse world of science, technology, music and literature. Lancashire developed a distinct business culture, but this was also the birthplace of the world co-operative movement, and the heart of democracy campaigns including Chartism and women’s suffrage. Lancashire has generally welcomed incomers, who have long helped to inform its distinctive fourteenth-century Flemish weavers; nineteenth-century Irish immigrants and Jewish refugees; and, more recently, ‘New Lancastrians’ from Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe.
This long-overdue book explores contemporary Lancastrian culture, following modern upheavals and Lancashire’s fragmentation compared with its old rival Yorkshire. What future awaits the 6 million people of this rich historic region?
633 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 29, 2023
2 people are currently reading
7 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 11, 2024
Excellent book on Lancashire and Lancastrians with chapter on everything from music to politics
August 2, 2023
Part of the sub-title of ‘Lancastrians’ is ‘A New History’. My own view is that it is not a history in the sense that it replaces histories that have been produced by earlier authors, but it is new in that it supplements other works. Traditional histories perhaps apply overly emphasise the influence and effects of the better-known Lancastrians, the ‘worthies’ as they were often referred to in the past.
The author takes a different approach with this history. Salveson’s ‘Lancastrians’ presents a story of Lancashire that is more ‘of the people’. It is a ‘bottom-up’ cultural, social, and political timeline, punctuated not by the cotton barons, but by the sometimes lesser-known figures of the past. These were people locally appreciated for their efforts in trying to improve the daily lives of the people, but perhaps not nationally recognised. The book is not a story of famous Lancastrian inventions and wealthy industrialists. It is an 18-chapter tour of Lancashire’s history and its inhabitants that ordinary folk would recognise, and relate to.
On reading the book it occasionally struck me that the emphasis of the narrative was often geared towards the industrial powerhouse region; East Lancashire, the areas around Manchester, and Liverpool. I asked myself whether there should be more on the north of the county, but then thought otherwise. The simple fact is that the rump of the population resided, and still resides, in these areas so the emphasis is clearly appropriate. I also wondered whether there should be more on more recent culture, the twentieth century music of Liverpool and Manchester which have had such an influence over the UK’s music scene. Twentieth and twenty-first century artists and musicians are mentioned but not discussed at length. At close to 175,000 words already, and as an author myself, I do understand that there are limits to what it is feasible to include. It is simply not possible, or necessarily wise, to include everything and everyone. And in some respects, more recent history is not always the easiest to get right. The effluxion of time often changes perspectives.
I found myself in robust agreement with the points raised in the last chapter. Lancashire has been stripped of some of its wider identity by cack-handed 1970s administrative excisions of large parts the county – the ‘Greater Manchester’ nonsense still persist a generation into the twenty first century. It really needs to rejoin the traditional county, along with ‘Merseyside’, to form what could again be an industrial and commercial super region.
The book is well written and easy to read. As a history it fills a gap in our knowledge of the development of the county. It elevates to prominence those Lancashire characters who played just as important a part in the social, political, and cultural development of our county, as did the inventors and capitalists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In time it will take its place along with the Victorian history writers of an earlier age. A highly recommended read.
The author takes a different approach with this history. Salveson’s ‘Lancastrians’ presents a story of Lancashire that is more ‘of the people’. It is a ‘bottom-up’ cultural, social, and political timeline, punctuated not by the cotton barons, but by the sometimes lesser-known figures of the past. These were people locally appreciated for their efforts in trying to improve the daily lives of the people, but perhaps not nationally recognised. The book is not a story of famous Lancastrian inventions and wealthy industrialists. It is an 18-chapter tour of Lancashire’s history and its inhabitants that ordinary folk would recognise, and relate to.
On reading the book it occasionally struck me that the emphasis of the narrative was often geared towards the industrial powerhouse region; East Lancashire, the areas around Manchester, and Liverpool. I asked myself whether there should be more on the north of the county, but then thought otherwise. The simple fact is that the rump of the population resided, and still resides, in these areas so the emphasis is clearly appropriate. I also wondered whether there should be more on more recent culture, the twentieth century music of Liverpool and Manchester which have had such an influence over the UK’s music scene. Twentieth and twenty-first century artists and musicians are mentioned but not discussed at length. At close to 175,000 words already, and as an author myself, I do understand that there are limits to what it is feasible to include. It is simply not possible, or necessarily wise, to include everything and everyone. And in some respects, more recent history is not always the easiest to get right. The effluxion of time often changes perspectives.
I found myself in robust agreement with the points raised in the last chapter. Lancashire has been stripped of some of its wider identity by cack-handed 1970s administrative excisions of large parts the county – the ‘Greater Manchester’ nonsense still persist a generation into the twenty first century. It really needs to rejoin the traditional county, along with ‘Merseyside’, to form what could again be an industrial and commercial super region.
The book is well written and easy to read. As a history it fills a gap in our knowledge of the development of the county. It elevates to prominence those Lancashire characters who played just as important a part in the social, political, and cultural development of our county, as did the inventors and capitalists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In time it will take its place along with the Victorian history writers of an earlier age. A highly recommended read.
October 23, 2023
Now I know more about Lancashire! And what a rich county it is.
This book combines the rigours of academic reporting with an easy to consume text that keeps the reader engaged.
There is a new fact on almost every line. So it would be impossible to remember everything you had read. Fortunately the book is also well indexed.
A very readable book and also a useful reference book.
This book combines the rigours of academic reporting with an easy to consume text that keeps the reader engaged.
There is a new fact on almost every line. So it would be impossible to remember everything you had read. Fortunately the book is also well indexed.
A very readable book and also a useful reference book.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews