Paternalism, community and corporate culture : a study of the Derby headquarters of the Midland Railway Company and its workforce, 1840-1900

This thesis focuses on Litchurch, the railway suburb of Derby, the headquarters of the Midland Railway Company and its workforce, during the period 1840-1900, It examines the consequences of factory paternalism and company loyalty for the construction of 'community', exploring the connections between work, family, and wider social and political life. It begins by looking at Derby as a county town where an early alliance between Whigs and Liberals resulted in the political dominance of the town by a group of Liberal-radical textile manufacturers as a form of extended factory village. There is then a discussion of railway paternalism which investigates the many differences between the family firm and the corporate railway company. The relationship between the railways and the state is examined, through the twin theorization of the railway within the state-intrinsic to national integrity and as a state in microcosm- a form of space management derived from military and civil government. The role of Derby as headquarters of the M.R.is then considered: its decision making and service function; the technological mix of productive techniques; and the distinctive relationship between public and private space. A model of company loyalty based on the experience of the physical and organizational space of the railway company is developed through the notions of the career and the appropriation to the self of organisational space, the 'bailiwick'. The spatial and social structure of Litchurch is examined and its marriage and residence patterns. In the discussion of social institutions, churches, recreation and self-help, the tensions are explored between vertical integration and horizontal stratification which are intrinsic to corporate culture. The extent and limits of collective action in terms of local and national consciousness are then considered. A model of community is then proposed, founded on the routine practices of everyday life, which recognises the multiplicity of motivations and experiences subsumed within the symbolic affirmations of collective solidarity. It concludes with an examination of the antagonism between the county town of Derby, with its history and expectations of paternal intervention, and the corporate Midland Railway 1 which was economically, socially and politically independent of local systems.