Workers’ Responses to Paternalism in British Factory-Based Events (1840–1860)

Abstract

Opportunities to celebrate the success of the firm, its leaders and, by extension, its employees, were numerous in the mid-Victorian period: banquets, dinners and outings, annual gatherings, pleasure trips and excursions, processions around the mills, or ceremonies directly related with the employer’s family. The purpose of this paper is to analyse some of these large communal events organized in textile mills in order to better understand the practices and meanings of paternalism on the side of the workers. The first part of this study of paternalism ‘from below’ explores the feudal structure of paternalism and the complex role played by deference in the large communal events organized in textile factories. The second part, about the large social events organized by captains of industry turned philanthropists, Titus Salt and Samuel Courtauld, examines the display of power in ‘the theatre of paternalism’ and raises the question of a possible circumvention of the paternalistic model on the part of workers. The last part is about the specificities of laudatory poems praising captains of industry and thanking them for the outings and celebrations they organized for their employees. It analyses how this specific poetical subgenre offers a space for renegotiation of paternalism and social boundaries.