The Growth of Government

The growth of government is one of the striking features of British society in the nineteenth century. Earlier volumes in this series have highlighted some of the processes by which this occurred in relation to specific sectors of British national life: poor relief, public health and education. In each of these sectors, as in a variety of others, government – both national and local – was playing a more decisive and directive role by the end of the nineteenth century than it had at its beginning. The encroaching state was by no means uncontentious in the political and ideological discourse of the period. Equally, it has provided the basis for much controversy among more recent historians. There can be little doubt, however, of the implications of the change which it represented.