CHORD Workshop

Commerce and Conflict
1500-2000

24 March 2004

Programme
Abstracts

 

PROGRAMME

12.30-13.30Room MC325: Lunch


Room MC418:
13.30-14.00Aidan Byrne, University of Wolverhampton, UK
'Trouble in Store: Class Conflict and Retail Space in Welsh Industrial Novels of the 1930s'
Click here for abstract

14.10-14.40 Mark Roodhouse, University of York, UK
'Small traders and black markets: Britain 1939-1955'
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14.40-15.15Coffee

15.15-15.45Peter Edwards, University of Surrey, Roehampton, UK
'Retailing and the English Civil Wars'
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ABSTRACTS


Aidan Byrne, University of Wolverhampton, UK
'Trouble in Store: Class Conflict and Retail Space in Welsh Industrial Novels of the 1930s'
E-mail: a.j.byrne@wlv.ac.uk
The paper will explore literary representations of retail space (shops,pubs, shopping areas), practice and shop-keepers in Welsh writing in English of the 1930s. Authors touched on will include Lewis Jones, Richard Llewellyn, Gwyn Thomas, Caradoc Evans and Rhys Davies. The paper will explore the cultural, social, political, racial and economic aspects of retailing as represented in novels and short stories in order to highlight the complex arguments within these texts, which represent the ideological challenges of 1930s Wales. The retail space appears frequently in these works in a variety of guises: the shopkeeper was often a representative of exploitative capitalism, of foreign incursion by English, Jewish and Italian groups. Conversely, however, the shopkeeper is occasionally represented as an ally of the industrial proletariat and fellow victim of the depression in Lewis Jones's Communist-oriented novels, 'Cwmardy' and 'We Live'. The paper will also discuss the recurrent themes of sexual exploitation and
suicide in shopkeeping families in  Welsh novels. Essentially, the paper will explore the liminal status of shops and shopkeeping, investigating the unstable class-status of the owners and the tension between the shop as private space and public service, while touching on the political and racial tensions which the authors explore in their use of shops as foci of difference.

Mark Roodhouse, University of York, UK
'Small traders and black markets: Britain 1939-1955'
E-mail: mr19@york.ac.uk
The market position of the small trader has always been marginal. Small might have been beautiful, but small traders were price takers, faced with fierce competition and with limited political influence. The balance of risk and reward could alter rapidly, pushing the small business into bankruptcy or the trader into another more lucrative occupation. It was not infrequent for small traders to adopt sharp practices to bolster dwindling profit margins. The imposition of price control and rationing during the Second World War had a similar effect. Consumer rationing dramatically increased the regulatory burden on small traders. Price control often fixed retail prices without adequately controlling wholesale prices. Many food wholesalers systematically evaded price control. Faced with high wholesale prices, many retailers felt obliged to pass their increased costs onto their customers directly or indirectly by making conditional sales or adulterating the product. Central control of distribution recreated the bias against small traders who lacked buying power. To obtain goods in short supply the small trader had to resort to the market in stolen goods. Not only were small traders under pressure from suppliers, but also from customers. In order to retain registered customers from one rationing period to the next and to encourage others to register, retailers had to bribe customers with ‘extras’. Careful stock-taking could provide some extras, but the black market might provide the rest.


Peter Edwards, University of Surrey, Roehampton, UK
'Retailing and the English Civil Wars'
E-mail: p.edwards@roehampton.ac.uk
The English Civil Wars had contradictory effects on retailing. On the one hand production and sale of a wide range of commodities increased, including basic, everyday goods as well as weapons and military equipment. Wholesales did particularly well but small retailers benefited too, especially those living in garrison towns. Of course, much depended on whether they were paid or not and, if so, did they get their money quickly or only in dribs and drabs over an extended period. On the negative side, the troubles had an adverse effect on traditional retailing institutions. Market folk, for instance, were afraid to venture onto the road, worried lest they should be assaulted by marauding parties of soldiers and their goods stolen. Commissary officers, moreover, preferred to deal privately with their suppliers, in effect, forestalling the market. This process had already begun before the Civil Wars but the conflict accelerated the trend towards private marketing, a development that flourished in the more relaxed economic and commercial atmosphere of the post-Restoration period.

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Page author: Laura Ugolini
Date: June 2004