{"id":1312,"date":"2022-11-26T14:45:38","date_gmt":"2022-11-26T14:45:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/index.html\/?p=1312"},"modified":"2022-11-26T15:06:05","modified_gmt":"2022-11-26T15:06:05","slug":"thoughts-for-lancashire-day-2022-towards-a-new-lancashire-sensibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/index.html\/thoughts-for-lancashire-day-2022-towards-a-new-lancashire-sensibility","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts for Lancashire Day 2022: Towards a new Lancashire Sensibility"},"content":{"rendered":"
Developing a \u2018Lancashire Sensibility\u2019: thoughts for Lancashire Day, 2022<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Paul Salveson<\/p>\n

Over the last year I\u2019ve been working on a book about Lancashire history, identity and culture. Lancastrians \u2013 Mills, Mines and Minarets<\/em> will appear next summer. A central part of its argument is that we need to revive a \u2018Lancashire Sensibility\u2019 which is forward-looking and inclusive – and takes in the whole of \u2018historic Lancashire\u2019. To do that, we need to go back before we can go forward and look at how a \u2018Lancashire Sensibility\u2019 emerged in the past.<\/p>\n

It was a central part of a regional identity that took in speech, dress, manners, diet \u2013 pretty much every aspect of how we lived. In 1951 the (Labour) Minister of Education, George Tomlinson, wrote the foreword to the journal of the newly-established Lancashire Dialect Society:<\/p>\n

“I have a feeling that we cannot afford to lose the characteristic features of our County, which are bound up in no small degree with the accents of its people and our own particular dialect… for since I became a Minister of the Crown, in every part of the country people have come to me at the end of a meeting, shaken me by the hand and said, \u2018I too come from Lancashire,\u2019 and it was grand to hear the accent again.”<\/p>\n

The \u2018Lancashire sensibility\u2019 was very much a part of the social and intellectual make-up of most sections of society by the middle of the nineteenth century. It included much of the aspiring middle class, sections of the aristocracy and some \u2018respectable\u2019 working men. Women were part of it; the leader of the women\u2019s suffrage movement Emmeline Pankhurst was always fond of stressing her \u2018Lancashire\u2019 roots.<\/p>\n

It linked with the idea of a \u2018Lancashire Patriotism\u2019 which emerged in the 1880s. Speaking in the middle of the First World War, Rossendale Liberal politician and historian Samuel Compston said that \u201cif patriotism is a virtue, especially in these days, surely county clanship, in no narrow sense, is a virtue also.\u201d \"\"The socialist writer Allen Clarke was one of the foremost proponents of a Lancashire sensibility, through his stories, poems and songs. Many Conservative figures such as the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres were proud of their Lancashire roots and supported bodies which promoted Lancashire culture.<\/p>\n

Lancashire speech \u2013 from \u2018accent\u2019 to full-blown dialect, or \u2018broad Lancashire\u2019, formed an important part of Lancashire identity and sensibility. Debates over its use, among Lancastrians over the last hundreds years and more, highlight some of the wider issues around Lancashire identity. During the late 1920s and early 1930s there was an on-going debate about whether dialect speech should be encouraged, or allowed to die. The Bury dialect writer T. Thompson, who had a regular column in that sadly departed champion of all things Lancashire, The Manchester Guardian<\/em>, spoke in defence of dialect speech at a meeting of the Manchester Literary Club in 1938. He argued against attempts to \u2018standardise\u2019 English and stressed that \u201clanguage is a living thing, always changing, and if they standardised it, it became a<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

dead thing.\u201d Allen Clarke commented on Lancastrians\u2019 ability to \u2018switch\u2019 from standard English to dialect, as the occasion required it: \u201cJust as in Wales, they talk both Welsh and English, what\u2019s wrong about Lancashire using its dialect as well the English language? As it is not so much the tool as the man who uses it…so it is not the mere words but the thoughts and sentiments that make the power and beauty of a language. While the Lancashire dialect is equal to any other language in pathos, is fundamental characteristic is its humour, mostly cheery and kindly, and in that respect it is first and foremost in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

An essential part of the creation of a \u2018Lancashire sensibility\u2019 was the emergence of a distinctive \u2018intelligentsia\u2019 which provided a network of influential figures. \u00a0The Manchester Literary Club was central to this. It was founded in 1862 and its aims were to \u201cencourage the pursuit of literature and art; to promote research in the several departments of intellectual work and to protect the interests of authors in Lancashire; to publish from time to time works illustrating or elucidating the literature and history of the county…\u201d<\/p>\n

A typical member was Samuel Barlow, a partner in a bleach works at Stakehill near Middleton. As well as being an active member of the Manchester Literary Club he was a founder of the city\u2019s Arts Club, an artist and botanist and had a strong interest in Lancashire dialect. William E.A. Axon was another prominent member with wide interests. He became a central figure in Manchester \u2013 and Lancashire – intellectual circles towards the end of the nineteenth century. In 1874 he joined the staff of The Manchester Guardian<\/em> as its librarian. He had already been writing for the Guardian<\/em>, and used his pen in support of the anti-slavery cause during the American Civil War.<\/p>\n

Lancashire developed a number of cultural associations which provided a network for the county\u2019s intellectual communities. The Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire was founded in Liverpool in 1848. The Lancashire Authors\u2019 Association (for \u2018writers and lovers of Lancashire literature\u2019) was established in 1909 on the initiative of Allen Clarke. Its Library was created in 1921 from members\u2019 donations and is now the largest collection of regional literature in the UK. It is housed as a special collection in the University of Bolton Library.<\/p>\n

The Manchester Section of the Society of Chemical Industry seems an unlikely body to take a broad view of culture in Lancashire. However, in 1928 the Society was instrumental in commissioning The Soul of<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Samuel Compston<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Manchester<\/em>, to mark the Society\u2019s Manchester meeting the following year. The Earl of Crawford and Balcarres (also vice-president of the Lancashire Authors\u2019 Association) contributed the introductory essay on \u2018The Soul of Cities\u2019 in which Manchester is clearly positioned as the county \u2018capital\u2019 but very much a part of Lancashire.<\/p>\n

The Co-operative Movement came closest to providing an intellectual framework for working class men and women in the years between the 1850s and 1960s. It was a network of local, independent, societies. The larger ones had substantial libraries, reading rooms and lecture theatres, with frequent lectures by eminent speakers, often on aspects of Lancashire history and culture.<\/p>\n

The post-war years saw the coming of mass entertainment, particularly television – which was less suited to a more regional culture. Was it, finally, the beginning of the end that had been forecast for so long?<\/p>\n

Actually, no. Go to schools in many parts of Oldham, Rochdale or Bolton and you will hear young Asian as well as white English children speaking \u2018broad Lanky\u2019. After its demise being forecast for many decades, it refuses to die, and with it that broader sense of \u2018being Lancashire\u2019.<\/p>\n

We need a revived Lancashire sensibility that is about more than just dialect and speech, embracing culture in a general sense. We already have Friends of Real Lancashire and the Lancashire Society flying the<\/p>\n

\"\"
The flag of Lancashire flies proudly outside the Barlow Instiute, Edgworth<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

red rose. We need to up our game and tap into people\u2019s continuing sense of identity which is at risk of being subsumed into the amorphous city-regions. A campaign to re-unite and re-imagine Lancashire needs a higher profile and cross-party support.<\/p>\n

A reformed Lancashire within its historic boundaries makes sense as a regional economic unit but also chimes with people\u2019s identities \u2013 in a way that artificial \u2018city regions\u2019 never will. An alternative is the idea of the \u2018county region\u2019 which forms an organic whole without one centre becoming over-dominant. People in Bolton, Oldham, Rochdale and other towns don\u2019t want to become mere commuter suburbs of Manchester. Nearly 50 years on from the creation of \u2018Greater Manchester\u2019 the so-called \u2018city region\u2019 still has little legitimacy. If there was a referendum tomorrow on being part of Lancashire or \u2018Greater Manchester\u2019 I have little doubt about the result. There is an alternative \u2013 a greater \u2018Lancastria\u2019 that celebrates all of our county, not just the main cities. A starting point must be the re-creation of a new \u2018Lancashire Sensibility\u2019 which was so much a part of life in the 19th<\/sup> and early 20th century but celebrates a modern county identity. That’s why we should celebrate our Lancashire Day – and make it something that everyone living and working in Lancashire can celebrate.<\/p>\n

………………………………………………………………………………………………………….<\/p>\n

Lancastrians: Mills, Mines and Minarets<\/em> will be published by Hurst in June 2023. See www.hurstpublishers.com<\/a><\/p>\n

This article is was first published in The Lancastrian<\/em><\/strong>, the magazine of Friends of Real Lancashire in September 2022. See www.forl.org.uk<\/p>\n

My biography of Allen Clarke (\u2018Lancashire\u2019s Romantic Radical\u2019) is available at a special price of \u00a310 including postage. Email me on paul.salveson@myphone.coop<\/a> for details<\/p>\n

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Developing a \u2018Lancashire Sensibility\u2019: thoughts for Lancashire Day, 2022 Paul Salveson Over the last year I\u2019ve been working on a book about Lancashire history, identity and culture. Lancastrians \u2013 Mills, Mines and Minarets will appear next summer. A central part of its argument is that we need to revive a \u2018Lancashire Sensibility\u2019 which is forward-looking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1312"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1320,"href":"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312\/revisions\/1320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lancashireloominary.co.uk\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}