L. Gardner and Sons Limited: The History of a British Industrial Firm. A Study with Special Reference to Markets, Workplace Industrial Relations, and Manufacturing Engineering Technology, 1955 – 1986

7historiography did not seem to correspond to the observable empirical evidence.2
Among the most worrying issues were certain wide-ranging generalizations propounded by a
group of academics and historians often referred to as ‘The Harvard School’. For example:
… in the new, dynamic industries of the Second Industrial Revolution - those at
the centre of industrial and economic growth - there were more failures than
successes in Great Britain.3
Clearly, however, this ‘Chandlerian’ concept of success and failure is highly subjective.
Dictionary definitions broadly agree that success is the accomplishment of a desired end: the
more prosaic meaning, the attainment of wealth, fame, or high-office, having, in recent times,
become somewhat less acceptable, while failure is almost universally defined simply as a
lack of success.4 Undoubtedly, however, there are cases in which the desired end is clearly
implied. For example, the implied purpose of a diesel engine is to function to a specified level
of performance and if it does not do so, or if it breaks down completely, it can accurately be
described as having failed. Likewise, a business, by implication, desires to be profitable or at
least solvent, and when it suffers financial collapse or bankruptcy it can, with complete
justification, be said to have failed. It would be fallacious, however, to subjectively and
superficially impose perceived desired ends on firms, such as a lack of development or
inadequate rates of growth in specific areas, in order to provide evidence for alleged flaws. It
would also be misleading to indict firms with failure simply because they did not pursue a
course of action that historians believe they should have. Moreover, if as Chandler asserted,
‘the British did not even try’ in certain sectors of industry, they may well have had sound
commercial reasons for not doing so, but in any case, they cannot accurately be said to have
failed.5 To adopt an appropriate analogy, the evidence presented in this thesis will show that
although, during its period as a family firm, the Gardner engine occasionally faltered, as a
member of a large industrial corporation, it broke down completely and thus failed.
It is perhaps significant that the above quotation appeared in Chandler’s first major
monograph to encompass industrial firms outside his native USA. It was published in 1990,
at the end of a decade that marked the closure of many long-established small and medium-
sized British industrial firms – including L. Gardner and Sons – whose history this thesis
analyses. Clearly, if the primary goal of such firms was to continue to exist, then they can
accurately be considered to have failed. However, if they perceived the generation of profits
to be their principal purpose, and changes beyond their control had made profitable trading
2 The dissertation can be found at, https://cid-
6a179ec8d625de09.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/MA%20History%20Dissertation/The%20Impa
ct%20of%20Conflict%20and%20Political%20Change.doc
3 Alfred D. Chandler Jnr., Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990), p. 274.
4 Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, s.v. “failure”, “success”.
5 Alfred D. Chandler Jnr., ‘The Enduring Logic of Industrial Success’, in Barry E. Supple (ed.),
The Rise of Big Business, (London: Edward Elgar, 1992), p. 240.
8impossible, then to regard them as failures would be harsh. Moreover, as events of the first
decade of the twenty-first century clearly illustrate, not even the ‘modern’ large-scale
multinational industrial enterprises idealized by Chandlerian scholars are immune to change.
The research undertaken for the above-mentioned dissertation focused on various
manufacturing engineering firms based at Bolton and Oldham between 1890 and 1990. The
findings indicated that the most macroenvironmentally disruptive periods had occurred
during the First World War and the Second World War when production of armaments
superseded all other considerations. Between 1915 and 1918 and again between 1939 and
1945, these firms had one customer, the British Government. While some were fortunate in
that their wartime production closely resembled their peacetime activities, others were
obliged to make considerable changes in practically every aspect of their manufacturing
methods. All, however, became completely detached from their markets, which, especially
after 1918, appear to have changed considerably. It was their ability - and in some cases
their willingness - to respond to such change that had the most profound effect on their long-
term survival.
Some firms chose not to change, and these continued to serve their existing markets for as
long as demand persisted. Others seem to have attempted to resist change, seeking refuge
in cartels and government-subsidized ‘rationalization’ programmes and the like. The more
successful firms embraced change, some more openly and enthusiastically than others,
becoming, in some aspects, leaders in their chosen markets. Most of the firms involved in
the so-called ‘new dynamic industries of the second industrial revolution’ flourished until
1914, and survived the challenging conditions of the first half of the twentieth century. After
the Second World War, they thrived during the 1950s and 1960s, experienced problems
during the 1970s, languished during the 1980s, and by 1990 all but two had shut down. Far
from being uniquely British, these experiences reflect those of similar American firms,
making Chandler’s assertions regarding British ‘failure’ implausible, especially when the
macroeconomic conditions prevailing during this period are considered.
II Focus
Based on the above preliminary findings, it is clear that further research focused on reasons
for survival would reveal more than attempts to explain failure, and that a comparative study
of four different manufacturing engineering concerns facing the same problems would be the
most appropriate approach. Unfortunately, however, the complexities, scope and volume of
such a project made it unrealizable as a doctoral thesis. Alternative analyses based on a
smaller number of firms or a reduced range of criteria were also discarded on the grounds
that either of these compromises would merely produce incomplete and therefore
unsatisfactory conclusions. The eventual decision to undertake an analytical case study of a
single firm was taken on the basis that its results may offer some innovative contrasts to
currently propounded assumptions, and provide a sound basis for future comparative
studies.
9After careful reflection, the existence of a substantial collection of readily accessible primary
source materials made L. Gardner and Sons of Patricroft, one of the four firms originally
considered for inclusion in a comparative study, the most suitable subject for analysis using
a case-study approach. Ostensibly a typical Greater Manchester-based manufacturing
engineering concern, it was a middling-sized firm that, between 1955 and 1986, provided
full-time employment for up to three thousand personnel, most of whom were highly skilled
craftsmen and members of the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU) and its successors.
A manufacturer of high-value industrial units, like many such enterprises its products were
purchased by other manufacturers of capital equipment for inclusion in their own end
products, making Gardner central to a network of companies that together formed a discrete
industrial sub-sector. This ‘cluster’ of firms ultimately depended on the same markets,
employed personnel with similar skills and allegiances, and was affected by very similar
technological developments.
Between 1868 and 1975, in response to the many macroenvironmental shifts resulting from
two major conflicts and at least one world recession, Gardner altered its management
structure, and developed close relationships with suppliers, distributors, customers, and
employees. In 1975, Gardner generated annual sales of almost nine million pounds and was,
as it had been for most years since its foundation, a profitable concern. In January 1978,
Gardner was absorbed by a major British multinational industrial Group; by 1984, the firm
was languishing, and in 1986, by then a completely owned subsidiary of a direct competitor,
its much reduced manufacturing plant was in the process of being closed down. This study
attempts to identify the main contributing factors, both macroenvironmental and
microenvironmental, which led to this situation and in doing so it is hoped that the nature of
the firm as a complete organization, not merely a small elite group of managers, or a circle of
trade union officials, will be revealed.
III Methodology
Using a case study approach, this thesis attempts to analyse and connect externally
observable developments with internally recorded events. Formerly the preferred approach
of business historians, the decline of the single firm study corresponds with the ascendancy
of comparative, or institutional, methodology following the publication of Chandler’s Strategy
and Structure.6 Describing comparative methodology as the analysis of the techniques used
by different firms to overcome the same problems, Chandler asserted that it would facilitate
the creation of clearer models relating to the methods used by businessmen in the past,
6 Alfred D. Chandler Jnr., Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the American
Enterprise (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1962); ‘The publication of Strategy and
Structure … redirected the study of big business away from its traditional emphasis on case
histories of companies and individual biographies … and … brought to the fore the
importance of comparative history’. Maury Klein, ‘Coming Full Circle: The Study of Big
Business Since 1950’, Enterprise and Society, 2 (3), 2001, p. 430; see also Barry Supple,
‘Introduction: Approaches to Business History’, in Barry Supple, ed., Essays in British
Business History (Oxford: Clarendon, 1977), p. 3.
10
thereby making possible the formulation of ‘theories and generalizations’. This, he
anticipated, would establish what effect the broad regulatory and economic environment had
on the development of large-scale American firms, thus leading to a better general
understanding of the American economy. Comparative methodology, he predicted, would
produce ‘the data from which the generalizations are derived’, and its findings would not,
therefore, be presented as ‘mere illustrations’, but as contextual, firm conclusions.7
There can be no doubt that British historians and scholars, especially those with Harvard
connections, found the new approach both original and compelling. Unfortunately, however,
in their enthusiasm to embrace Chandlerian doctrine, some academics occasionally felt
constrained to disparage what they described as the ‘conventional’ approach which,
according to Chandler, resulted in ‘mere case studies’ and offered little scope to researchers
seeking to analyse the ‘deeper, underlying trends in … history’. Particularly critical of what he
regarded as ‘a tradition which, at its best, is a triumph of narrative skill, honest to the facts of
the individual case, but at its worst is narrow, insular, and antiquarian’, Leslie Hannah urged
British historians to ‘study business history in a wider, internationally comparative framework
with more attention to generalization and the kind of conceptual insights which Alfred
Chandler has pioneered in America’.8
Nevertheless, even the most enthusiastic supporters of comparative methodology
acknowledged the need for traditional forms of business history. As Chandler himself
somewhat paradoxically stressed, ‘Only after the accumulation of a multitude of case studies
can generalizations and concepts which are not tied to a specific time and place be induced’,
a stipulation also accentuated by Hannah, Alford, and Wilson.9 Moreover, although Chandler
warned that ‘historical evidence can easily be found to support almost any set of hypotheses,
propositions, or other generalizations’ adding that ‘To be valid [comparative studies] must
compare the histories of enterprises within the same industry’, other scholars have
7 Chandler, Strategy and Structure, pp. 1 – 7.
8 ‘Virtually every work now written on the history of modern, large-scale enterprise must begin
by placing itself within the Chandlerian analytical framework’. Glenn Porter, The Rise of Big
Business, 1860-1920 (Arlington Heights: Harlan Davidson, 1992), p. 128; see also Richard R.
John, ‘Elaborations, revisions, dissents: Alfred D. Chandler, Jnr’.s, The Visible Hand after
twenty years’, Business History Review, 71 (2), 1997, pp. 151 – 201; Supple, ‘Introduction’, in
Supple, Essays, p. 7; Geoffrey Jones and R. Daniel Wadhwani, ‘Entrepreneurship and
Business History: Renewing the Research Agenda’, Working Paper, Harvard Business
School, 2006, p. 1; Leslie Hannah, ‘Business Development and Economic Structure in Britain
Since 1880’, in Leslie Hannah, ed., Management Strategy and Business Development. An
Historical and Comparative Study (London: Macmillan, 1976), p. vii; Leslie Hannah, ‘New
Issues in British Business History’, Business History Review, 57; 1983, p. 166; also John. F.
Wilson, British Business History, 1720 – 1994 (Manchester: Manchester University Press,
1995), pp. 1 – 2.
9 Alfred D. Chandler Jnr., ‘Comparative business History’, in: Donald C. Coleman and Peter
Mathias, Enterprise and History, Essays in honour of Charles Wilson (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1984), pp. 3 – 26; Leslie Hannah, ‘Visible and Invisible Hands in Great
Britain’, in Alfred D. Chandler Jnr. and Herman Daems, eds., Managerial Hierarchies,
Comparative Perspectives on the Rise of the Modern Industrial Enterprise (Cambridge, Mass:
Harvard University Press, 1980), p. 52; Bernard W. E. Alford, Britain in the World Economy
Since 1880 (London: Longman, 1996), p. 267; Wilson, British Business, p. 1.
11
suggested that he did not always adhere to these conditions. ‘If Chandler's work is
illuminating’ observed Richard B. Du Boff and Edward S. Herman, ‘it is because of certain
insights derived from his selective and partial view of the historical process’.10 Clearly, unless
they are based on objectively and appropriately selected, historically accurate and
competently composed single firm studies, comparative analyses can be highly subjective.
Single firm studies are therefore an important and necessary aspect of business and
economic history research because, if for no other reason, they comprise the essential
foundation for comparative methodology. Without them, as an analysis of an early attempt to
apply the Chandlerian paradigm to British industry illustrates, comparative business history
can result in a synthesis of suppositions based largely on anecdotes and allegories.11
This thesis examines, through the analysis of evidence gathered from primary sources, a
range of issues and hypotheses recurrent in the historiography in economic and business
history relating to family firms and the British manufacturing engineering industry. In this
context, there are several positive reasons for adopting the case study approach, a
technique that has been employed for many years across a variety of academic disciplines.
When used to examine discrete events through empirical evidence, it is especially effective
for the exploration of complex issues. A form of qualitative descriptive investigation, a case
study can clarify a situation, offer possible reasons for its manifestation, and thereby
reinforce, or cast doubt on, extant general theories.12
IV Sources
A major motivational factor leading to the research for this thesis being undertaken was the
existence of a collection of documents, the main substance of which was a complete set of
the minutes of meetings held by the Gardner shop stewards’ committees between 1937 and
1986.13 A comprehensive evaluation of the nature of the evidence contained in these files
revealed an almost complete absence of argument, opinion, or presupposition, thus strongly
suggesting that the principal purpose in their creation had been to record, not to inform. A
preliminary narrative assembled from a refined synthesis of these records confirmed that
they contained sufficient data to warrant the detailed, contextual analysis that would provide
the sound basis for the formation of valid, objective, scholarly deductions.
10 Chandler, Scale and Scope, p. 11; Richard B. Du Boff and Edward S. Herman, ‘Alfred
Chandler’s New Business History: A Review’, in Barry E. Supple, ed., The Rise of Big
Business (Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1992), pp. 300 – 323.
11 For example, a survey of Channon’s sources reveals significant weaknesses. Out of a total of
382 sources cited, 195 are identifiable as journalistic articles in newspapers and periodicals;
23 are company produced publicity materials and publications; 49 are government and quasi-
government publications; 61 are private, unpublished papers and transcripts of talks given by
senior company executives; 14 are individual firm case studies, both published and
unpublished; 40 are academic works on general business history, both published and
unpublished. Derek F. Channon, The Strategy and Structure of British Enterprise (London:
Macmillan, 1973).
12 Susan K. Soy, ‘The case study as a research method’ (unpublished paper) University of
Texas at Austin, 1997.
13 National Register of Archives ref. NRA 31932 WCML MSS.
12
There followed an exhaustive search for other primary sources, particularly management
records and statements relating to Gardner’s business activities. The National Register of
Archives identified just one such deposit, which comprised three Gardner documents in the
form of hand-written order books dated from 1905 to 1918, held at the historical archive of
Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester.14 Enquiries made at various local history
archives in the Greater Manchester area had mixed and, in one instance, extremely
disappointing results. Although the Manchester Archives and Local Studies section of the
Manchester Central Library recorded that it held a document file relating to Gardner’s
financial performance, the exact nature of which was unclear, it emerged that, to the
archivists’ eternal discredit, this file had been ‘lost’. The Salford Local History Library at Peel
Park holds a fairly substantial number of Gardner related files and documents which,
although very useful, could not in any way be regarded as primary sources. Other enquiries
in this context made to various libraries and historical archives in the North West and in other
regions of Great Britain proved unproductive.
Efforts were then made to contact ex-Gardner employees, especially former managers and
directors, as well as members of the Gardner family. In this context, Paul Gardner, the great
grandson of the founder, was contacted, interviewed and corresponded with. He was a
director of the firm between the mid-1960s until the late 1980s, but when questioned
regarding the existence of original documents he commented that at some stage he had
become ‘so disgusted and upset at the way [Perkins] were treating L. Gardner and Sons and
its workforce that [he] got rid of most of the information that might have helped …’15
Contact with another ex Gardner director, however, proved somewhat more productive. Dion
Houghton, who was a member of the board from 1955 until the mid-1980s, had in his
possession various documents, including records of engine sales and engine production
between the early twentieth-century and 1976. These, he asserted, had been ‘rescued’ from
the firm’s new owners Hawker Siddeley who, because they ‘were only interested in the future
not the past’, were apparently in the process of disposing of all pre-1978 business records
held at Patricroft. Mr. Houghton confirmed that the sales and production figures included in
Graham Edge’s L. Gardner and Sons Limited, Legendary Engineering Excellence published
in 2002 had been derived from the original records held by him, affirming that these were
‘quite correct’.16 Thus, based on this testimony, the statistics that appear in Edge’s book are
regarded as a quasi-primary source.
Letters appealing for any ex Gardner employees with information regarding the period
between 1955 and 1986 were given prominent positions in the Manchester Evening News,
14 National Register of Archives ref. NRA 29510 Manchester Mus. Sc.
15 Paul Gardner, Manchester to M. J. Halton, Horwich 18 March 2002.
16 Graham Edge, L. Gardner and Sons Limited, Legendary Engineering Excellence (Cambridge:
Gingerfold, 2002), pp. 199 – 206; D. G. Houghton, Chichester to M. J. Halton, Horwich, 18
February 2004.
13
the Salford Journal and the Bolton Evening News. Although some responses were received,
none of these produced original documents. Likewise, contacts with various websites
relating to Gardner, the HCV industry and diesel engines yielded little more than secondary
or anecdotal evidence.
Detailed analysis of statistical data was considered inappropriate for a qualitative study of
this type. However, where the inclusion of statistics in support of hypotheses seemed
necessary, data was gathered from primary or near-primary sources and cross-referenced
with the figures published regularly by the Department of Trade and Industry and other
government bodies. Information concerning the general economic environment is
synthesized from a number of well-known expertly prepared works by eminent economic
historians including Cairncross, Alford, Richardson, Floud, McCloskey, Supple, Pollard and
others.
Published quantitative data on the British engineering industries is considered too vague and
imprecise to have any meaningful bearing on this thesis. Qualitative data on this topic is
drawn mainly from the above-mentioned sources, augmented by the hypotheses developed
by Piore and Sabel, Zeitlin, Hirst, and others. Qualitative and quantitative information relating
to the British commercial vehicles industry, although relatively vague for the immediate post-
Second World War years, is both plentiful and detailed for most of the period covered by this
thesis. Not merely statistical, the reports published annually by the Society of Motor
Manufacturers and Traders in London, generally considered to be the most reliable, are used
throughout.
Some use was made of scholarly works published during the 1970s. Rhys, The Motor
Industry, and Bhaskar, The Future of the UK Motor Industry, both cover, to some extent, the
British Heavy Commercial Vehicle (HCV) industry. They also include sections on the
structure of the important motor vehicle components sector, and both mention Gardner in the
context of a notable supplier of proprietary diesel engines.17 Unfortunately, neither of these
works can be described as historically-based, and nor can they be regarded as completely
reliable secondary sources.18
17 D. G. Rhys, The Motor Industry: An Economic Survey (London: Butterworth, 1972); K.
Bhaskar, The Future of the UK Motor Industry (London: Kogan Page, 1979).
18 For example, Rhys cites no sources and his book contains no bibliographical references. It
also includes clear factual inaccuracies, such as, ‘The amendment to the 'Construction and
Use' regulations (in 1964) allowed the use of vehicles of up to 32 tons gross vehicle weight.
These larger vehicles required engines of between 170 and 225 bhp to give them sufficient
power, which was a requirement that Gardner was unable to meet until 1966. This initial
demand for more powerful engines plus a long drawn out strike at Gardner's in 1964,
intensified the company's inability to meet all the demands of operators and vehicle builders’.
(p. 92) In fact The Motor Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations, 1955, Statutory
Instrument 1955, No. 482, Regulation No. 70, already permitted vehicles up to 32 tons.
Furthermore, Gardner sold more automotive diesel engines in 1964 than it did in 1963 and,
other than a brief ‘go-slow’ and a ban on overtime, no industrial action at all took place in
1964. See Minutes of the Shop Stewards’ Committee Meeting (L. Gardner and Sons), 24
June 1964; T. F. Farrell, Patricroft, to E. Frow, Manchester, 29 June 1964; Shop Stewards’
Minutes, 22 July 1964; Shop Stewards’ Minutes, 19 August 1964; Likewise, Bhaskar’s book
14
Other than these two somewhat imperfect volumes, and a factitious assortment of popular
histories aimed at hobbyists and enthusiasts, historiographical works on the British HCV
industry are limited to rare individual essays.19 In the former group, David Whitehead’s
Gardners of Patricroft stands out.20 Commissioned for the firm’s 1968 centenary, this small
volume is typically sympathetic in its narrative, although not as explicitly revisionist as some.
On the other hand, Graham Edge’s, L. Gardner and Sons Limited, Legendary Engineering
Excellence, is overtly so, offering an almost idealized, whimsical, and highly selective
account: a legend indeed.21 Nevertheless, both authors had the benefit of access to at least
some company records, and both books contain ostensibly credible information relating to
dates, places and people. The statistical data in Edge’s book, corroborated by the late Dion
Houghton, an ex Gardner director who held the original documented records in his Vintage
Engine Register, was also informative.
Two other secondary sources were varyingly useful in triangulating and verifying aspects of
the study relating to Gardner’s competitors. Although somewhat typical in that it was written
for – and thus vicariously by – management, the comprehensive history of the Cummins
Engine Company compiled by Jeffrey L. Cruikshank and David B. Sicilia helped to underpin
many of the observations presented in this thesis.22 Similarly, the publicity material produced
on behalf of the Perkins Engine Company, while factually selective and qualitatively
unforthcoming, served as a limited but plausible point of reference.23 It should also be
mentioned that, while Rolls-Royce has attracted much attention in terms of its cars and its
aircraft engine activities, its Shrewsbury-based diesel engine division, now part of the
enigmatic Perkins group, seems to have left practically no trace of its existence.
The evidence presented in the development of the core themes of this thesis is drawn from
records concerning the activities of Gardner shop stewards. The key source is a large
number of minute books, housed at The Working Class Movement Library in Salford,
containing summaries of regularly held meetings concerning the day-to-day issues arising in
the Gardner manufacturing plant at Patricroft. Essentially a chronicle of events between
1955 and 1986, these documents contain a wealth of evidence relating to the hypotheses
explored here. Whereas management-generated records, skilfully crafted and carefully
contains no bibliographical references and nor, curiously, does it include an index, and
although he cites sources, these are extremely sparse.
19 The essays include Michael French, ‘Public Policy and British Commercial Vehicles during
the Export Drive Era, 1945-50’, Business History, 40 (2), 1998. pp. 22 – 44; Howard Cooper,
‘Lorries and Lorry Driving in Britain 1948 – 1968: The End of an Era’, Journal of Popular
Culture, 29, 1996, pp. 69 – 81.
20 David Whitehead, Gardners of Patricroft (Oxford: Pergamon, Newman Neame, 1968).
21 Graham Edge, L. Gardner and Sons Limited, Legendary Engineering Excellence (Cambridge:
Gingerfold, 2002).
22 Jeffrey L. Cruikshank and David B. Sicilia, The Engine That Could, 75 Years of Value Driven
Change at Cummins Engine Company (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1997).
23 Barry Parisson et al, Perkins Heritage (Peterborough: Perkins Engine Company, 2002).
15
worded, were usually created to inform, these handwritten and unembellished reports were
intended simply to record, and they therefore represent the purest form of primary historical
source.24
Where clarification, confirmation, or triangulation seemed necessary, specialist and trade
periodicals, national and local newspapers, and written testimonials were consulted. In this
context, attempts were made to engage with ex-Gardner employees, directors, and Gardner
family members. Although most of these met with guarded reticence, a limited – brief – but
valuable correspondence with the above-mentioned Dion Houghton and a similarly
informative sequence of letters from Carl Lingard, an ex-employee and trade union official at
Gardner during most of the period covered by the three empirical chapters of this thesis,
yielded clarifying information.
V Background and Structure
In general, economic historians divide the thirty-year period covered by the empirical
chapters of this thesis into three distinct, but to some extent overlapping, periods.25 The first,
that started shortly after the end of the Second World War and ended with the first ‘oil shock’
in 1973, is usually regarded as a period of sustained growth and prosperity in the
industrialised nations of the world.26 The second period, which began at some stage during
the late 1960s, is generally identified as an era of increasing turbulence and disorder when
rising inflation resulted in slower economic growth in most advanced economies, and severe
sociopolitical upheavals in others.27 The third period is almost universally considered an era
when, especially in post-1979 Britain, the ‘old’ ways of organising the economy were
abandoned to be replaced by a new laissez-faire system, regulated solely by market
forces.28 While the three empirical chapters generally correspond to these phases, their
24 See Marc Bloch, The Historian’s Craft (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1954), pp.
60 – 62; Arthur Marwick, The Nature of History, Third Edition (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989),
pp. 6, 199.
25 For example, ‘The twenty-six years between 1964 and 1990 fall into three contrasting periods
…’ Sir Alexander Cairncross, ‘Economic policy and performance, 1964 – 1990’, in Floud and
McCloskey, Economic History of Britain, Second Edition, Vol. 3, p. 67.
26 ‘The economic performance of the Western economies between 1950 and 1973 is now firmly
inscribed in the annals as the period of the long boom’. Alford, Britain in the World, p. 245;
see also Roger Lloyd-Jones and M. J. Lewis, British Industrial Capitalism since the Industrial
Revolution (London: UCL Press, 1998), p.156; Hobsbawm, Industry and Empire, p. 249;
Andrew Gamble, Britain in Decline, Economic Policy, Political Strategy and the British State,
Fourth Edition (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1994), p. 6; Sir Alexander Cairncross, The British
Economy Since 1945, Second Edition (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), pp. 36 – 38; Peter Howlett,
‘The Wartime Economy, 1939 - 1945’, in Floud and McCloskey, Economic History of Britain,
Second Edition, Vol. 3, p. 27.
27 Cairncross, British Economy, Second Edition, pp. 38 - 39, 183; Richard Coopey and Nicholas
Woodward, ‘The British Economy in the 1970s: an Overview’, in Richard Coopey and
Nicholas W. C. Woodward, eds., Britain in the 1970s: The Troubled Economy (London:
University College London Press, 1996), p. 7; Charles Feinstein, ‘Success and Failure: British
Economic Growth Since 1948’, in Floud and McCloskey, Economic History of Britain, Second
Edition, Vol. 3, p. 114.
28 ‘[The] government which came into power in 1979 was determined to make a complete break
with the past in the management of the British economy’. Geoffrey Maynard, The Economy