Working-class credit, debt and community in the UK since 1880
Lead Research Organisation:
Queen's University Belfast
Department Name: Sch of History and Anthropology
Abstract
The project examines the changing nature of consumer credit channels commonly associated with working-class communities since 1880. It assesses the role of mail order catalogues, pawn broking, check trading, licensed and unlicensed moneylending, credit drapers, the co-operative movement and hire purchase. It charts the histories of each of these through new commercial, government and hire purchase. This extends our existing knowledge of credit pre-1945 and enters new territory in assessing the post-war credit of boom, the issue of financial exclusion and the differing impact of the credit unions in Britain and Ireland. The output will be an oxford University Press monograph (under contract).
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Sean O'Connell (Principal Investigator) |
| Description | The major findings of this project were outlined in my book 'Class, credit and community: working class debt in the UK since 1880'. This was published by Oxford University Press in 2009. It provides the first detailed history of consumer credit in the UK from the late nineteenth century through to the early twenty-first century. Its particular focus is on those forms of credit associated with working class consumers (focusing on credit unions, pawnbrokers, illegal and legal moneylenders, credit drapers, the Cooperative movement's mutuality clubs, and various forms of rotating credit used by Afro-Caribbean and Asian immigrant communities). Reviewers remarked, in particular, on the innovative nature of its analysis of moneylending and credit unions. |
| Exploitation Route | The findings indicate the complex socio-cultural dynamics of the forms of consumer credit used by working class communities in the UK. They open up questions for further study around the history of credit unions in the UK and their uneven experiences of success and failure in different regions. The research finished with a short discussion of the UK in European comparison. There is a great deal of scope for the investigation of different approaches to consumer credit and consumer protection across Europe. From a European perspective, the UK is often seen as having taken a neo-liberal shift in the 1970s. To what extent is this entirely accurate? |
| Sectors | Education,Financial Services, and Management Consultancy,Government, Democracy and Justice |
| URL | http://www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/alternatives-to-money-lenders-credit-unions-and-their-discontents |
| Description | My chapter dealing with moneylending has been used by the England Illegal Moneylending Team, a special unit set up by Trading Standards to deal with the problem of violent loan sharking in socially disadvantaged communities in England. I met one of the team at a conference in Belfast where she asked for a copy of my work in order to provide her group with insight into the historical nature of the problem. My work focused on the period between the 1960s and early twenty-first century. It was, therefore, very relevant for the team's work. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2011 |
| Sector | Government, Democracy and Justice |
| Impact Types | Societal,Policy & public services |
| Description | Conference on sustainable credit (Belfast) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | I engaged in particular with the England Illegal Moneylending Team. I shared my historical knowledge of the problem of loan sharks. I subsequently sent a copy of my chapter on illegal moneylending to the team who read it to inform their insights into the subject. My academic insights were shared by practitioners dealing with the social problem of loan sharking/illegal moneylending. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |