Upon this Rock: The Organisation and Identity of the Peterborough Divisional Labour Party, 1900-1951, A Spatial-institutionalist Approach

Rawlinson, Scott (2023) Upon this Rock: The Organisation and Identity of the Peterborough Divisional Labour Party, 1900-1951, A Spatial-institutionalist Approach. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

Labour’s sub-national organisational and ideological development has been under-theorised. This thesis addressed this gap via the construction and application of a novel spatial-institutionalist framework focusing on four key areas of analysis (i.e., party emergence and formation; party organisation; candidate and organiser selection; and policy curation and issue positioning). The previously overlooked Peterborough Divisional Labour Party (DLP) from 1898 to 1951 was used as the case study and was examined within a multi-scaled context. Thus, the organisational and ideational character of the Peterborough DLP was distilled via spatial iterations (i.e., national, regional, and local) of Labour’s development. This exercise revealed the distinctness of the Peterborough case to be located in its formation at the crossroads of reforms and re-organisation (i.e., the 1917-1918 Boundary Commission and Review, 1918 Representation of the People Act, and Labour’s 1918 Constitution) whose effects, particularly the extensive redrawing of divisional boundaries that melded urban (the City of Peterborough) and rural (the Soke of Peterborough and North Northamptonshire) spaces together, permeated the practices of the Peterborough DLP from its inception and throughout the period under study.

Industrial change in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw the coming of significant railway and engineering interests to the City of Peterborough, these would play an important role in animating the Peterborough DLP. This was expressed in the varying neighbourhood strengths of Labour, with its main concentration in the city’s North Ward. Additionally, the selection and organisational experiences of prospective parliamentary candidates (PPCs) and party organisers demonstrated attempts to reconcile as well as frustrations concerning the division’s semi-rural composition. These patterns percolated through to the framing of party messages. Despite the best efforts of local activists, the party never completely reconciled the two elements of its split (urban/rural) personality.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies (former - to 2024)
Depositing User:	Jennifer Whitaker
Date Deposited:	27 Jun 2025 09:55
Last Modified:	27 Jun 2025 09:55
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/99746
DOI:

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