Shopping streets as social space: leisure, consumerism and improvement in an eighteenth-century county town

Abstract

The eighteenth century witnessed the emergence of ‘leisure towns’ as the chief resorts of wealthy consumers of a new range of goods and services. Their prosperity related closely to the growth of consumerism, but little attention has been given to the ways in which shopping and shops linked into the changing social, economic and physical structure of such towns. This paper explores these processes in the context of Chester – a classic, but largely neglected leisure town – and concludes that shopping streets became central to the economy of the city and amongst the most important of its social spaces.

Shopping and Tourist Night Markets in Taiwan

“…During the limited time spent in a place, shopping is probably one of the easiest and best means of experiencing the uniqueness of native tourism. Moreover, Stobart (1998) believed that shopping provides tourists with an opportunity to interact with people and to broaden their experiences in dealing with both goods and local people. A Tourist Night Market is a gathering place that reflects local culture and customs.…”

‘For the honour of the town’: comparison, competition and civic identity in eighteenth-century England

“…35 In the West Midlands, Lichfield played a similar supporting role in relation to the bustling activity of nearby metalworking towns: one of its most famous native sons, Dr Johnson, summed up this relationship in typically partisan style when he explained to Boswell that 'We work with our heads, and make the boobies of Birmingham work for us with their hands.' As is well known, neighbouring towns in many parts of the country developed an effective symbiosis of both form and function, allowing each to prosper through specialization.…”

“…Chester, for example, retained its competitive edge over neighbouring Stockport and Macclesfield, despite their rapid population growth, because it succeeded in raising the quality of its shopping facilities to meet this sort of discriminating demand, concentrating on the luxury end of the market. 35 In the West Midlands, Lichfield played a similar supporting role in relation to the bustling activity of nearby metalworking towns: one of its most famous native sons, Dr Johnson, summed up this relationship in typically partisan style when he explained to Boswell that 'We work with our heads, and make the boobies of Birmingham work for us with their hands.' 36 The East Midlands hosiery industry perhaps distributed its favours more evenly, with Nottingham specializing in cotton goods, Leicester in woollens and Derby in silk, though even here Nottingham's first historian Charles Deering could not resist claiming that 'its best Goods are made at Nottingham, where by far the greatest part of the richest and most valuable Commodity .…”

In search of causality: a regional approach to urban growth in eighteenth‐century england

“…It was said of Chester that 'the excellent situation of the city ... and the absence of manufactories and the crowds of the lowest rabble they engender, render it a desirable residence for the higher classes' (Hemingway, 1831, p. 341). The town prospered economically and flowered culturally without experiencing rapid population growth, as did Nantwich, Congleton and Knutsford, albeit at a far more modest scale (see Stobart, 1998b). The more rapid growth of Preston, the other major 'leisure' town in the region, came not from its social and cultural functions, but from the development of its textiles industries in the later decades of the eighteenth century.…”