Working class credit and community since 1918

This single-authored monograph explores the forms of credit which have historically been associated with the British working class. These included pawnshops, tallymen and various types of retail credit. It seeks to assess the effect of credit on working class communities, and relates this to debates about community and possible changes in the working class after 1945. It is based on extensive archival research and oral history interviews. The monograph is partly drawn from an ESRC-funded doctoral thesis, ‘Working Class Credit on Tyneside since 1918’, awarded by the University of Durham in 1997. This work is the first comprehensive examination of the history of these forms of credit to make comparisons between the periods before and after 1945. The book has been widely reviewed and welcomed. One reviewer wrote: “Although historians have long discussed the dividing line between altruism and instrumentalism within working-class communities, Taylor makes a sustained and convincing case, backed up with solid empirical research, for the interlinking of the two.”