IV. The Nineteenth-Century Revolution in Government: A Reappraisal

Abstract

Part, at least, of the historian's work consists of the formulation of general notions and the subsequent refinement of these generalities. One advance is made when a notion like romanticism is conceived, another when that notion is broken down and divided, both in terms of time and region and by the clarifications of logic, and fresh categories can be stated. This paper is concerned with proposing and-distinguishing a generalization of this type, an administrative or governmental revolution in the United Kingdom in the nineteenth century. It must be granted at once that this revolution has not the standing of its industrial and agrarian cousins. It can neither match them in ‘scale’ nor present such tangible or arresting phenomena. The very words have scarcely yet entered the historian's vocabulary, except perhaps to the accompaniment of deprecatory inverted commas. And even if the fact of its occurrence be allowed, it is clearly neither the first of its race nor indisputably the foremost. Mr Elton has staked a high claim for the corresponding Tudor change,1 and it is no doubt possible to point to really critical shifts in governmental behaviour in almost every succeeding age.