Central/local government relations in England: an outline 1800–1950
In April 1980 a group of urban historians and political scientists met at the University of York under the auspices of the Social Science Research Council to pool what they knew about the changing relations between central and local government and to identify areas for future research. The initiative had come from the political scientists whose interest in the subject had been stimulated by recent government policy. Those who attended from among the historians had to confess that this was not a subject that had recently been much discussed among them. When I was invited by the editor of this Yearbook to contribute an article on a neglected aspect of urban history, it seemed a good opportunity to draw the attention of the urban history group to the subject. What follows is an amended version of the paper that had originally been written for the SSRC seminar.