“We are a much-lectured people,” wrote Robert Spence Watson in 1897. Beginning at mid-century, cities and towns across England used the popular lecture for purposes ranging from serious education to effervescent entertainment and from regional pride to imperial belonging. Over time, the popular lecture became the quintessential embodiment of Victorian knowledge-based culture, which itself ranged from the production of new knowledge in the most elite of learned societies to the consumption of established knowledge in middle-class clubs and the hundreds of humble mechanics' institutions initially founded to provide scientific instruction to workers. What did the “average” Victorian talk and think about? How did the knowledge-based culture of lecture and debate enable men and women to demonstrate both civic engagement and cultural competence? How does this knowledge-based culture and its changing expression give us ways to look at Victorian citizenship long before the extension of the franchise? With engaging and accessible prose Anne Rodrick draws from a variety of primary sources to provide fascinating answers to these pertinent questions. Based on the analysis of several thousand lectures and debates delivered over more than 50 years, this book digs deeply into what those individuals below the most elite levels thought, heard, debated, and claimed as a badge of cultural competence. By the turn of the 20th century, the popular lecture was competing for attention with new institutions of leisure and of higher education, and the discourse surrounding its place in contemporary England helps illuminate important debates over access to and deployment of knowledge and culture.

First published in 2004. The nineteenth century witnessed a flowering of the culture of self-improvement that was reflected in a plethora of institutes, societies and journals that sprang up across Britain with the goal of spreading knowledge and learning to a wide spectrum of society. The prophets of self-improvement believed that not only was self-improvement a laudable goal in its own right, but more importantly, it would contribute towards a general improvement in society. In an age in which direct participation in the political processes was restricted to a minority, education and self-improvement could act as an alternative force by creating a sophisticated and knowledgeable population. In other words, self-improvement was also seen as a way of creating active and responsible citizens. Focusing on the city of Birmingham, and drawing on both local and national sources, Self Help and Civic Culture explores the changing nature of self improvement and citizenship in Victorian Britain. By approaching the concept of citizenship from a new perspective, provincial identity and its relationship to wider ideas of 'Englishness' and 'Britishness', a distinct ideal of citizenship is elucidated that adds further nuance to current scholarship. By drawing together various issues of citizenship, self-improvement, class and political power, this work brings a new perspective to the on-going attempts to determine who could claim the full rights, duties, privileges and responsibilities of the larger social body, thus illuminating the relationship between culture and power in nineteenth century England.