The many lives of corruption: The reform of public life in modern Britain, <i>c.</i> 1750–1950

The many lives of corruption begins the task of piecing together the bigger picture of how corruption has undermined public life in modern Britain. It offers a uniquely expansive perspective, which stretches from the Old Corruption and ‘unreformed’ politics of the eighteenth century through to the mass democracy and welfare state of the twentieth.Conceptually, as an object of thought, as much as practicably, and as an object of reform, corruption has proved tenaciously problematic and protean. This volume engages with both of these crucial aspects, arguing that it is only by grasping them together that we can fully understand how corruption has shaped the making of a democratic-capitalist state in Britain and given rise to new ideals of public service. It examines the factors that have facilitated and frustrated anticorruption reforms, as well as the various ways ‘corruption’ has been conceived by historical agents. It does so across a range of different sites – electoral, political and administrative, domestic and colonial – presenting new research on neglected areas of reform, while revisiting well-known scandals and corrupt practices. The many lives of corruption is essential reading for all scholars interested in understanding how the pursuit of purity in British public life has evolved over the past two and a half centuries – and why corruption remains such a pressing issue today. Front-matter Cover Half-title Title page Copyright page Contents Contributors Acknowledgements Introduction: corruption and the reform of public life in modern Britain Public spirit and corruption in the Scottish Enlightenment: a reconsideration From the ‘old’ to the ‘new’: corruption and the police, c. 1750–1910 ‘A new tide of corruption’: economical reform and the regulation of the East India Company, 1765–84 ‘A monster in politics’: corruption and economical reform in Jamaica, 1783–91 Corrupt practices and the reform of voting behaviour in Britain, France and the United States, c. 1789–1914 Corruption, despotism and the Colonial Office, c. 1820–50 The ‘most difficult’ subject for legislation: parliament and electoral corruption in the nineteenth century Politics, patronage or public service? Conservatives at the Foreign Office, 1858–9 Gladstonian Liberalism, public service and private interests: reforming endowments After Old Corruption: Westminster scandals and the problem of corruption, c. 1880–1914 Socialism and corruption: Conservative responses to nationalisation and Poplarism, 1900–40 Civic corruption in the twentieth century: the case of Belfast and Glasgow, c. 1920–70 Epilogue: the British way in corruption Index How has corruption shaped – and undermined – the history of public life in modern Britain? This collection begins the task of piecing together this history over the past two and a half centuries, from the first assaults on Old Corruption and aristocratic privilege during the late eighteenth century through to the corruption scandals that blighted the worlds of Westminster and municipal government during the twentieth century. It offers the first account that pays equal attention to the successes and limitations of anticorruption reforms and the shifting meanings of ‘corruption'. It does so across a range of different sites – electoral, political and administrative, domestic and colonial – presenting new research on neglected areas of reform, while revisiting well known scandals and corrupt practices. This edited collection provides a uniquely expansive history of how corruption has undermined and exercised public life in modern Britain, from the mid-eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth. It provides the first account that pays equal attention to the successes and limitations of anticorruption reforms, and shifting meanings of 'corruption'. -- . This edited collection provides a uniquely expansive history of how corruption has undermined and exercised public life in modern Britain, from the mid-eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth. It provides the first account that pays equal attention to the successes and limitations of anticorruption reforms, and the shifting meanings of 'corruption'