04. What is a City? The English experience

Speaker(s): 
John Beckett (Centre for Local History, IHR)
Date: 
2 July 2009

Abstract
This paper will present an overview, concluding that England has two leagues of cities: a largely medieval league of what are now small cathedral towns; and a post-Victorian league which now includes more or less all the great ‘towns’. The paper explains how this came about, and asks what it means for our understanding of the English city.