British institutional ethics and practices changed and in some, but not all, cases improved during the 'long' nineteenth century. This book examines the reasons why and the ways in which this occurred, suggesting that the politics of the nineteenth century needs to be understood, primarily, as a fight against forms of institutional corruption and commercial self-interest rather than as a struggle for democracy, the origins of the welfare state, or the emergence of cultural modernity as it has been hitherto.Cawood investigates the initial impact on existing institutional ethics of the later Scottish enlightenment, the radical press, emerging provincial middle-class culture, and key political campaigners on public ethics at the start of the nineteenth century. He then presents a series of case studies of the development of significant institutions of the British state in the nineteenth century such as the Established Church, Empire, the Civil Service, the armed forces, the inspectorates, local government, the police, and the Post Office, before analysing the changing ethics of commercial activity prior to the First World War.The book aims to address a much neglected but very fundamental issue in the development of modern modes of governance in Britain: why domestic public servants became more honest and relatively more impartial in the nineteenth century, in contrast to the behaviour of many politicians, businessmen, colonial administrators, and the established clergy. It seeks to examine this crucial period of administrative, political, and ethical reform in order to cast light on the challenges facing European societies in the twenty-first century as they struggle with a widening gulf between government and the public they supposedly represent.
