Class formation and localism in an emerging bureaucracy: British bank workers, 1880-1960

This article uses a case study of the spatial and career mobility of bank w orkers from Lloyds, a leading British bank, to explore the relationship bet ween class formation and spatial mobility. The article argues against the i dea that the large-scale concentration and bureaucratization of the British banking industry in the early years of the twentieth century saw the emerg ence of a mobile middle-class spiralist or cosmopolitan. We use archival da ta from Lloyds Bank to argue that the emergence of Lloyds as a large-scale national bank involved a compromise with localized interests rather than a detachment of the bank from local concerns. We use data on the career histo ries of a representative sample of male bank employees to argue that spatia l mobility was organized largely within regions and helped to consolidate t he prospects of rural bank workers. We argue that London emerged as a disti nctive 'hub' for banking careers, with significant amounts of movement to a nd from London from all regions. We therefore demonstrate how localized and rural cultures were sedimented within a large, national bureaucracy, and t hat a genuine 'spiralist' structure did not emerge.