Student Consumer Culture in Nineteenth-Century Oxford

Sabine Chaouche

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9783030463861
• eBook ISBN:
  9783030463878
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Economic History
• Index: History

This book explores students' consumer practices and material desires in nineteenth-century Oxford. Consumerism surged among undergraduates in the 1830s and decreased by contrast from the 1860s as students learned to practice restraint and make wiser choices, putting a brake on past excessive consumption habits. This study concentrates on the minority of debtors, the daily lives of undergraduates, and their social and economic environment. It scrutinises the variety of goods that were on offer, paying special attention to their social and symbolic uses and meanings. Through emulation and self-display, undergraduate culture impacted the formation of male identities and spending habits. Using Oxford students as a case study, this book opens new pathways in the history of consumption and capitalism, revealing how youth consumer culture intertwined with the rise of competition among tradesmen and university reforms in the 1850s and 1860s. 

© The Author(s) 2020

S. ChaoucheStudent Consumer Culture in Nineteenth-Century Oxfordhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46387-8_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Sabine Chaouche¹

(1)

School of Arts, Sunway University, Bandar Sunway, Selangor, Malaysia

Sabine Chaouche

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

In early January 1808, sixteen-year-old George Chinnery¹ came to read mathematics and classics at Christ Church. Although he found his first weeks at Oxford extremely unpleasant and disappointing, he gradually began to enjoy his life as a student. Unfortunately, several months later the fresher came across financial difficulties which led him to ask for more money from his mother who replied on 19 June:

The fashion of running into debt may do very well for the heirs of Lords Glenbervie and Dartmouth, but it will not suit persons who have to provide for their children out of a yearly stipend.—the easy way in which you desire to have some more money sent, without seeming to think it at all as an extraordinary thing that you should have spent more than your income,—all this is too much at one time and in one letter. […] You ought to have no bills to pay but College bills—my strict orders to you were that you should pay your every article as you had it, and not owe for a biscuit or china, oranges in the town. Have you done so? If you have now all your bills to pay, what have you done with your money, and how are you with £15 to discharge them all, not leave a six-pence unpaid, and defray the expenses of your journey home?²

Mrs Chinnery expected her son to limit his expenses only to necessary ones. Parents used to give a termly or annual allowance of a few hundred pounds to their offspring for university fees and college battels,³ that is food and drinks taken in college.⁴ They did not expect therefore to pay any additional debt. However, students interacted with tradesmen and could be tempted to overspend. Pocket money served partly to pay in cash for goods ordered from local suppliers. Consumption and shopping outside college formed an integral part of student life and culture. An existing consumer culture prevailed at Oxford: undergraduates living in a city mainly geared towards retailing and domestic services—and heavily relying upon local consumption. As evidenced by George’s account, the levels of student consumption expenditures were not necessarily determined by the level of their fixed allowances over a period of time. On the contrary, consumption adjusted itself with personal desires and undergraduate culture that disconnected not only needs and means, but also ethics and economics.

Mrs Chinnery’s rebuke spoke to George’s disobedience in relation to her specific instructions about financial management. Immediate cash payment should be prioritised since it symbolised ‘moral’ economic conduct. Not repaying debts was a serious crime during the period, and most certainly a disgrace to families, especially since individuals could be taken into custody or incarcerated.⁵ Young men saw things differently. Their behaviour often constituted a form of provocation in making misconduct a principle of virtue and irresponsibility in endowing overspending with a positive meaning. Such juvenile behaviour was not rare, college life being underpinned by class rituals and symbols, and dominated by masculine emulation and social obligations.⁶ Students’ debt for instance stresses the existence of invisible forces that influenced the market and shaped consumption. Such forces appear in mid-century novels describing the commercialisation of society and the rise of consumer culture among undergraduates.⁷ Patterns of behaviour were linked to trends derived from strong desires and emotions. Some students sought for social distinction; some were mesmerised by new luxury goods available on the market and craved to purchase them; some displayed their wealth ostentatiously. Reasonably well off, the Chinnerys could not compete with the lavish and self-indulgent way of life of the upper classes. This ‘fancy for debt’ among young men seems therefore to represent the height of what was called by the economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen at the end of the nineteenth century ‘conspicuous consumption’ and ‘conspicuous leisure’. Being part of the British elite, Oxford students created a world of their own most likely modelled on the dominant classes’ behaviour.⁸

Examining students’ engagement with undergraduate and consumer culture in nineteenth-century Oxford is therefore crucial to understanding why and how some undergraduates consumed goods in excess and developed consumerist habits. Such an enquiry can give more insight into the specificities of young male consumer culture and masculinities in consumption. On the one hand, to grasp the evolution of male consumption and the cultural context underlining overspending in the Victorian era requires identifying elements such as the students’ class and social and ideological background, the number of students living beyond their means and indebtedness mechanisms. On the other hand, assessing excess consumption can illuminate the power of fashion trends or esprit de corps on the decision-making that led undergraduates to buy goods in quantity and at high prices, and reveal why and how this consumption impacted the local economy. Hence, not only scrutinising ordinary student consumption but also consumerism and reconstructing the structure of consumption, notably consumers’ reasons and motivations to purchase, can help to track the pivotal economic and social phases which marked nineteenth-century Oxford, and even their role in the development of debates on capitalism on a national level.

This book aims to open new pathways in the history of consumption and capitalism by looking at students’ consumer practices and material desires, as well as the correlation between undergraduate consumerist behaviour and modernised forms of credit. It concentrates on the minority of students who ran into debt. It scrutinises the variety of goods on offer, in particular their social and symbolic uses and meanings. It reconstructs undergraduates’ social and economic environment, showing how consumption impacted on the formation of male identities and contributed to social inclusiveness through emulation and self-display. It also reveals how this youth consumer culture intertwined not only with the rise of competition among tradesmen, but also with the university reforms in the 1850s and 1860s, with more students being allowed to come to Oxford and live outside college in the mid-Victorian era. Different disciplines including social and economic history, retailing and advertising, education, law on personal debt and credit, and gender studies build an understanding of students’ engagement with consumer culture especially from 1830 when students’ debts started to increase dramatically, to 1880 which coincides with a second critical peak. A gradual decrease followed this second peak until the First World War. This limited periodisation is also relevant since the first two residential colleges open to women, Lady Margaret Hall and Somerville, were founded in 1878 and 1879. The impact of female student consumption from the 1880s onwards is not examined or compared with that of young men. Further study is needed to assess whether the arrival of women changed the dynamics of consumption in Oxford.

History of Consumption and Male Consumer Culture

Consumption has been rediscovered by historians such as Neil McKendrick and John Brewer, through their influential works on the birth of a consumer society.⁹ As Frank Trentmann puts it, ‘Consumption stepped out of the shadow of production’. It gained a positive meaning when research perspectives shifted in the 1970s and 1980s, leading to a ‘publishing boom’.¹⁰

The field has flourished in the past decade with scholars such as Nancy Cox who analyses trade processes and spaces and the modernisation of the retail system up to 1820,¹¹ and Maxine Berg who challenges traditional views of the early modern economy by showing that the so-called ‘Consumer Revolution’¹² was a pre-condition for the Industrial Revolution.¹³ Berg emphasises luxury and comfort as factors in growth. Moral standards in line with Christian doctrine rejected the idea of lavish consumption but access to leisure and wellbeing gradually prevailed. As a result, the manufacturing of products imitating foreign commodities increased, in particular goods from the East to which consumers were exposed through international trade. A wide range of products became fashionable in Europe such as tobacco, coffee, cocoa, sugar, porcelain and silk, all imported from the New World or oriental trading posts. Supply was hugely diversified, attracting more consumers and creating a virtuous cycle. New objects and food products were bought on a larger scale than previously. The taste for luxury that had dominated the aristocracy won favours with the bourgeoisie who could now afford these expensive purchases. Therefore, demand stimulated supply, invigorating the mechanisms leading to a revolution in production, but also to a consumer culture, more people being gradually obsessed with the acquisition of material goods. Accumulating and displaying possessions became a way of self-expression. British society became ‘infatuated’ with artefacts.¹⁴ The ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. College Life and the Local Economy
• 3. Male Consumption and Students’ Tastes
• 4. Undergraduate Culture and Male Consumer Behaviour
• 5. The Formation of Spending Habits
• 6. Consumer Credit Traps and Student Consumerism
• 7. Excessive Consumption and Insolvency
• 8. An Emerging Anti-Consumerist Culture?
• 9. Conclusion
• Back Matter