Urban Elites in Eighteenth-Century Northampton

In recent years historians have been engaging with the concept of social capital and its uses and benefits to individuals and groups, and much of the research has concentrated upon merchant networks of the eighteenth century. Pearson and Richardson (2001: 673) and Stobart (2005: 298–307) respectively have correlated the rise of a consumer market as a positive result of the trust and reputation intrinsic within merchant networks of the eighteenth century, noting that merchants were often engaged in a civic role within a community. However, the overlapping networks of trust and reciprocity produced by the merchants or tradesmen, and the combination of their political and social networks are underdeveloped in the research of social capital relating to urban elite status. This chapter analyses the social capital of elites in Northampton during the eighteenth century, how that capital was acquired, maintained and propagated, and the political, social and business networks which were used for that purpose.