Drawing upon the case studies of Ilford, Epping, Birmingham Moseley and Liverpool East Toxteth, this chapter explores the relationship between the National Government and popular Conservatism in suburban, predominantly middle-class constituencies. In the 1920s, as chapter 2 argued, suburban Conservatives rejected Baldwin’s attempts to appeal to voters along apolitical lines and instead urged a robust party stance; however, their own struggle to rehabilitate the conspicuous partisanship that had characterised the civic culture of Edwardian Conservatism – and which they interpreted as apathy among ‘known’ local Conservatives - led many activists to doubt the future prospects of Conservatism in the face of Labour competition. Chapter 5 argues that 1931 proved a turning point. The experience of the general election of that year initiated Conservative activists to the advantages of articulating a non-party variety of anti-socialism that matched the cross-party makeup of the National Government. It also encouraged them to cultivate an ostensibly non-party presence in the associational life of the suburbs, including in the new housing estates. Yet, as the chapter demonstrates, the National Government continued to challenge the suburban Conservative activist in some ways: National anti-socialism could be as much a source of competition as cooperation between local Conservatives and Liberals, and the government’s policy of Indian constitutional reform antagonised elements within the party. Even so, by 1935, the Conservatives’ suburban grassroots, so often the voice of diehard Conservatism, remained wedded to the National Government and looked enthusiastically to Baldwin as both the embodiment and facilitator of its ‘national’ appeal.

Chapter 3 approaches the question of urban diversity and belonging by considering the experience of a small, but distinctive group, the Jews. Through the settlement of Jews, several strands delineated in Chapter 2 are exemplified and considered: after 1000 there is notable migration from southern to northern Europe, where Jews were invited by rulers to settle and fulfil particular fiscal and commercial roles, under their protection. The concept of Jewish ‘servitude’ was useful here, as it helped define the relationship between rulers and Jewish communities under their protection. In the Iberian Peninsula, Jews were treated in this manner by Christian rulers alongside Muslims; and in central Europe they settled alongside hegemonic groups of German-speaking merchants into whose hands the kings of Poland and Hungary often entrusted urban governance. Jews were embedded in the city – protected and settled – but also retained marks of difference, in their religion, ritual language, and Jewish law courts. Sometimes they were even considered as citizens of sorts, although they could not wield judicial authority. Yet later centuries see political and commercial interests, and revivalist preachers, develop anti-Jewish narratives, negotiate expulsions, and occasionally encourage violence, like the horrific killings following the Black Death in German towns. Identity and belonging are tested in the case of Europe’s Jews.

Against the background of growth in the European economy and population after 1000, the rise of towns and their distinctive cultures is considered with all its creativity and its risks. A basic chronology and analysis of urban growth is provided, with attention to the differing experiences of Europe’s regions. Among the many tasks facing those who ruled urban centres was the question of membership: who was to be allowed into the city, and on what terms? Central to civic culture was the concept of the ‘common good’, which required newcomers to settle and fill the city’s needs. Such migration supplied townspeople with expert services (in law, finance, medicine, and governance), and it drew on newcomers marked by difference – of religion and language. Some of the underlying ideas and concepts are introduced in this chapter, based on studies of migration and urban life in the period under study, and in later ones too.

In Chapter 4 we see how Europe’s women were central to urban life: within their families, as workers in production and retail, and as members of parishes. Yet their opportunities were also curtailed, as they were denied the full enjoyment of civic life. The contours of such denial differed across Europe: in the north, women often enjoyed a sort of diminished citizenship, and in the south of France they were more visible in the courts of law. Yet, like Jews and others, they were a group apart in many ways, deemed unsuitable for the exercise of public authority, for their voices to be heard, or for their claims to be made in person in urban courts. Their agency is palpable within neighbourhoods, in the running of workshops, and in the support of family businesses, especially in widowhood. They were creative in forging religious lifestyles even against parental choices and social conventions. But, like ‘strangers’, they were vulnerable too, forced to be dependent in many ways. Like all social interactions, theirs varied by class and age, but it is useful nonetheless to recognise that strangerhood can be experienced even within the town of one’s birth, the place called home.