EARLY VICTORIAN DORKING BY ROBERT HUMPHREYS/DORKING LOCAL HISTORY GROUP SP3801

Early Victorian Dorking by Robert Humphreys, 2002 pp.80, illus. £5.00 (Life in a mid-nineteenth century market town)

How did the residents of an English country town, with a population of around 4,000 in the mid nineteenth century, respond to a time of rapid national economic, scientific, social and political change? Much of the history contained in this book, taken from primary and secondary sources, is new and published for the first time. Focus has mainly been on Dorking, Surrey - a long established market, union and polling town situated just over 20 miles South West of the City of London. The changes brought by the industrial age changed facets of town life even in localities distant from the manufacturing centres.