This study, The Making of Victorian Bristol, belongs to a venerable tradition of urban history. Peter Malpass, Professor (now Emeritus) of Housing and Urban Studies at the University of the West of England, counts his long-term passion for local history as his ‘recreational’ scholarship. He draws here on both that ‘local history’ research and his professional expertise in housing and cities, as well as much new research published in the lively environment in local history studies that he has done so much to encourage.Footnote ² His ambitions for this volume are clearly set out. The major contention is not new; in fact, Malpass follows the doyen of urban history, Professor William Ashworth, who wrote ‘the growth of towns has both a physical and cultural aspect, but it is the former which is more fundamental’.Footnote ³ What is impressive is that Malpass sets out to chart this in detail for the whole city, house by house, development by development, explaining what was done, when and why.

The book opens with a chapter on public health problems, the great spur in the early Victorian period for local authorities to take action since it progressively became apparent that disease was no respecter of persons. After the incorporation of Clifton within city boundaries through the boundary change of 1835, public money was found for Clifton's water supply and sewage system. The rates from Clifton, however, were to produce half the total income of Bristol's Town Council and eventually other parts of the city benefited. The next two chapters deal with the basic social need of housing, for the working classes, aspiring residents, and migrants to the city – both rich and poor. Malpass is prepared to argue that the building of houses was the key element shaping the Victorian city. He does not underestimate the impact of commercial and industrial building though, and the following chapter on this is a particularly pioneering one, since little has been done to collect this material together. Two further transforming physical features that were operating throughout the period were transport, especially the railways, and the modernization of the port, the subject of the next chapter. These led to the potential for movement of population within the city, particularly outwards from the city centre and speeding up migrations of all classes from the centre towards the periphery. In the case of the port, that periphery was pushed ever further as dock facilities were built at Avonmouth and Portishead seeking deeper water – and dock workers followed.

These chapters give an originality to the approach of the book as they cover the new growth of the city. The analysis is backed up by a plethora of brilliant images and maps which brings the process alive. Malpass obviously has deep personal knowledge of the built environment. It is a tour de force that leaves anyone who has published on Bristol wishing that it had been done before (my own position). It also means that the penultimate chapter on ‘Urban improvement Bristol fashion’ is a little sketchy as Malpass tries to incorporate some key political and social changes into his overall analysis. The chapter is heavily based on a discussion of two committees of the town council (a local anomaly): the Streets Improvement Committee and the Improvement Committee. The two committees operated during the same period and shared virtually the same membership. There is no doubt the former was a vital authority in an era when there was no planning for the city on a regulatory basis. The latter was much more political and social. This committee discussed parks, open spaces and public leisure facilities for the city. But at least Malpass has a chance to mention some of the physical improvements in the city that were not immediately urgent but often the subject of political campaigns as the Liberals sought to out manoeuvre the Tories.

What Malpass has achieved in this book as a whole is remarkable. It is very well written and readable, and he has engagingly used Latimer's Annals of Bristol in the Nineteenth Century. He quotes Latimer's words like a Greek chorus throughout his text, giving it a contemporary flavour in a double sense of then and now, wisely pointing out the limits to Latimer's vision of what a ‘ghostly’ visitor from the past would notice in the city of 1900, compared with the Victorian city of the past. Latimer (1824–1904) was greatly loved during his lifetime and revered by Bristol's local historians since, though he is difficult to use effectively without the kind of context Malpass offers in this book. The book itself has been beautifully produced by the publishers, Boydell and Brewer, with particularly good quality images. It deserves a wide readership from local and professional historians and every citizen of Bristol with an interest in their city's past and present.