The Rebels

Name: The Rebels
Rating: 2.5 (5 reviews)

by Henry Treece

First published 1953

Amazon

2.5(5)

In the final decade of Queen Victoria’s reign, the Fisher family has grown wealthy through ironmaking in the Black Country town of Darlaston. The toughness and practical ambition that built the business now sit uneasily beside a younger generation’s desire for education, gentility and social acceptance. Industrial prosperity therefore becomes the source of a conflict over what the family is meant to become.

Treece follows the Fishers through changing fortunes, rival loyalties and the pressures created by class aspiration. The novel treats late-Victorian industry through the household as well as the works, showing how inherited authority weakens when money can purchase comfort but not agreement. It is an adult family saga about the social consequences of industrial success.