Right up until the Second World War, central government had little to do with the management of local affairs in small market towns.

In the absence of civil servants, local government officials, educational administrators, stipendiary Court officers or even, until relatively late times, country bankers, it was country solicitors who were on hand to fulfil these roles.

Developments in Alford in Lincolnshire were typical of what was happening across the country.  There, four long-serving solicitors, very different in character, successively had a central role in the running of the town over a period of nearly 200 years up to 1947 and strongly resisted the threats to local institutions from centralising national pressures.