Trust in a Masculine Space and a Community within a Community: Pre-1950 Auction Mart Culture in Lower Wharfedale, Yorkshire

Abstract

Abstract:In an area characterised by livestock farming, the auction mart had a pivotal role, both economically and culturally, and was crucial to the continued success of the community and the businesses of the area. Although made up from the surrounding farming community, the community of the auction mart was separate and different, if only on a temporary basis, with its own physical and social boundaries, cultural norms, and traditions, which had a significant effect on the personal identities of those who counted themselves as members. This article explores the auction mart community, its links to a wider farming network, and its influence on rural ideas about masculine identity, through an oral history study of the Lower Wharfedale area. This offers a window onto a community and a culture which has received very little academic attention due to its closed nature. The article concludes that the auction mart regulars constituted a community within the farming community, in which the theme of trust ran through every interaction, linking the everyday activity of the mart space to wider debates about the meaning of masculinity, transitions and ritual, social networks, and the nature of community.