Development In England Research Articles

Live and Let Live: Britain and Portugal's Imperial Endgame (1945–75)

In an era of profound changes in the colonial world, it was inevitable that the trajectories of Britain and Portugal would at a certain point intersect. Since differences between their colonial philosophies became more pronounced after the Second World War that intersection was likely to result in a clash of interests, opinions and attitudes, especially when certain developments in Britain’s foreign and imperial policies impacted on Portugal’s increasingly vulnerable position. Historically, Britain’s relation with the Portuguese overseas empire was far from having been a simple one. While bound to Portugal by an alliance forged in 1373, its position as the senior member of that relationship was significantly strengthened in the early nineteenth century, thanks to its undisputed economic and strategic primacy. The fact that Britain was able to exact a high price for the assistance provided to the Portuguese crown during the Napoleonic wars (above all, the opening of the Brazilian ports to foreign trade in 1808), and apply significant pressure to bring about the extinction of the slave trade in their colonies, created a strong anti-British bias among large sectors of the Portuguese ruling classes. Such a feeling was only mitigated by the awareness that their independence in Europe, as well as access to credit and to the know-how and technology of the industrial era, was to a large extent secured by their haughty ally. This may explain why several traumatic episodes — the most notorious being Lord Salisbury’s 1890 ultimatum — were, if not forgotten, then at least overcome by the pragmatic instincts of their liberal elites. Portugal’s last imperial cycle — the ‘Third Portuguese Empire’1 — relied heavily on Britain’s economic tutelage (at least until the 1940s) and, more crucially perhaps, on the diplomatic and military protection that Britain was ready to provide, in accordance with its own strategic interests in several areas of the globe. For some Portuguese colonial ‘theorists’ and administrators, Britain’s imperial record was also a source of admiration and, at times, her imperial institutions were emulated in reforms introduced in Portugal’s overseas possessions (for example, the High Commissioners’ regime in Angola and Mozambique after

Issue evolution in Britain: The debate on European Union integration, 1964–2010

AbstractWhile Carmines and Stimson's work on issue evolutions has prompted research showing the dynamics and effects of new party alignments on abortion, religion, gender and cultural issues, this research has all centred on the United States. This article examines issue evolution in Britain. Using evidence on the timing of changes in elite positions from Comparative Manifestos Group data, and survey data on public attitudes to the European Union with a longer historical sweep than heretofore, the article finds strong evidence that the European issue has followed an issue evolution path, though with distinct dynamics contingent on the pace of elite re‐positioning. Thus, this article extends the theory of issue evolution to a parliamentary political system and demonstrates the responsiveness of the public to elite cues, while also providing additional insights from a unique case in which elites have staked out distinct positions not once, but twice.

A new look at old history – the Kinetoscope: Fraud and market development in Britain in 1895

Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope was the first practical and commercially viable method of film exhibition. Its history in Britain has not, however, been well documented. Two complicating factors have been a previous over-reliance placed on an incomplete and misleading account by Robert Paul (1869–1943), and a failure by film historians to appreciate the central role of the contemporary phonograph business in the commercial development of the Kinetoscope. The opportunity to take a fresh look at circumstances surrounding its introduction into Britain, and the fraudulent attempt to copy it, is now possible due to the location by the author of a contemporary record of a hitherto unknown legal case. A full transcript of this document is given in the appendix. This article briefly examines the characteristics of the commercial context affecting the UK Kinetoscope business in early 1895, noting the development of niche markets, competition, price trends, and the financial viability of Kinetoscope exhibition.

When the Waves Ruled Britannia: Geography and Political Identities, 1500-1800, by Jonathan Scott

Jonathan Scott’s latest book defies simple characterisation either as a work of intellectual or political history. It pursues several very important themes. In the first place, it seeks to write geography back into the articulation of political identities in England and then Britain between the reigns of Elizabeth I and George III. More specifically, it explores the shifting ways in which writers imagined or conceptualised the relationship of the land to the sea, and within that the evolution of Britain’s ‘island idea’—how, in other words, Britons came to locate their nation ‘outside Europe’ but ‘inhabiting the world’. This, Scott argues, was primarily a product of culture and politics, and to a lesser extent technology. ‘Insularity had always been a geopolitical rather than a geographic claim’ (p. 172); while it may have been ‘informed’ by geography, it was not determined by it. It was an idea which involved the recurrence of themes and tropes across the decades, but also very significant change over time; it reached its fully realised form only after the 1760s. What we see are elements combining and re-combining in different ways, but also being altered by transformed intellectual and geopolitical contexts. Secondly, Scott examines the process of English and then British state formation from the perspective of the ‘discipline of the sea’, the mastery of oceanic transport and naval defence. This is the story of how, as Scott puts it, ‘rural and agrarian English society transformed its government in a mercantile and maritime direction under the extreme pressure of war’ (p. xiii). Scott emphasises in this context the contribution of various factors, not the least important of which was that of London, that most singular of capital cities, which ensured that the path taken would be Protestant, mercantile, and imperial. An ‘outgrowth of a North Atlantic economy and culture’, London was always more than a national city, being also regional and imperial in character. Scott here quotes approvingly from Fernand Braudel to the effect that London ‘created and directed England from start to finish’ (p. 119)—a view which must depend of course on perspective for its veracity. However, the ‘discipline of the sea’ was not easily or quickly learned, proving beyond the grasp of politicians, mariners and merchants for much of the period. As importantly, it was absorbed through copying, and copying mainly from one state—the United Provinces. Here the sea features not as what set England and then Britain apart from the Continent, but rather as what set it on an Anglo-Dutch path of historical evolution, in which three ‘moments’ of ‘proximity’—1584–5, 1649–54, 1688–9—represented also moments of political transformation. The Glorious Revolution, according to this view, completed a process of Anglo-Dutch state building which had been in progress since at least the republican experiment of 1649–53.

Radical political unionism reassessed

Defections from European social-democratic parties and a resurgence of union militancy have prompted some to diagnose a new left-wing trade unionism across Europe. This comment on the article by Connolly and Darlington scrutinizes trends in France and Germany but primarily analyses recent developments in Britain. While there are some instances of disaffiliation from the Labour Party, support for electoral alternatives, growth in political militancy and emphasis on new forms of internationalism, these have been limited. There is insufficient evidence to suggest that we are witnessing the making of a new radical collectivism.

The Institutional Evolution of the Educational System in India: A Journey Through its Colonial Past

The institution of education is one of the pillars on which the evolution of society rest, the institution is a powerful tool for both the spread of knowledge as well as manipulation. Nowhere is this paradox highlighted more than in colonial states. The paradox of education being used to both liberate states from their shells as well as for the purpose of creating an orient and oxidant relationship; intended to subordinate the colonized. India is no stranger to this form of abuse. Through the course of its colonial history, it fluctuated between having total autonomy to propagate indigenous knowledge to having the British completely take over the system, transforming it into a system that was completely English in taste, immersed in the values of a Christian state, propagating those values, at the expense of vernacular languages and ethnic morals. The Christianization of the education system is seen by many colonizing powers as the way to “civilizing society”. This paper will first look at developments in Britain and assess how they had an impact on India. Secondly, it will delve into British policy and assess how this had an impact on traditional educational systems in India. Finally, it will look at what it claims is a new wave of colonial values that is created by globalization and look at the effects that has on the educational system. This paper will also look into whether the right to education will have any effect on the educational system.

Not only subterranean forests: Wood consumption and economic development in Britain (1850–1938)

This paper analyzes wood consumption in Britain over the period 1850–1938. We calculate the apparent consumption of wood, taking into account both net imports of wood and the home harvest. We then develop some quantitative exercises that correlate wood consumption with GDP, with prices of wood and iron (as an alternative material to wood) and with other measures. The main conclusion is that, although wood had lost its economic centrality after the energy transition, wood consumption continued to grow in Britain both in absolute and relative terms, showing a positive elasticity to GDP superior to the unit. This result allows us to reach a more complete understanding of the socio-metabolic transition associated with the Industrial Revolution. Britain faced the increase in wood demand by relying almost entirely on imported wood, reinforcing the idea that the decoupling of economic growth from land use must to be handled with care, and should be observed not at the national level but on a global scale. Although British economic development was to a great extent focussed on what has been called the “subterranean forests” of coal, it simultaneously supported large tracts of surface foreign forest.

Transient Communities: Travel, Knowledge, and the Victorian Railway Carriage, 1840–90

This paper explores the temporary connections formed between passengers within the Victorian railway carriage during the development of Britain’s early railway systems. Railway travel has long been established as a democratising experience. Yet the role of the passengers is not well understood. The prevailing viewpoint contends that inter-carriage communication died out over the century, but with the amalgamation of second- and third-class travel, the opportunities for mixing became much greater. The opportunities for experiencing new mobilities as a group established temporary bonds between passengers, made stronger by delay or accident.

Asa Briggs and the Emergence of Labour History in Post-War Britain

Now in his 90s, Asa Briggs can look back on a life rich in labour and achievement. A practising historian for more than seven decades, he has made important contributions not only to the discipline and its popularisation but to intellectual life more generally, and the development of Britain’s universities more particularly. He has not finished yet. Sixty-nine years after his first book appeared he is about to publish a third volume of memoirs.1 Introducing the essays presented to Asa on his seventieth birthday, Derek Fraser emphasised four historiographical themes which categorised his achievement. Most scholars will recognise his significance in the evolution of the fields of social history, urban history and the study of broadcasting and communications from the 1940s.2 Younger historians may be less familiar with his engagement with labour history, given that subject’s marginality in both universities and popular discourse since the 1990s and the dominant role typically accorded to Marxist historians when it was in vogue between the late 1950s and the early 1980s. Yet it was a feature of his career from 1945 to the 1970s. The substantial and sometimes overlooked part he took in its take-off after 1960 was propelled by an enduring interest rooted in his background, his intellectual development, his times and the challenges that they presented to the expansion, modernisation and maturation of the discipline.3

Women, Dissent, and Anti-Slavery in Britain and America, 1790-1865. Edited by ELIZABETH J. CLAPP and JULIE ROY JEFFREY.

This book, the third to result from the work of the Dr Williams's Centre for Dissenting Studies in London, makes a major contribution to both anti-slavery and women's studies by analysing the part that the traditions, practices, and beliefs of English Protestant dissent, and the American Puritan and evangelical traditions, played in women's anti-slavery activism. The discussion, well introduced by Elizabeth Clapp, focuses on three themes: first, the way in which dissenting life and values helped motivate women to become involved with the slavery issue; secondly, the specifically gendered manner in which women put their values into practice; and thirdly, the way in which different religious traditions either enabled women to become involved in such activism as anti-slavery activity, or hindered such involvement. The articles are wide ranging. Three analyse developments in Britain, all focusing on the impact of print and literary culture. Four study the North American scene. Whilst the influence of the one upon the other, sometimes with subtle changes in motivation, emerges from these studies, direct comparison is most to the fore in David Turley's excellent historiographical overview. By contrast, the differential theological ambits of rational and evangelical dissent are emphasized, although study of many local situations and biographies suggests that these phenomena may not have been quite as separate as is often suggested. In the case of Elizabeth Heyrick, Clare Midgley shows how the confessional grounding to her championing of ‘Immediatism’—the ideal of immediate abolition—is further complicated by a rational Presbyterian converting to the Society of Friends. In part the exercise is about the recovery of lost history, as is the case with Timothy Whelan's identification of the ungendered M. Gurney with Martha Gurney, which in its turn reflects upon the remarkably fertile community of faith and action to be found in the Maze Pond Baptist Church in Southwark, and the impact of the sugar boycott of 1791–3. Alison Twells's piece neatly follows on this as she discusses both the Sheffield Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society and the contribution of a fascinating circle of female literary Baptist women in Wiltshire. Carol Lasser traces changing emphases as the fruits of British women's labours are exported across the Atlantic and there, through different motivation occasioned by impact of the Second Great Awakening, given another emphasis. In the analysis of the work of female anti-slavery societies, mainly in New England, Julie Roy Jeffrey finds it less easy to distinguish Puritan and dissenting inheritances when, for example, in a number of states Congregationalism benefited from state support, which perhaps makes the association between female abolitionism and revival evangelicalism the more important. For female abolitionists orthopraxy was as important as orthodoxy, and, therefore, as Stacey Robertson shows, failure to identify slavery as a sin could cause secessions within a congregation with a consequent politicization of the abolitionist conscience, especially in the activities of the Liberty Party, which unlike other parties offered place for female involvement. A final chapter from the pen of Judie Newman puts the work of Harriet Beecher Stowe in its literary and historical context, demonstrating how Stowe marshalled the traditions of religious dissent to strengthen that transatlantic anti-slavery culture that has its origin in the work of women such as Martha Gurney and Elizabeth Heyrick.

Asian Kool or Punjabi Kool? Bhangra's global invasion

The common understanding of Bhangra as a hybrid British music makes one overlook the fact that it is derived from a Punjabi harvest dance of the same name. Echoing ethnomusicologists' interest in the discovery of the musics of ‘others’, the British media hailed it as ‘Asian Kool’ and ‘the voice of the Asian youth’ marking the British Asian presence on the British pop cultural scene. British culture studies examined Bhangra developments in Britain and their centrality to the formation of Asian youth cultures and hybrid British Asian identities. In these studies, Bhangra's reinvention as ‘Asian Kool’ was attributed to its hybridization with Afro-Caribbean sounds. But Bhangra's appropriation in the black cultural politics of Britain has marginalized interventions it has made on the Indian subcontinent. The exclusive focus on the Bhangra explosion in Britain has eclipsed Bhangra revivals on the subcontinent, and the emphasis on its British antecedents has concealed its origins and continuity with the Punjabi harvest dance. While Bhangra's acquisition of ‘Black Kool' through its mixing with black sounds of reggae, rap and hiphop has been cited as the primary reason for its revival and increasing popularity among youth in Britain, a study of the transformation of the stereotyped representation of the Punjabi in the Indian imagination through the arrival of ‘Punjabi Kool’ is yet to be done. Through examining two acts of individual creativity – of Gurdas Mann in the 1980s and of Daler Mehndi a decade later – that led to the reinvention on the Indian subcontinent, this essay argues that Bhangra had turned ‘Kool’ in India independent of its ‘blackening’ in Britain through ‘Bhangrapop's’ appropriation of the josh spirit of the Punjabi harvest dance.

The Literature of Ireland: Culture and Criticism (review)

Brown, Terence. The Literature of Ireland: Culture and Criticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2010. $78.00 he. $29.99 sc. 281pp.Irish cultural and literary studies are fraught and contested fields of inquiry. In the 1970s, the 'revisionist' debate about the objectivity and effects of historiography divided practitioners and audiences. More recendy, feminist approaches and postcolonial studies have josded for position within the academy, prompting divergent analyses and stimulating exchanges. In his engaging introduction to The Literature of Ireland: Culture and Criticism, Terence Brown positions this study and his broader body of work, eschewing theoretical lenses and perspectives. His earlier contributions Studies include books on Louis MacNeice.W B.Yeats, and poetry, but is best known for the ground-breaking Irefond: A and Cultural History (1981), a seminal text where Brown's pioneering disciplinary perspective situated Hterature in its social and poHtical texts. The book under review comprises a coUection of twenty-one essays on a range of mosdy canonical authors, dating from 1990 onwards. includes essays on poets such as Louis MacNeice, Patrick Seamus Heaney, John Hewitt, Michael Longley, Brendan KenneUy, Muldoon and Derek Mahon. Other essays focus on the fiction of McGahern, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Flann O'Brien and John whue the plays of Brian Friel are also considered. Remaining essays the Literary Revival, writing and World War I, modernism in 1930s, the Irish Dylan Thomas, Hubert Butler, and the Irish Shakespeare.While The Literature of Ireland situates both authors and literary texts the context of political and artistic developments in Ireland and aUy, what is most pleasing about these essays is Brown's attentiveness to expHcation of individual prose passages and poems. Indeed, when notes of Seamus Heaney that he has known from the beginning that the peculiar power of poetry is to offer a kind of Hberating music, a lyric occasion which can seem free of all moral motions, secure in its own (190), could as easuy be describing his own critical work in this book. Brown is strikingly insightful and at his most engaging when offering close readings of, for example, the influence of the Puritan tradition in the poetry of Louis MacNeice or on that poet's response to World War II. Brown's evident delight and his nuanced of selected extracts provide lucid and informative readings for his readers. In addition, in his introduction, Brown highfights his settled sense that the study of literature and culture necessitates awareness of developments in the neighboring island (11). His consideration of writers in the context of cultural and political developments in Britain and the rest of Europe aUows him generate interesting and contextuafized readings.Early on in The Literature of Ireland, Brown distances himself from the force field of postcolonial interpretations that has recently dominated studies; however, his summary of this field does not suggest a thorough engagement with the possibUities of this critical framework within the context. Later, his reading of Daniel Corkery as expounding a nationafist ideology that accommodated certain modernist concerns seems precisely a site where an additional postcolonial lens would prove illuminating and enriching. By articulating his exclusion of postcolonial theory in the intraduction, the limiting effects of non-engagement can seem more difficult to argue with in the subsequent essays; but these effects are constraining nonetheless. …

Social Class, Etiquette and Behavioural Restraint in British Lawn Tennis, 1870–1939

From the 1870s, lawn tennis developed a code of behavioural etiquette demanding on-court self-restraint, which notably influenced the development of particular playing strokes and styles. This paper explores the sport's historical development in Britain from 1870 to 1939, with its main aims: to document the changes in behavioural etiquette and playing style; to consider these interdependent developments in the context of shifting class relations in wider British society; and to examine the social and practical functions etiquette served for players. Evidence suggests that prohibitions against certain playing strokes up until the First World War were indicative of class anxiety among the socially aspirational upper middle classes who controlled lawn tennis, as certain playing styles conveyed seemingly an abhorrent ‘working-class’ competitiveness. Greater inclusion for lower-middle-class players during the inter-war years signalled a trend towards adopting a more ‘professional’ mentality, helping to relax behavioural controls in playing style around the world.

English Associationalism in the British Empire: Yorkshire societies in New Zealand before the First World War

The rise of the Yorkshire societies in New Zealand coincided with the maturation of the British Dominions. Emerging as modern nations in their own right, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Canada were conscious of the need to consolidate selected cultural influences to inform the development of distinctive national identities. Given the fact that the English in New Zealand were the single largest British immigrant group, there seemed to be little need to assert or celebrate ‘Englishness’ and this was in stark contrast to the Scots whose widespread associational culture has been well-documented. Importantly, however, the emergence of Yorkshire, as opposed to English, societies reveals the crossroads of the immigrant experience: the dual identity. Asserting the importance of Yorkshire, its working-class culture and its people, as an important and defining facet of British success became very important at a time when immense social and economic changes were sweeping across Britain. The rise of Yorkshire societies abroad illuminates the desire for a greater recognition of the role played by the north in Britain's development at home and abroad. By examining the prevalence of Yorkshire societies in New Zealand, their membership, aims and activities, this article sheds new light on regional loyalties within English immigrant communities and their connection to Britain's imperial authority.

Structures of Trust: Britain and Russia Compared

AbstractThis paper uses the concept of social trust to extend the ‘institutional economics’ of North and Olson, and more specifically Hedlund’s ‘path dependence’ account of Russia’s economic development. For this purpose it compares the evolution of Britain and Russia since the eighteenth century. A key determinant of social trust is the relation between the state, money and the population. In Britain trust was mobilised through state fiscal policies, public credit, and the rule of law. In Russia (and the USSR) trust was also placed in a strong state, but one which operated rather through personal patronage and the joint responsibility of local institutions. This crucial difference explains why in the 1990s Russia adapted so poorly to market economics.

2010 Van Der Zyl Lecture

The arrival from Russia of the Borrensteins, the Myers and the Maccobys in England in the 1890s and their life in the East End of London. Anti-semitism at the turn of the century, the Aliens Act 1905, and the change of name from Borrenstein to Etherton. Chaim Zundel Maccoby, the Kammenitzer Maggid. Jewish identity, the Race Relations Act 1976, and the judgments of the Supreme Court in the JFS case. The author’s Jewish ethnic, cultural and historical links. The incorporeality of the Almighty. The maintenance of faith in the face of the advance of science and human knowledge. The author’s homosexuality and his Jewish faith. The idea of Britishness, commitment to the rule of law and parliamentary democracy. The relationship between religion and religious beliefs and the rule of law. The development in Britain of the right to individual liberty and personal dignity. The author’s sense of Britishness. His coat of arms and motto – hineini.

A Stronger Second Chamber? Assessing the Impact of House of Lords Reform in 1999 and the Lessons for Bicameralism

The UK's second chamber is generally seen as a historical curiosity and, as Labour governments post-1997 have failed to introduce elected members, continues to be seen as ‘unreformed’. But a ‘first stage’ reform of the House of Lords in 1999 removed most of its hereditary members, leaving it almost wholly made up of appointed life peers. Although many at the time claimed that this would neuter the upper house, since most of those evicted were Conservatives, it instead seems to have had the opposite effect. This article examines whether the 1999 reform strengthened the House of Lords, how we can assess this and why it might have happened. The article concedes that measuring legislative influence is notoriously difficult. The analysis it constructs seeks to overcome this by using a range of indicators on two dimensions: the assertiveness of the House of Lords to use its powers, and the executive's responses to the chamber. This analysis indicates that the 1999 changes strengthened the Lords against the government and, in doing so, strengthened parliament as a whole. The most obvious consequence is that our understanding of British politics now needs revision. But if the Lords was strengthened by reform this also demonstrates a need to revise established comparative politics theories of bicameralism – particularly that of Arend Lijphart, which would have predicted the reverse. The recent developments in Britain validate George Tsebelis' approach of recognising ‘partisan veto players’ and the critical role of partisan balance in inter-cameral relations. But they also demonstrate that a more nuanced understanding of both legitimacy and legislative influence is needed in order to understand second chambers' (and indeed first chambers') de facto power.

Inspired by infrastructure

Although illustrations of civil engineering works were not unknown during the latter part of the eighteenth century, artists of the period were not convinced that there was a place for them on gallery walls among the traditional subjects that appealed to their patrons. Industrial development in Britain at the turn of the century relied on a number of key industries, all of which depended heavily on a reliable transport infrastructure. As new materials and design features were adopted and the impact of the industrial revolution on the landscape became evident, the response of a few artists to contemporary developments changed. Some major British artists found inspiration in the new infrastructure and industrial development, and some fine paintings emerged depicting structures designed by, among others, Thomas Telford (1757–1834), John Rennie (1761–1821) and Sir Samuel Brown (1776–1852). Works by two of Britain's greatest landscape painters, Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) and John Constable (1776–1837) and some of their contemporaries are discussed in relation to the structures that inspired them.

The Society of Dilettanti. Archaeology and Identity in the British Enlightenment

The Society of Dilettanti, founded in London in 1732, began life as a dining club for rich, travelled men and later took its place at the centre of some of the key enterprises in the development in Britain of fuller understanding of the antique world through its history, architecture and artefacts. In this volume, the dual aspects of gentlemen's club and scholarly institution – which might appear to be contradictory or even mutually exclusive – are examined side by side, as indicated in the subtitle and are proposed as complementary, two sides of the same ancient coin. The writer's approach is to put into a sociological context some of the valuable archaeological discoveries made and innovative scholarship undertaken with the support of the Society throughout this period. The impression given of the Society is of a heterogeneous group of amateur enthusiasts for the antique becoming gradually more focused and professional as time passed.

‘Ladies First’?: Establishing a Place for Women Golfers in British Golf Clubs, 1867–1914

Sport can be an important agent for social change and social control and is said to have reinforced and reproduced gender divisions and contributed to definitions of masculinity and femininity. It is evident that in both academic and popular literature about sport not enough attention has been paid to the female experience of sporting culture.1 From this perspective, the importance of golf clubs and female involvement, albeit in a restricted way in terms of when and where it was possible to play, deserves some discussion. The aim of this article is to focus on the way women were received by male players in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a crucial time for the sport's development in Britain. In particular, it will address issues of female representation and participation within golf clubs. Drawing on existing club histories and the writings of contemporary female players, the article seeks to identify the position women occupied via consideration of the way women were treated in a sample of British clubs from the 1860s to the start of the First World War.