Edwardian Research Articles

Determining How Society's Opinion of Women in England Influenced Their Writing

This investigation inspects the multiple correlations between social prejudices against women and the literature produced by them. Spanning more than a hundred years, the research covers the late eighteenth century, the Regency Era, the Victorian Era, and the Edwardian Era. Some sources did not provide the relationship between treatment and literature produced but instead set up a historical background for England during the above periods. However, all the sources proved in one way or another that there was mistreatment of women present. With the sources covering the correlation between the treatment of women and the literature they wrote, these found a direct relationship and reflected in novels and poems via way of working women and spinsters.

‘For Those Who Like the Life Nothing Could Be Better’: The Games Mistress in 1920s Britain †

During the Edwardian period, women’s physical education colleges were graduating significant numbers of gymnastics and games teachers, the demand for whom had increased rapidly following an expansion in the playing of team sports in girls’ schools. Much of the subsequent development of women’s physical activity in the 1920s can be credited to the passion and commitment of these women, who were not only key role models within the school setting but who also coached and organised women’s sport at club, regional, and national level. Given that the education sector operated a ‘marriage bar’ until 1944, the critical juncture in their careers was the decision to marry or not, and several of these women decided to remain single. This, and the strong bonds they often formed with other practitioners, has resulted in a great deal of unsubstantiated speculation about their private lives. Combining evidence from a variety of primary sources, including newspapers, census returns, college records, literature, girls’ annuals, specialist periodicals, photographs, and local and family histories, this paper illuminates some of the biographies and experiences of these women and questions the stereotypical image of the games mistress as an unfulfilled spinster.

The Transitional Career of Mary Gurney (1836–1917): Work for the Reform of English Middle-Class Female Education at Secondary and Tertiary Levels

ABSTRACT This article presents an understanding of the context, nature and significance of Mary Gurney’s educational career during the years 1863 to 1917. It is assisted in part by the conceptual lenses of feminist thinking and network theory. Despite neglect by past historians, Gurney’s work was seen by contemporaries as equal in significance to that of leading reformers who, like her, sought equality between English middle-class male and female education at secondary and tertiary levels. The article demonstrates her career’s transitional position between that of middle-class female philanthropist and professional female during the British Victorian and Edwardian periods of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It discusses the educational consequences of Gurney’s work before and after her death, including how its effects spread to other geographical and social locations, as part of the process of assessing its value.

Ella Erskine, Elkin Mathews, and the “Long Aesthetic Century”

ABSTRACT Scholars have used terms such as the “long nineteenth century” to convey the fact that the characteristics, principles, and artistic debates of the Victorian era did not suddenly vanish in 1900, but continued to inform British literature throughout the Edwardian era and into the start of the First World War. From work written by women, in particular, during the first decade of the twentieth century, it is obvious that one of the most significant developments of late-Victorian literature – i.e. the Aesthetic Movement – continued to enjoy an active life. This chapter uses a 1909 volume of prose poems, Shadow-shapes by Ella Erskine, to make that point, while demonstrating the important role played by Elkin Mathews, her publisher, in keeping Aestheticism before the public.

The Early Novels of Ivy Low: Literature, Love, and Lust in 1910s London

ABSTRACT This article examines the early literary career of the writer Ivy Low. Low’s work and literary friendships of this period offer a rich source of insight into the contradictions and challenges of British literary culture in the early 1910s, especially for a young woman of Jewish descent eager to belong to a new generation of writers. The article examines Low’s two early novels Growing Pains (1913) and The Questing Beast (1914). The novels continue existing literary traditions of the Victorian and Edwardian era while at the same time being determinedly modern if not Modernist in outlook. Low’s psychologically honest explorations of women’s sexual feelings and descriptions of women in the workplace supplement the more conventional subjects of marriage, education, religion, and art, as well as a vivid portrait of the process of becoming a published author. Drawing on archival autobiographical writing, the article explores how Low’s initially promising career becomes increasingly problematic as she grows more aware of barriers of class and race which make her an outsider despite her close friendship with the writer Viola Meynell and D. H. Lawrence’s early interest in her.

Middle-class Fathers, Sons, and Mental Illness in Late Victorian and Edwardian England

This article explores the impact of mental illness on the relationship between middle-class fathers and sons in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century England. Using sources that include autobiographies, oral histories, press reports of violence, and records of appeals against conscription, the article argues that shame was not the dominant reaction. Many mentally ill men lost masculine status and agency within the family, but both fathers and sons were much more likely to respond to illness with loving concern, attempts at negotiation and pacification, than to use their power over vulnerable relatives with attempts to confine and hide them from sight.

‘Untiring’ in her efforts on behalf of the team and discharging her duties ‘in the most capable manner’; female coaches in Edwardian Britain

ABSTRACT The compliments paid to Clara Jarvis by the Amateur Swimming Association in recognition of her contribution as trainer to the women’s swimming team at the 1912 Olympics marked a unique public recognition of the role of the woman as coach in the Edwardian era (1901–1914). The absence of similar references to women as coaches or trainers in the archives could easily persuade the observer that Clara was an isolated example, but the reality was very different in that women were actively coaching in several sports and activities, if coaching is interpreted in the sense of helping others to improve their physical performance. The key to researching these women is to look beyond the terminology ‘coach’ or ‘trainer’. This paper uses a range of search terms to uncover women involved in skating and riding, and as physical culturalists and games mistresses, from the 1911 census and explores the characteristics of each group as well as uncovering some individual life courses. The paper concludes that these women were not unique, in that similar communities can also be identified in activities such as swimming and dance, and that the notion that few women coached in this period needs to be revised.

‘I suppose I’ve never been really right since the war’: Traumatised Masculinities in Dorothy L. Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey Novels

The shell-shocked ex-serviceman was a controversial and troubling figure in interwar society. While the soldier was an ideal of masculinity in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, post-World War One, the presence of the wounded soldier questioned and challenged the authority and reliability of this masculine ideal. Dorothy L. Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey novels explore the gendered tensions pervading through interwar society by placing a vulnerable and shell-shocked soldier detective at the forefront of their narratives. Through the perceived stability and generic reliability of the detective genre, Sayers critiques post-war attitudes to wounded ex-servicemen and details the impacts of the war and mental illness on concepts of masculinity, gender norms and the domestic space. Closely analysing the shell-shocked Wimsey in relation to performativity, employment and marriage, the article reveals an anxious and divided society that acknowledges the wounded soldier and a loss of pre-war gender norms but is ill-equipped and reticent to address the lasting and gendered impacts of industrial war.

Human Skin as Canvas: Tattooing and Fine Art in Edwardian Britain

En 1910, Hector Hugh Munro (alias Saki) publia « The Background », une nouvelle intrigante relatant la tragédie d’Henri Deplis, un Luxembourgeois dont la vie tourna au cauchemar après qu’il reçut un tatouage artistique lors d’un séjour en Italie. Dès lors, Deplis devint une toile humaine dont la seule valeur était inscrite à l’encre dans la peau de son dos. Saki est bien connu pour ses satires malicieuses de la culture édouardienne, et le tatoueur italien fictif Signor Pincini pourrait bien avoir été inspiré par des praticiens britanniques de l’aiguille comme Sutherland Macdonald, Tom Riley et Alfred South, qui furent à cette époque des célébrités londoniennes. Répondant aux goûts d’une clientèle aisée, ces artistes créaient parfois, et reproduisaient le plus souvent, des peintures célèbres sur le corps de leurs clients.Prenant comme point de départ la nouvelle de Saki, cet article examine les questions entremêlées du statut du tatouage, de la propriété artistique et de la législation sur le droit d’auteur au tournant du 19ème siècle.

Neoclassicism with a British Accent: Edwardian and Georgian Reflections in Russian Architecture of the 1900s–1910s

The article is dedicated to one of the stylistic trends of architecture of the Russian Empire in the early decades of the 20th century, namely neoclassics. The repertoire of classical architecture as such is cosmopolitan, but the very idea of arousing the classics at the beginning of the last century, marked by the appearance of Art Nouveau and the beginnings of modernism, turned out to be equally close to Great Britain in the Edwardian era and Russia during the time of the last emperor. This unanimity in the rejection of stylistic innovations is interesting as a phenomenon and undoubtedly deserves special study. At this stage, it can be stated that in Russian neoclassicism there was also a place for Anglomania, which was expressed, however, not in formal echoes of the Edwardian style, but in an interest in the history of the British classical tradition (primarily, the architecture of the Georgian era). The Edwardian idea of reviving the noble style of the past was embodied in Russia both in direct appeals to the legacy of Charles Cameron, who, serving the order of Catherine the Great, was an agent of Georgian architecture, and in an appeal to English scholars, who provided rich material on ancient Roman archaeology. The English influence in Russian neoclassicism is traced in the article from the very beginning (i. e. the moment when the Mansion of the Racing Society in Moscow, considered the first building of this stylistic movement, was designed by Ivan Zholtovsky in 1903) through the programmatic “Cameron-style” architecture of the Prince Sergey Shcherbatov’s house in the same place, created by Alexander Tamanyan, to those “Georgian” apartments inside the Palace on the Moika river embankment that were designed by Andrey Beloborodov for Prince Felix Yusupov, one of the most famous Anglomaniacs of St. Petersburg. “Georgian” reflections are also found in the Moscow mansion of Gavriil Tarasov built by Zholtovsky. Its exterior contains some references not only to Palladio’s Palazzo Thiene (Vicenza), but also to London’s Burlington House designed by Colen Campbell. Thus, the British “accent” in Russian neoclassicism of the 1900s–1910s sounds no less obvious than the Italian one.

Moving Images, Moving Bodies

Abstract At the end of the nineteenth century, under the influence of chronophotography and the arguments of the French musicologist Maurice Emmanuel, it was believed that ancient dance could be recovered for the modern world by animating the figures on ancient Greek vases. This led to a flurry of practitioners of so-called ‘Grecian’ dance across Europe, the US and the British Empire. At the beginning of the twentieth century, moving like a Greek became as popular and as liberating for women of the upper classes as discarding a corset and dressing in a Greek-style tunic. In the Edwardian period, since the most celebrated practitioners of Greek dance were women, this new corporeal Hellenism was viewed with deep suspicion as a perilous bid for Sapphic liberation from the patriarchy. But this new corporeality was no less part of a wider utopian return both to nature and the ideal of the collective that laid the groundwork for fascist appropriations of Greek dance in the 1920s.

Mendel's closet: genetics, eugenics and the exceptions of sex in Edwardian Britain

This article situates formative Mendelian and chromosomal precepts and rhetoric as an integral part of ‘reproductive’ physiology and the broader sexological terrain in Edwardian Britain. Alongside the discovery of ‘internal secretions’ (hormones), the discovery of the sex chromosomes, made around the same time as the rediscovery of Mendel's laws of heredity at the turn of the twentieth century, transformed the ways in which questions about sex determination and sex development were considered. Approaches were diverse as leading biologists including William Bateson, Leonard Doncaster, Reginald Crundall Punnett, Geoffrey Watkins Smith and their interlocutors negotiated the multiple, often conflicting, sociopolitical interpretations, uses and abuses that Mendelian approaches to sex were amenable to. Most contentiously, it was recognized that any credible model of sex biology had to account for all manner of sex phenomena, including parthenogenesis, intersexualities and transformations of sex, and that it was the variations of sex that best provided insights into the otherwise hidden mechanisms that shaped sex characteristics. Such a move, however, embroiled the new sexological genetics and the developing discipline of ‘reproductive’ physiology with vexed debates about feminism, homosexuality and eugenics. The article charts how the ensuing tensions played out across scholarly and popular platforms, including Britain's newspapers.

Circus at the seaside: Building the Great Yarmouth Hippodrome, 1903

Founded in the Edwardian Age by international equestrian stars George Gilbert and Jennie O’Brien, and remarkably still working to this day, the Great Yarmouth Hippodrome circus is a heritage site of global significance. However, despite its ongoing meaning to our understanding of the social and cultural evolution of coastal entertainment, it has largely been overlooked by both seaside and circus studies—as has the broader topic of the development of seaside at the circus. This article recovers its neglected history, investigating the Hippodrome’s vital contribution to the shaping of this seaside resort. First, we look at how circus became integrated into the local community within a moment of tourist expansion in Great Yarmouth. Second, we explore the wider ramifications of this moment, as the Hippodrome connected the town to a global culture of performance, bringing travelling acts from around the world to establish the Hippodrome as a cosmopolitan presence on the British coast. While illuminating the pattern of circus mobility and the transmission of performance around the world, it also shows how the historical development of the English seaside resort, far from being the insular caricature often described in present-day nationalist nostalgia, was influenced in key ways by a diverse and global circus culture. In these ways, this article seeks to address the distinctive and neglected seaside-circus aspect of British seaside entertainment heritage.

Dr Graham Steell and monaural stethoscopes: Cardiology before the ECG.

Dr Graham Steell, MB CM MD FRCP (1851-1942), an Edinburgh graduate, was a physician at the Manchester Royal Infirmary (1878-1911) and professor of medicine at the Victoria Manchester University (1907-1911). He is mainly remembered for describing the 'Graham Steel murmur', however his name is also associated with the 'Graham Steell monaural stethoscope', which he designed. His clinical examination of the cardiovascular system at the bedside was meticulous, using only his stethoscope, percussion hammer, and a sphygmograph to record the radial pulse. His work is described in his monograph, Diseases of the Heart (1906) and other numerous papers. The University of Manchester Museum of Medicine and Health has a collection of monaural stethoscopes, percussors and sphygmographs. This article explores Dr Steell's clinical techniques and contribution to cardiology in an era before chest X-rays and electrocardiography, and also discusses the use of monaural stethoscopes and percussion hammers by the wider medical profession during the Victorian and Edwardian period.

War, Public Opinion and the British Constitution, c. 1867–1914

By the late nineteenth century, questions were raised about the efficacy of the British political system to manage and prosecute modern wars. At the centre of these questions was the issue of public opinion, seen as a potentially detrimental influence on planning and preparation for future wars. This article outlines the late-Victorian and Edwardian views on the role between Britain's constitution and war, and shows how public opinion was brought up in discussions on how Britain's armed forces could be better prepared for future conflicts. It argues that, by World War I, British officers as well as civilian experts proposed various solutions to the country's perceived political problems and argued that the public could potentially be mobilised to side-line a lethargic parliament and the political parties. The article thereby follows in the wake of an increased interest in the intellectual and political history of war and military planning, and offers a new perspective on political thought in Victorian and Edwardian Britain.

David M. Fahey. Temperance Societies in Late Victorian and Edwardian England. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020. Pp. 174. £58.99 (cloth).

David M. Fahey. Temperance Societies in Late Victorian and Edwardian England. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020. Pp. 174. £58.99 (cloth).

NOSTALGIA AND ROMANCE: A STUDY OF RELATIONSHIPS IN LOOK BACK IN ANGER

NOSTALGIA AND ROMANCE: A STUDY OF RELATIONSHIPS IN LOOK BACK IN ANGER (pp. 90-107): Jun 2023 : I [I] Monisha Rai Dastidar DOI Link : https://doi.org/10.51767/JEN010107 NOSTALGIA AND ROMANCE: A STUDY OF RELATIONSHIPS IN LOOK BACK IN ANGER by Monisha Rai Dastidar is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Look Back in Anger is about the feelings of fury of the post-war penetration that felt betrayed, sold-out and irrevocably ruined; of the older generation that is like the “sturdy old plants left over from the Edwardian twilight who cannot understand why the sun isn’t shining anymore”; of women who seek identity in age-old practices and relationships like marriage only to find themselves gasping for “a little peace”; of people who cannot save their love from the “cruel steel traps” of society. The consciousness of “high noon” of the Victorian and Edwardian era looms painfully over the breeding ground of the post-war city of London and its emotionless existence. Nostalgia seems to be the only way to survive the emotional and social claustrophobia. The fate of each individual lies as if in looking back. This paper attempts to explore the different relationships that John Osborne offers in his play. This paper also seeks to know about the pitfalls of romance where neither looking back is pleasurable, nor does it hold anything to look ahead. Can a relationship sustain without a future but only a bitter past? Does the same thing happen to friendships and other filial relationships? Does love fall apart due to external forces or if the lovers do not know the way to hold on? Can love really be held on to? These are some of the questions that this paper seeks answers for.

NOSTALGIA AND ROMANCE: A STUDY OF RELATIONSHIPS IN LOOK BACK IN ANGER

Look Back in Anger is about the feelings of fury of the post-war penetration that felt betrayed, sold-out and irrevocably ruined; of the older generation that is like the “sturdy old plants left over from the Edwardian twilight who cannot understand why the sun isn’t shining anymore”; of women who seek identity in age-old practices and relationships like marriage only to find themselves gasping for “a little peace”; of people who cannot save their love from the “cruel steel traps” of society. The consciousness of “high noon” of the Victorian and Edwardian era looms painfully over the breeding ground of the post-war city of London and its emotionless existence. Nostalgia seems to be the only way to survive the emotional and social claustrophobia. The fate of each individual lies as if in looking back. This paper attempts to explore the different relationships that John Osborne offers in his play. This paper also seeks to know about the pitfalls of romance where neither looking back is pleasurable, nor does it hold anything to look ahead. Can a relationship sustain without a future but only a bitter past? Does the same thing happen to friendships and other filial relationships? Does love fall apart due to external forces or if the lovers do not know the way to hold on? Can love really be held on to? These are some of the questions that this paper seeks answers for.

The New Liberals and Chinese Civilization: Idealist Philosophy, Evolutionary Sociology, and the Quest for a Humanitarian Ethics in Edwardian Britain

It is well known that the leading New Liberals L. T. Hobhouse and J. A. Hobson were critics of the British Empire, and their sympathy with China has been understood as an expression of their anti-imperialism. However, this article argues that this reading is at best one-sided. By examining Hobhouse's and Hobson's ethical and sociological thought, it demonstrates that their Sinophile position drew on a broader concern about the turn-of-the-century moral crisis. Informed by Idealist philosophy, positivism, and evolutionary biology, their quest for a post-Christian ethics led to an appreciation of the harmonic order of Chinese society and its secularism. The leading New Liberals’ earnest study of China on the one hand represented a departure from the Eurocentric position of British Liberals who had seen “stationary” China as a negative object lesson, and on the other anticipated a generation of Liberal/progressive thinkers who were attracted to Chinese culture.

Front and back cover caption, volume 39 issue 3

Front and back cover caption, volume 39 issue 3ROBOTIC BUDDHIST FUNERAL PRIESTSHumanoid robot ‘Pepper’, produced by SoftBank Robotics, debuts to great fanfare in 2017 in its new role as a Buddhist priest and funeral attendant at ENDEX, the Japanese funeral and cemetery industry convention. Alongside AR grave design programs, eco‐urns and ash jewellery, Pepper is one of many striking, experimental products and services aimed at reinvigorating and reinventing Japan's ‘ending industry’.In a country with a rapidly aging population, Japan is facing a crisis in how to handle death. Traditional Buddhist funeral rites are becoming increasingly expensive and difficult to find, and many families are looking for new ways to say goodbye to their loved ones.One possible solution is the use of robotic Buddhist priests. These robots are programmed to chant sutras, lead prayers and perform other traditional funeral rituals. They are also much cheaper than human priests, making them an attractive option for families on a budget.The use of robotic priests is still in its early stages, but it has the potential to revolutionize the way death is handled in Japan. By providing a more affordable and accessible option for funeral services, robots could help to ensure that everyone has a dignified send‐off, regardless of their financial situation.These interventions respond to the weakening of traditional Buddhist death rites and the socio‐religious structures that once supported them.THE FIRST BLACK STUDENT IN ANTHROPOLOGYJames Arthur Harley (1873‐1943), a talented polymath with a degree from Harvard University, arrived in Edwardian England in 1907 and enrolled in the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford to pursue a Diploma in Anthropology. Unfortunately, the curriculum at the time perpetuated racist ideologies that portrayed and thought of black people as intellectually inferior, exotic, sub‐species, sub‐human – savage. However, Harley's presence at Britain's world‐renowned university, a bastion of white elite privilege, prestige and class, was not unique.Thirty‐four years earlier in 1873, Christian Frederick Cole (1853‐1885) from Sierra Leone became the university's first black scholar when he matriculated at University College, aged 21, to read for an honours degree in Classical Moderations, going on to achieve the august status of Britain's first black barrister.Harley, an Antiguan scholar, completed the course and became the first black man to earn the diploma. In so doing, he, like many black scholars at the University of Oxford, from Alain LeRoy Locke (1885‐1954), the first black Rhodes scholar, later known as the father of the Harlem Renaissance, to Kofoworola Moore (1913‐2002), the first black woman to receive a degree in 1932, all obliterated the preconceived racist‐held ideologies with their achievements and later contributions.Anthropology continuously evolves and adapts to the changes humans experience in this world. Through the presence of Harley and his fellow pioneers in these institutions, we see how they gradually evolve and reframe how black students are viewed. These early students were change agents and perhaps instigators of decolonized curricula and forged a path for other black students to follow.