I9th Century Research Articles

Getting Around Pyongyang's Hard-Liners

In the standard U.S. image, North Korea is a monolithic, Stalin-style dictatorship controlled by one man, Kim Jong Il. However, the key reason for North Korean intransigence in the crisis with the United States is that Kim does not have unchallenged control over foreign and defense policy. The North Korean power structure is deeply divided between pragmatists who favor a deal with the United States and increasingly assertive hard-liners who argue that a tough posture is needed to stop the Bush administration from pursuing in Pyongyang.My most disturbing finding on a recent visit to North Korea was that a showdown over policy occurred in early February 2005 between the dealers, led by First Deputy Foreign Minister Kang Sok Ju, the principal foreign policy adviser to Kim, and a coalition of hard-line generals and Workers' Party leaders. The hardliners prevailed. On February i0, 2005, Pyongyang made its pronouncement that it has manufactured nukes and is a nuclear weapons state. Then a March 3i declaration served notice that North Korea will no longer discuss dismantling its weapons capabilities until the United States normalizes economic and diplomatic relations with the Kim regime.The ascendancy of the hard-liners is the direct result of the Bush administration's ideologically driven North Korean policy and can be reversed only if the United States makes a fresh start attuned to the conciliatory engagement approach now being pursued by South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun.In contrast to his father, the late Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il is not a revered, charismatic demigod and must accommodate pressures from his generals. As the son of the Great Leader, he is needed out in front to legitimize the regime, but the armed forces wield growing power, even in the economic sphere.In the February showdown, I was told by several of those involved, the argued in favor of preserving ambiguity concerning the extent of North Korean capabilities as part of a continued effort to get economic quid pro quos in return for step-by-step denuclearization.The hard-liners countered that it would be naive to continue hoping for a beneficial deal with the Bush administration, which in their view is seeking regime change and wants to use the six-party talks in Beijing to drive Pyongyang into a corner. It is demeaning for North Korea to let the United States keep it on the defensive in the six-party talks, they contended, even though Washington has 7,400 operational weapons of its own. The only self-respecting course for North Korea, they said, would be to rule out any discussion of dismantlement for now and to declare unambiguously that North Korea is already a nuclear weapons state in order to make Washington think twice about any military adventure.There is a strong mood of wounded pride and angry nationalism in Pyongyang that cuts across both dealers and hard-liners. It is particularly galling to North Korean leaders that the United States, oblivious to the sensitivity of Chinese-Korean relations throughout history, is attempting to apply pressure through China and to use it as a diplomatic intermediary.This is not the i9th century, one North Korean official commented, an allusion to the servile posture of Korean monarchs toward China during the closing decades of the Yi dynasty, which provoked a strong nationalist reaction. The Kim regime consistently appeals to Korean national pride and has sought friendship with the United States in part as an offset to excessive dependence on its giant neighbor. Thus, attempting to use China to pressure Pyongyang only strengthens the hardliners.It was a red flag to the hard-liners when Bush sent a White House emissary to Chinese President Hu Jintao on Feb. i with a letter calling for a much tougher posture against Pyongyang. To army generals who think of themselves as the guardians of Korean nationalism, it was necessary to show the world that North Korea would not submit to U. …

A LANDED ESTATE AND PARISH IN THE MID-20TH CENTURY: INSIGHTS FROM THE 1941-43 NATIONAL FARM SURVEY OF ENGLAND AND WALES

The National Farm Survey that was undertaken between I94I and I943 documents in great detail the nature of the local land tenure and land use then prevailing across England and Wales. It ranks alongside other major sources that shed essential light on the character of agrarian economy and society at a particular point in time, such as the Tithe surveys or the I873 ‘New Domesday’. Although the National Farm Survey has much to offer the researcher, it has yet to feature in many published local historical studies. This paper draws attention to some of the uses of the Survey in local enquiry, as explored in a micro study of a landed estate centred on the Devon parish of Powderham. The estate, belonging to the Courtenay family, Earls of Devon, experienced many of the far-reaching changes affecting landownership, and rural economy and society more broadly, from the late I9th century to the late 20th.

THE DORKING EMIGRATION SCHEME OF 1832

Statistical records of British emigration for the I9th century are very poor. Therefore it is important that all information that can be produced on assisted emigration should be considered to enhance our knowledge of the process of migration. In I832 the Dorking Emigration Scheme facilitated emigration of a group of poor rural labourers and their families from Surrey to make a new life in Canada. These were people dependent for support on parish relief. This article discusses this scheme in relation to British emigration policy in the years I8I5-30. Investigating assisted emigration at a local level enables an assessment of the viability of Wilmont Horton’s claim that one great cause of distress at the time was redundancy of population.It is evident in Dorking that emigration was seen as a way to alleviate the growing problem of rural unemployment. But was it just a scheme for ‘shovelling out paupers’, or are there other important factors that must be considered?

SWING REVISITED: THE SWING PROJECT

The Captain Swing riots were the most serious protest by agricultural labouring communities of the I9th century. Historiographically, the work of Hobsbawm and Rudé (I969) has remained the outstanding account of these riots. So much so that, since their groundbreaking study, relatively little work has been done on these events at an aggregate scale. However, local research has implied that the unrest was greater than even Hobsbawm and Rudé reported. This article reviews the findings of a project on the Swing disturbances in England, Scotland and Wales in the period I830 to I832. Our intention was to address the extent of ‘Swing’ and to revisit the frequency and type of distribution of the unrest. Our findings suggest that it was indeed more widespread than hitherto believed. Boundaries between Swing and non-Swing are also shown to be porous although many of the conclusions of Hobsbawm and Rudé were found to stand the test of time.

WITHIN THE SHELTER OF THE OLD ELM TREE: ODDFELLOWSHIP AND COMMUNITY IN NORTH OXFORDSHIRE, 1871-2002

In recent years the focus of friendly society history has shifted from preoccupation with organizational and legislative issues towards evaluation of societies’ relevance to the communities of which they were part. But although the I9th century has received considerable attention, much less research has been undertaken into the period after the commencement of compulsory state sickness insurance in I9I2, and almost no interest has been shown in friendly societies’ struggle for survival in the modern era of the welfare state. This study of the Old Elm Tree Lodge of the Independent Order of Oddfellows Manchester Unity, which was established in the Oxfordshire town of Chipping Norton in I87I, contrasts the experience of friendly societies before and after I9I2 and sheds light on their role in the provision of social capital and on their changing community significance in the pre- and post-National Insurance eras and up to the present day.

NEONATAL MORTALITY IN NOR THAMPTONSHIRE: HIGHAM FERRERS 1880-1890

Within much of the literature on infant mortality in the late I9th century, the neonate is usually discussed together with the older infant rather than as a separate entity, because of the lack of accurate age at death data. Information about the experience of the neonate has come from reconstitution studies or studies from a later period when age at death data was more accurate. The smallpox vaccination birth registers and infant death registers provide this information and have been used in this paper to explore the neonatal experience of a group of infants born during the I880s in Northamptonshire. The rate of neonatal death was found to be high, especially in Rushden, a shoemanufacturing centre. This rate could be attributed to the impact of industrialization and rapid population growth at the time, but the rate for the other towns in the subdistrict, which did not have similar experiences, was also high. This suggests that factors other than urbanization may have been influential in the death of the infant during the first month of life in the Higham Ferrers Sub-District. For the most part the findings support rather than contradict previous work, indicating that the previously identified influencing factors on neonatal death were also to be found in the Higham Ferrers Sub-District.

George Forrest Browne, Early Medieval Sculpture and Nineteenth-Century Reformation Historiography

George Forrest Browne, as Disney Professor of Archaeology and bishop of Bristol, was one of the I9th century's foremost clerics and archaeologists. These two roles came together in his interpretation of Anglo-Saxon crosses—including that at Bradbourne in Derbyshire. This monument was probably destroyed through the ‘logocentric iconophobia’ of the late I6th and early 17th centuries, a period during which the interior of Bradbourne church was whitewashed and ‘decorated’ with Biblical texts. Browne was responsible for recovering the fragments of the Bradbourne cross, which he then situated within a ‘reformationist’ history of medieval England—a history which charted the corruption (under increased papal influence) of English church and society through to the eventual ‘re-formation’ of the Church of England in the 16th century. For Bishop Browne the Reformation was more than an event in history. The advances made by Catholicism in the 19th century made it a matter of contemporary concern, and reinforced his commitment to the idea that the Church of England was always ‘Ecclesia Anglicana…never Romana’.

RELIGION AND COMMUNITY: FRAMEWORKS AND ISSUES

The history of religion in Britain has been dominated by the concept of secularization. This suggests that the working classes in the cities led a move away from the churches in the second half of the I9th century, if not before. Recent work, however, presents a growing challenge to this account, instead stressing continuities of religious practice and belief into the 20th century. This article reviews this revisionism. It asks why revival occurred when and where it did, which groups were associated with I9th century denominations and how religious identities changed. In doing this it also suggests areas for further local research. The periods before the I840S and after the I9IOS, regions and localities outside London, and the patterns of everyday religious practice and belief, are themes on which community historians can address a host of under-researched issues.

A MIDDLE-CLASS COMMUNITY? SOCIAL STRUCTURE IN VICTORIAN ROUNDHAY, LEEDS, 1851-1891

This study examines the social structure of Roundhay, four miles north of Leeds, a rural township that developed as a suburb of the city in the second half of the I9th century. Although there is much current interest in the middle classes and in the physical development of the Victorian suburbs, the role of the middle class in creating the mechanisms of suburban community life has been little explored. In this article, personal papers, house sale details and the census have been analysed in order to reveal the household structure and occupational status of Victorian Roundhay. Servant holding (often used as an indicator of middle-class status) and the availability of transport in creating a suburb have also been analysed. The research reveals that this ‘middle-class suburb’ was not just lived in by the middle classes, but was also home to members of other social groups such as servants, tradespeople and pre-existing farming families. There were a number of very different types of ‘middle-class’ suburb and Victorian Roundhay was just one variety - an exclusive upper middle-class enclave.

« Vanités ». Codes picturaux et signes textuels

Vanity, a pictorial genre intimately associated with the 17th century, appears in veiled fashion in I9th century literature, which makes ample use of the pictorial mode. This genre, which invests its message with the symbolism of the objects it chooses to compose and display, seizes upon the use of literary text as a singular opportunity. Through writing, the evocation of the pictorial work takes over and establishes a discourse about the futility of human endeavour, fixing the text in a certain relation to transcendental matters. However, as the century advances, the symbolic weight of the Vanities diminishes; objects begin to appear only in their material aspect, devoid of the metaphysical characteristics with which the classical period had invested them.

A DISCIPLINED ENVIRONMENT: PENAL REFORM IN THE EAST RIDING HOUSE OF CORRECTION

This article is a contribution to the debate on the development of institutions in England during the I9th century. This is made through an examination of the House of Correction, located in Beverley in the East Riding of Yorkshire, (I8IO-I877). Imprisonment became a more disciplined and ‘total’ experience during this period. This is evident in the use of the treadwheel, in a monotonous and more uniform diet, in the system of punishments and in the development of a disciplined staff. However, the speed and completeness of these developments depended upon the priority given to the prison by different local authorities and the reformative techniques that were adopted. In a comparison between Beverley and Hull, the nearest large town, evidence suggests that the internal prison discipline and the external social discipline encouraged by and represented in the system and personnel of local government, were closely linked.

GOVERNING THE COMMUNITY: THE RISE OF RADICAL POLITICS IN OLDHAM, LANCASHIRE 1790-1837

Community structures and dynamics played a large part in determining the success of radical movements in certain localities in the early I9th century. Taking the case of Oldham, a textile town in south-east Lancashire, this article argues that to understand fully how radicalism worked it is necessary to look in detail at how local community processes, particularly the bodies of local government, worked in practice and over time.

POLITICS, PROPERTY AND FAMILY RESOURCES: THE BUSINESS STRATEGIES ADOPTED BY SMALL SHIPBUILDERS IN FOWEY AND POLRUAN, CORNWALL, IN THE 19TH CENTURY

The shipbuilders of Fowey and Polruan were an important part of the local economy in the I9th century with a wide range of links to the community, from shares in ships to providing employment in other related businesses, such as sailmaking and blockmaking. Shipbuilding was a high-risk business, subject to strong fluctuations in demand. Yet Fowey and Polruan shipbuilders produced a constant flow of new ships until the I88os. This article explores the strategies adopted by these small family-owned enterprises, including the use of political influence and patronage in the years up to the I832 Reform Act. What emerges is the importance for these shipbuilders of the effective use of family resources, the ownership of sites and an ability to adapt to changes in local demand.

FEASTING IN A SOUTH YORKSHIRE COLLIERY DISTRICT: RESISTANCE AND ACCOMMODATION TO CUSTOMARY CHANGE IN WOMBWELL AND DARFIELD, c.1860-1900

The article examines several South Yorkshire mining townships' customary feast celebrations and reveals how local calendar customs can be used to uncover information about social relations and contemporary perceptions of community belonging. The contests fought to gain temporal control of the feast celebrations are considered. By the late I870S, the South Yorkshire feasts were under attack from rational recreationalists who were intent on replacing the bawdy, bacchanalian aspects of the celebrations with more ‘respectable’ temperate activities. The article reveals the threats made to the continuing existence of the feasts at the end of the I9th century and examines how far popular customary resistance succeeded in defending the feasts. The study also demonstrates how such local calendar customs played a significant part in developing local allegiances in rapidly growing industrial settlements with a high migrant population.

A RESPECTABLE FAMILY ENTERPRISE: FAMILY, BUSINESS AND COMMUNITY IN 19TH-CENTURY PORTSMOUTH

A number of issues have been raised about the nature of the small family business and its place in the industrialized society of I9th-century Britain. Business historians have argued that the conservatism and backwardness of such enterprises prevented them from coping with the economic changes that were taking place in the latter part of the century. However, a study of such businesses in Portsmouth challenges such perceptions by uncovering examples of family firms which survived the whole of the I9th century and which played a vital part in urban development during this period. This article uses the example of a local family firm as a way of uncovering the links between family, business and community, and investigating how the enmeshing of these three elements served to provide a level of respectability which underpinned its business activities, as well as a means of gaining positions of authority within the community for family members.

RESIDENTIAL CONTINUITY AND PROBLEMS OF MEASUREMENT IN ALDINGTON, KENT, 1801-1851

Michael Anderson, in his study of families in the past, refers to what he sees as the myth of ‘the stable community in which most of the population grew up and grew old together’. The hypothesis of this paper is that there was a core of older inhabitants in the Kent rural village of Aldington in the middle of the I9th century who had lived all or most of their lives there. This article therefore sets out to establish the extent of residential continuity in Aldington by looking at those inhabitants who were aged 50 or over at the time of the I85I census by using the I84I and I85I census enumerators’ books, parish registers and other local records. Whilst a majority, and a substantial majority at that, of parishioners did move on, a significant minority remained in the one parish throughout their lives.

CHILDREN OF THE STREETS: RESCUE, REFORM AND THE FAMILY IN LEEDS, 1850-1914

Attempts to rescue and reform destitute, orphaned and street children - the ‘waifs and strays’ of the new urban environment - led to a proliferation of children’s homes and welfare organizations in the second half of the I9th century. Local studies enable us to build up a detailed profile of the individuals involved from a grass-roots level. Using a study of Leeds, this article sketches the motives and aspirations of, on the one hand, philanthropists and, on the other, of parents and children enmeshed in what was a complex and ad hoc system. ‘Welfare’ was not simply a rigid mechanism that was imposed on the urban poor; from a local perspective it can be viewed as a relationship, albeit an unequal one. The institution of the children’s home could provide an important strategy for family survival in a world of limited choices.

THE SHINERS: FRAMEWORK-KNITTING HOUSEHOLDS IN NOTTINGHAMSHIRE AND DERBYSHIRE, 1840-1890

Following research by a number of scholars, this article explores the structure of the proto-industrial household as a work unit. The data is used to test the theory of the ‘adaptive family economy’ formulated by Richard Wall. It reviews the evidence for the division of the framework-knitting trade into high quality and cheaper branches, and its impact on rural households. The analysis centres on two rural framework-knitting communities in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire in the second half of the I9th century. It examines, through government reports and census enumerators’ books, a ‘self exploitative’ family strategy, as well as factors which made for the ‘family wage economy’ model.

A QUAKER PERSPECTIVE ON MIGRATION: AMPTHILL AND HITCHIN PREPARATIVE MEETINGS, 1811-1840

Our current knowledge of migration is limited by the sources used. Through the use of Quaker records, including ‘removal certificates’, it is possible to provide a new perspective on migration in the early I9th century. The Quaker interest in recording and managing their own affairs has produced records whose comprehensiveness is unparalleled. The use of the detailed Quaker ‘removal certificates’ enables the investigation of actual migrations in a period for too long overlooked. This study focuses on two local or Preparative Meetings to examine whether short-distance migration was the dominant form among Quakers, who were part of an extensive but closely knit Society. Comparisons with Friedlander and Roshier (I966), Pooley and Turnbull (I998) and Anderson (I97I) illustrate that Quakers were a special case with only IO per cent migrating less than 30 miles.

H.F. Verwoerd: Foundational aspects of his thought

This article is an attempt to highlight the foundations of the thought of the influential South African leader, H.F. Verwoerd, as implicitly contained in his published writings. Verwoerd has been characterised as the “architect of apartheid", but this is an exaggeration, since he found the basic principles of apartheid ready-made when he emerged as a leader. From Western tradition Verwoerd inherited a particular respect for rationality, which in his case became a stringent application of the principle of one people ("volk"), one state; conceiving of a people in organic terms reminiscent of the republicanism of Rousseau. In his views on development he appears to have been aligned to the dualistic theories of development, which accorded welt with the separation o f races. This view was complemented by a belief in inevitable progress reminiscent of 18th and I9th century Western tradition, which blinded him to the suffering his belief in apartheid as progress was causing. Education was also conceived of as serving the needs of the ethnic group; a totalitarian approach embedded in the idea of an organic unity of the people.