Rebuilding the Great Britain Historical GIS,Part 1: Building an Indefinitely Scalable Statistical Database

Abstract

The Great Britain Historical Geographical Information System (GIS) has been rebuilt around a single central table holding all statistics in one column, currently containing 14,541,491 data values. This architecture enables extremely flexible data handling, but requires that the context of each data value be captured entirely as metadata. Statistical reporting areas are defined via an ontology of administrative units, in which hierarchical relationships are compulsory while boundary polygons are optional. What a number measures is recorded via a relational implementation of the Data Documentation Initiative standard, locating each value within an n-dimensional matrix, or nCube, whose dimensions are variables such as age, gender, and occupation. The data library can be extended to additional countries or more statistical topics without adding any database tables.     

Australian Defence Awareness and German Naval Planning in the Pacific, 1900–1914

Abstract

Australia has been re-echoing the alarm of Britain at finding herself out-Dreadnoughted by Germany, while Patriots … have waved cheques at club dinners … and Lord Mayors have intervened to save Great Britain.

Bulletin, 1 April 1909     

The Connolly Association,the Catholic Church,and anti-communism in Britain and Ireland during the early Cold War

ABSTRACT

During the Cold War era, the Connolly Association, an Irish republican socialist political organisation in Britain close to the Communist Party of Great Britain, was seen by British Communists as a potential means of winning recruits amongst Britain’s growing post-war Irish community. This view was shared by the Catholic Church, which, amidst the broader ideological atmosphere of the Cold War, placed an increased emphasis on anti-communism in the early post-war years. This article will discuss clerical opposition to the Connolly Association in early Cold War Britain and Ireland, drawing chiefly on diocesan archives and Catholic periodicals.     

Two flags in the sand: anti-Communism in early Cold War Northern Ireland

ABSTRACT

This article reveals how the Cold War impinged upon not just national, but local political considerations and became woven into communal narratives. It contributes to the examination of religion in the conflict, adds to the historiography of Britain and the Cold War, and provides a context by which British Cold War experience and responses can be assessed. With Northern Ireland’s political similarities to Great Britain, its consistency with European norms and its overlaps with popular sentiment in the United States, Northern Ireland offers a gauge to better understand the nature of anti-Communism in the Cold War’s first decade and offers an unexplored perspective on the conflict.     

Illustrating the Phaenomena: Celestial Cartography in Antiquity and the Middle Ages

Abstract

The Ordnance Survey's Boundary Survey, carried out between 1841 and 1888, was a major undertaking which resulted in the local administrative boundaries of the whole of Great Britain being reliably mapped for the first time. This was not achieved by imposition but by the use of local knowledge of boundaries, thus making permanent a communal memory of administrative geography and rendering it globally accessible through maps. The Boundary Survey aided the reform of local government areas, a process which started during the same period and provided derived data for the burgeoning collection of statistics in the nineteenth century.     

The Board of Deputies of British Jews and the initial phase of the Italian Racial Laws: reactions and strategies (1938–1940)

ABSTRACT

This article aims to reconstruct the activities of the Board of Jewish Deputies, the central representative body of British Jewry, in support of the Italian Jews affected by the Fascist Racial Laws of 1938. By analysing the institution’s documents and examining the most widely read Jewish newspaper in the U.K., the Jewish Chronicle, this research investigates how the initial phase of the Italian anti-Semitic campaign was received in Great Britain, and what measures were put in place by British Jewry in their attempts to help the Italian Jews. The Jewish historian, Cecil Roth, played an important role during this phase, in active collaboration with the leadership of the Board and the staff of the Jewish Chronicle, gathering as much information as possible on Italy and its history in order to shed light on the events that were taking place during the first years of the Racial Laws and until the entrance of Italy into WWII (1938–1940). The involvement of certain members of the Foreign Office with links to the Board, and the shared goal of helping Italian Jewry, was also fundamental in this period.     

Excavations on the site of the Great Western Steamship Company’s Engine Works,Bristol

Abstract

Archaeological investigations on the site of the former Great Western Steamship Company’s Engine Works (1839–52) at the Great Western Dockyard, Bristol have revealed elements of the world’s first purpose-built integrated iron steamship works, created specifically to build Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s iron-hulled SS Great Britain. Its innovative engine and transmission gear were made in the Engine Works, a building of monumental design which demonstrated early use of both Portland Cement and gas lighting. Ultimately, the steamship works proved a failure and later uses of the Engine Works building included a tannery and a warehouse, before it was largely destroyed during air raids in the Second World War.     

TELEGRAPHY AND TELEPHONES

Abstract

This paper surveys the emergence of the era of electrical communications, from its beginnings in the 1830s through to the end of analogue technology. The electric telegraph soon became an essential and visible business tool with its network of poles and wires, but it is argued that, as each system was supplanted by the next, the evidence of its existence soon disappeared. The telegraph equipment manufacturers have not necessarily survived either, and a case study of the history of Reid Brothers, Engineers Ltd is given by way of example. Little evidence of the electric telegraph’s built environment now remains in Britain. When the telephone was introduced in Britain in the late 1870s, it was seen by the Post Office as a threat to its monopoly control of the inland electric telegraph system, and a court action which the Post Office won in 1880 had a retarding effect on the development of a national telephone network. The telephone exchange buildings and trunk lines became more prominent than those of the telegraph, but technological improvements caused the open-wire pole routes gradually to disappear. The Post Office created a characteristic architectural style for its buildings, but the independent telephone undertaking in Kingston upon Hull remained distinctively different in this respect. Wireless telegraphy and radio telephony imposed their own new look on the countryside, but this too has disappeared in turn. The author concludes that selected preservation of the buildings and artefacts of superseded telecommunications systems is important for a full understanding of the technology.     

Between resentment and aid: German and Austrian psychiatrist and neurologist refugees in Great Britain since 1933

ABSTRACT

This article is a historiographical exploration of the experiences that German and Austrian émigré psychiatrists and neurologists made in Great Britain since 1933, after the Nazi Governments in Central Europe had ousted them from their positions. When placing these occurrences in a wider historiographical perspective, the in-depth analysis provided here also describes the living and working conditions of the refugee neuroscientists on the British Isles. In particular, it looks at the very elements and issues that influenced the international forced migration of physicians and psychiatrists during the 1930s and 1940s. Only a fraction of refugee neuroscientists had however been admitted to Britain. Those lucky ones were assisted by a number of charitable, local, and academic organizations. This article investigates the rather lethargic attitude of the British government and medical circles towards German-speaking Jewish refugee neuroscientists who wished to escape Nazi Germany. It will also analyze the help that those refugees received from the academic establishment and British Jewish organizations, while likewise examining the level and extent of the relationship between social and scientific resentments in Great Britain. A special consideration will be given to the aid programs that had already began in the first year after the Nazis had seized power in Germany, with the foundation of the British Assistance Council by Sir William Henry Beveridge (1879–1963) in 1933.     

‘China-ware in the skies’: overlapping identities in the ornamental use of plates in Uruguay

Abstract

This is the study of a church where tableware manufactured in Great Britain was used to decorate the façade in the early 19th century. An argument is made that this one surviving case points to a larger regional tradition, now lost, whose greatest exponent was Montevideo Cathedral, Uruguay. The hypothesis presented here is that the use of British plates in religious façades shortly before the South American Wars of Independence was part of a search for identity in a region trying to break away from Spain, and in the process of becoming a small republic between the two larger countries of Argentina and Brazil.     

“A German Bred Revolt”: the Manchester Guardian’s perceptions of the Irish Easter Rising, 1916

ABSTRACT

At the time of the Easter Rising of 1916 Britain had been engaged in the Great War against Germany for almost two years and on a scale and intensity previously unprecedented. This broader Great War backdrop is significant when analysing the 1916 Easter Rising, as it not only influenced the events which occurred in Dublin, but also the interpretation and presentation of the political violence. Despite the Easter Rising being well-documented in secondary literature, with a resurgence accounted for by its recent centenary, the British press and its portrayals of the events of 1916 has been one aspect which has not received as much scholarly attention. By analysing key stages in the uprising’s portrayal, it can be determined that the Manchester Guardian’s utilisation of the German connection had a two-fold implication. Utilising historical precedents of German-Irish “friendship”, such as the gun-running episodes of pre-War 1914, the newspaper justified its portrayal of Germany provoking violence in Ireland to disrupt British war efforts. Additionally, for the Manchester Guardian, the Irish rebels were depicted negatively in its articles as it attempted to halt the growth of republicanism, thereby ensuring the promotion of a more “moderate” form of nationalism.     

The development of all-metal water towers

Abstract

This paper discusses the development in Britain and Ireland of all-metal water towers as used for water supply. Although concentrating on those provided for bulk public water supplies, an outline is given of parallel developments, especially in railway engineering, during the 19th century. After 1900, panel tanks formed of steel flanged plates generally supplanted earlier forms of tank construction found on water towers and it was not until the 1950s that other, more pleasing, styles came to be erected, although these found little favour in the water industry and few were ever built. The aesthetic and long-term maintenance problems associated with all-metal water towers are also considered. The data contained in this paper is part of a larger study into the development of all forms of water tower being undertaken by ICE's Panel for Historical Engineering Works.     

‘As imperialistic as our masters’? Relations between British and Irish communists, 1920–1941

ABSTRACT

Soon after its formation, the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was tasked by the Communist International with assisting their Irish comrades to develop their organisation. This article outlines the relations between British and Irish communists from 1920 to 1941 and argues that, notwithstanding the selfless work of some British communists, the CPGB on the whole exhibited a patronising and paternalistic demeanour towards the Irish that failed to consider the latter’s perspective on an equal footing to its own, even in their own affairs. This attitude, combined with its position within the heart of the British Empire, is indicative of ‘cultural imperialism’.     

A Review of Optimal Input Methods: Fixed Field,Free Field,and the Edited Text

Abstract

With the growth in interest in collective biography as a historical technique, many predominantly qualitative historians find themselves faced with large amounts of information. These data, collected from a variety of sources, are often highly irregular, making statistical analysis extremely problematic. Current practice is to ignore these problems and proceed with quantitative analysis suitable only for much more regular data. It is argued that a more satisfactory approach is to ascertain and directly confront the difficulties of analyzing such information. The three central problems are identified as missing data, systematic bias, and the lack of a representative sample. Using a practical example, the author explores the relationship between gender, the family, and political socialization within the Communist Party of Great Britain and shows how each of the issues can be dealt with in turn. The author first distinguishes truly missing data from “negative information,” which commonly appears to be missing in historical sources. He then stratifies the data to remove systematic biases relating to the issue at hand. Finally, he divides the sample into different populations, on the basis of the sources from which individuals are known, and compares the results obtained to examine whether his conclusions appear to depend on quirks of populations contained in the sources. These ideas open a new range of sources to quantitative analysis and raise the possibility of allowing new types of evidence to count in historical inquiry.     

Saltburn-by-the-Sea: The Early Years of a Stockton and Darlington Railway Company Venture

Abstract

There are throughout Great Britain numerous examples of nineteenth century new towns built on green field sites and in the north of England, for example, the names of Middlesbrough, West Hartlepool, Millom, Barrow and Silloth spring to mind. Saltburn-by-the-Sea on what was the coast of the North Riding of Yorkshire is of special interest in that, although a seaside resort, it was projected and built by the personalities who earlier had built the Stockton and Darlington Railway. This article attempts to describe the first twenty years of the existence of this new town, giving details of its physical development and indicating the struggle of the founders to make it a viable commercial enterprise.     

Review Articles

The United States Foreign Service. MARTIN WEIL. A Pretty Good Club: The Founding Fathers of the U.S. Foreign Service. New York: W.W. Norton & Company 1978. Pp. 313; RICHARD HUME WERKING. The Master Architects: Building the United States Foreign Service, 1890–1913. Lexington: The United Press of Kentucky 1977. Pp. xvi, 330; RACHEL WEST. The Department of State on the Eve of the First World War. Athens: The University of Georgia Press 1978. Pp. viii, 183. Reviewed by F.M. Carroll

Friends in Need, Allies in Competition. PETER LOWE. Great Britain and the Origins of the Pacific War: a Study of British Policy in East Asia, 1937–1941. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1977. Pp. 318; JAMES R. LEUTZE. Bargaining for Supremacy: Anglo-American Naval Collaboration, 1937–1941. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1977. Pp. 328; WILLIAM ROGER LOUIS. Imperialism at Bay 1941–1945: The United States and the Decolonisation of the British Empire. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1977. Pp. 595; CHRISTOPHER THORNE. Allies of a Kind: The United States, Britain, and the War against Japan, 1941–1945. London: Hamish Hamilton 1978. Pp. xxii, 772. Reviewed by T.B. Millar     

‘Are We Ready?’: Belgium and the Entente’s Military Planning for a War Against Germany, 1906–1914

Abstract

While historians have consistently focused on the development of German, French, and British planning in the years preceding the Great War, few have truly acknowledged neutral Belgium’s role in defining the strategic paradigm of 1914. Belgium held the strategic key to the opening salvos of a future Franco-German war, and each of its Guarantors were determined to obtain the initiative. While German planners were prepared to seize it by force, the Entente (particularly Britain), remained wary of its obligations. Instead, Britain sought to determine Belgian intentions and capabilities through secret and unbinding staff conversations in 1906 and 1912. The former proved useful in establishing a framework for co-operation but ultimately came to nothing. By the time they were resumed in 1912, Anglo-Belgian diplomatic relations had soured, while Belgium’s military reforms and its emergence as a colonial power gave it a renewed sense of confidence. Belgian officials were determined to retain the kingdom’s agency in the formulation of its defence policy and resented Entente suggestions of pre-emptive action. Neutrality was subordinated to independence, which itself could not be guaranteed were Belgium to conclude even the loosest of military accords. Consequently, Entente plans were forced surrender the strategic initiative to the Germans.     

The Suez Crisis of 1956 as a moment of transnational humanitarian engagement

Abstract

The Suez Crisis of 1956 is generally seen in historical research as a moment both of Great Britain’s imperial decline and of Egyptian and Arab political self-determination in the Middle East. Yet the humanitarian aspect of this crisis is still neglected, even though it provoked important humanitarian engagements from different sides, Arab as well as Western. By focusing on the Red Cross and the Red Crescent Movement, this article investigates not only motives, forms and structures of humanitarian relief, but also analyses the successes and difficulties of transnational co-operation between Western and non-Western agencies with a special focus on the application of the Geneva Conventions of 1949. Finally, the article addresses the political dimension beyond concrete forms of help by arguing that the Suez Crisis attested to both the persistence of post-colonial structures and the institutionalisation of new, transnational patterns of co-operation.     

Railway spine: The advent of compensation for concussive symptoms

ABSTRACT

The introduction of railway transportation in Great Britain in the early-nineteenth century saw an increased frequency of trauma cases involving persisting symptoms without objective evidence of injury. In 1866, a prominent surgeon, Sir John Eric Erichsen, attributed such symptoms to concussion of the spine (popularized as “railway spine”) that involved an organic pathology, inflammation of the spinal cord in the absence of spinal fracture, with potential psychological overlay. This was widely accepted within the medico-legal context throughout the 1870s, whereby passengers sought compensation for collision-related injuries. In 1883, a railway surgeon named Herbert William Page countered the assertion that many of Erichsen’s cases likely had sustained direct physical injury to the spine, the cord, and/or the spinal nerves; and in cases without such injury, the symptoms were psychogenic, as in traumatic neurasthenia and/or hysteria. Similarities between Erichsen’s and Page’s medico-legal positions, such as conscious and unconscious forms of symptom exaggeration that would both resolve upon settlement of the case, ushered in the era of medical injury compensation.