The Rushenden Estate,Queenborough, Kent: An Early British Industrial Estate

Abstract

Queenborough, a town with origins as a medieval planted settlement on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, is set for major redevelopment over the coming years as part of the regeneration of the Thames Gateway region. English Heritage has produced an Historic Area Appraisal,¹ and, in the course of its research, documents relating to a hitherto obscure Edwardian industrial estate came to light. Laid out from 1904, the Rushenden Estate is significant because it was one of the first factory estates in the wake of Trafford Park, Manchester (1896), widely acknowledged as Britain's² — or even the world's³ — world's first industrial estate. Despite some economic history analyses and studies of individual sites, the subject of early industrial estates is surprisingly incomplete. Using material evidence derived from documentary research and fieldwork, this paper describes the evolution and growth of the Rushenden Estate, placing it in regional and typological contexts and within the milieu of the 'Second Industrial Revolution'.     

News and Short Contributions

Abstract

Temporal and spatial patterns of faunal, floral, and ceramic deposition reveal several aspects of household and village economy at Tell el-Hayyat, Jordan. Hayyat was a modest farming hamlet (0.5 ha) with 100–150 inhabitants, which was occupied in six major phases between ca. 2100 and 1500 B.C. This timespan covers the entire Middle Bronze Age, commonly considered the heyday of early urbanism in the southern Levant. Ethnographic and ancient historical exa1nples of agrarian villages in SW Asia include settlements administered by crown or temple estates, held as private property by elite families or absentee landlords, or owned collectively by resident villagers. Data drawn from Tell el-Hayyat Phases 5,4, and 3 (dating to Middle Bronze IIA and IIB) suggest some changes toward a commercially-oriented rural economy, as might be anticipated for villages held by institutional or private estates. Most of the Hayyat data, however, suggest trends toward enhanced economic autonomy, as expected for a collectively owned community. Tell el-Hayyat exemplifies the economic resilience of Levantine villages in the face of developing Middle Bronze Age town and city life.     

Economic Expansion in Central Greece in the Eleventh Century

Abstract

A familiar orthodoxy in Byzantine history is that the empire's economy began to stagnate in the eleventh century. It was a turning-point marked by the development of large estates at the expense of independent peasants and the onset of demographic decline. The demographic trend has been much discussed and generally pessimistic conclusions have been reached. Recently, Lemerle has asserted that the labour force was less plentiful than land. This view has been questioned by Lefort who uses evidence from the archive of Iberon to suggest that population was increasing from the eleventh century. This paper examines the problem in another region, using the Theban tax-register as evidence that agricultural production was intensified in the eleventh century, a clear sign of an increase in population.     

Whig Party Fortunes in the Yorkshire County Election of 1708

Abstract

The impact of State intervention in rural education was not to supplant the role of the aristocracy and gentry in providing schooling for those who lived on their estates. Rather it brought about a partnership between evolving State policy on the one hand and continuing propertied paternalism on the other. This article argues that the point of conjunction in the partnership occurred through the acquisition of government grants that were, throughout the period, linked to evolving conditionality. The responsibility for obtaining and maintaining school grants expanded the roles of landowners, as they became school managers as well as benefactors. Through the use of school logbooks these dual roles will be illustrated to show the complex relationship that some landowners in Northumberland had with their village schools which primarily focused on fulfilling the criteria for gaining government finance.     

SURVIVAL AND BETTERMENT: THE ASPIRATIONS OF FOUR MEDIEVAL GENTRY FAMILIES AS REVEALED IN THEIR LETTERS

Abstract

Covering the period 1290–1584, the Paston, Plumpton, Cely and Stonor letters, although for the most part ‘business letters’, concerned with the administration of their households and estates, nevertheless throw fascinating light on aspects of contemporary society. They reveal that the lives of those who strove to survive and prosper as landowning gentry were played out against a background of civil war, violent Scottish incursions over the northern borders, and military reversals in France. Closer to home, they struggled with predatory lords, tight-fisted dowagers, disgruntled sons, wretched daughters and bitterly contested wills.

Faced with many imponderables, they marshalled their defences: judicious marriages and kinship networks, compliant children, the patronage of influential magnates – perhaps even of the king himself, such protection as was afforded by the law and unceasing vigilance.

Parental affection and true love and devotion also find welcome expression among what were severely practical concerns.     

The Industrial Archaeology of Agriculture: Rural Life Collections and the National Trust

Abstract

The National Trust has acquired, by virtue of its extensive countryside land holding, a large number of sites which demonstrate much of the history and development of agriculture in Britain. This paper will provide a summary review of the range of such sites, including farms and vernacular farmsteads with their wide range of specialist activities, the 'model' industrialised farms of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries often associated with country house estates, and the sites where the processing of agricultural products took place, particularly watermills, windmills, and textile producing works. Reference will also be made to some of the rural life collections, including agricultural machinery and other artefacts which the Trust owns. This paper cannot be comprehensive, but will seek to raise some of the issues which the curation of such a diverse collection raises.     

JERUSALEM'S HINTERLAND IN THE EIGHTH–SEVENTH CENTURIES BCE: TOWNS,VILLAGES, FARMSTEADS,AND ROYAL ESTATES

Abstract

Although many excavations and extensive surveys were carried out in the vicinity of Jerusalem, very few systematic attempts were made to analyse the Iron Age city's hinterland in its entirety. The present article summarises some of the general results of a detailed study of the area around Jerusalem, identifies the territories of the city's ‘daughters’ (satellite towns), and then focuses on two such units, in which settlement distribution was markedly different from other units: Moza and Ramat Ra?el. The article concludes that most of the territory around Jerusalem belonged to organically developed towns, the territories of which were densely dotted with villages and (mainly) farmsteads. Moza and Ramat Ra?el, however, functioned in the late Iron Age II (7th century bce) as royal estates (perhaps even as a palatial estate in the latter case), responsible for both the production and storage of surplus.     

A Lost Swaledale Vaccary and a Palimpsest of Place-Names

Abstract

The management of the large estates of the bishopric of Durham and the dean and chapter of the cathedral is examined, in particular with regard to agricultural improvement, and compared with the practice of some large secular landowners in the county. The ecclesiastical authorities did not farm any of their land themselves, but let it to a variety of tenants, important and small. The system of ecclesiastical leases is examined. Leaseholders enjoyed lower rents than most tenants of secular landowners, and a very high degree of security. The terms of the leases hardly changed over the century, and gave little scope for influence over the way the land was farmed. It was possible to abate renewal fines as a reward for improvements made by tenants. This was done, but not systematically. But the system cannot be described as a barrier to progress, as was sometimes charged. Leaseholders could make improvements, and profit at least as well as secular tenants. In the management of urban and industrial property, where the bishopric and the cathedral chapter could act and benefit directly, greater energy was shown.     

'A Conservative Welchman': Simon Yorke III and the Erddig Estate

Abstract

At one time, 19^th century Wales was viewed as a battleground between landlord and tenant. This view, inherited from the struggle at the time between Nonconformist Liberals and Anglican Tories, has become modified as particular estates are studied in more detail. In particular, studies located in areas beyond the most intense conflict can widen our perspective. In this article, the case study of Simon Yorke, a landlord in the north-east of the country, is used to show how landlord and tenants could divide along the fault lines of religion and politics but still live for the most part without open disagreement. Examples of tenancies are used to show how the relationship between the two parties was managed. The location and the economy of this particular estate may have contributed to a relative absence of external pressures, but the comparative harmony of Simon Yorke and his tenants may also in the long run turn out to be as typical as the better-known cases of conflict and mistrust.     

Tackling Social Exclusion

Abstract

The opening words of the 1999 report of the government's Social Exclusion Unit, Bringing Britain Together announced that it met its remit to report to the Prime Minister on how to: ‘develop integrated and sustainable approaches to the problems of the worst housing estates, including crime, drugs, unemployment, community breakdown, and bad schools etc.’ In other words the Social Exclusion Unit was instructed to take a problem-solving approach to the issue. This approach meant that the development of an inclusive society would be understood implicitly in terms of dealing with those areas that are perceived as problems. This seems to suggest that social exclusion ‘just happens’ to people who ‘suffer from’ a collection of problems. The agent or agents of this exclusion are rendered invisible by the very linguistic structure of the definition. This paper argues that it is vital to envisage the agents and victims of exclusion and to describe it in terms of the relationship of face to face. A critique drawing upon the insights of Emmanuel Levinas would refuse to allow us to reduce the otherness of the socially excluded to a project defined in the terms of those who exercise power in social relations. Nor would it allow a definition of social exclusion in terms of it being either ‘their’ problem or the consequence of some impersonal force. A theological critique might lead us to argue that the whole project of problem solving when applied to persons is in and of itself highly suspect. Thus the paper concludes by considering what shape might develop from the bringing of insights from philosophical and theological discourses to this perception of social exclusion. It seeks to argue for a radical passivity before the face of the Other (that is in this case those who live in urban housing estates) arguing that those who engage with social exclusion, the ‘name’ that has been given to this face, are first summoned by the Other to a relationship of total responsibility which rejects the reductionist project of the controlling ‘I’.     

Houselot Refuse Disposal and Geochemistry at a Late 19th Century Hacienda Village in Yucatán,Mexico

Abstract

In the 19th century, an increasing percentage of the rural, Maya-descent population in Yucatán, Mexico, became tied to hacienda estates through legally sanctioned debt peonage. Recent investigations at Hacienda Tabi, a pre-revolutionary sugar plantation in the peninsula's Puuc region, shed light on non-architectural domestic spaces occupied by debt peons. Spatial distributions of ceramic debris and soil phosphorus concentrations in four houselots approximate models of waste management in contemporary domestic settings. The size sorting of inorganic refuse, in particular, is a consistent indicator of patio zones. The data suggest that houselot structure under conditions of forced labor was not appreciably different from what has been documented for independent subsistence farmers in Mesoamerica. Nevertheless, discard patterns at Tabi suggest that some lots were more intensively maintained than others, and this variation may be related to population density or workforce stratification. The site's good state of preservation, resulting in part from a relatively short period of occupation and a rapid abandonment event, facilitates the study of cultural formation processes in domestic contexts of the northern Maya Lowlands.     

The Life and Career of Sir William Plumpton from 1404 to 1480

Abstract

Plumpton, an ardent Lancastrian, received protection and patronage from the Percies and was loyal to them throughout his life. He enjoyed exceptional local power from 1438 to 1460 as steward of the Honour of Knaresborough. He served as a JP, an MP, sheriff, and steward of Northumberland's Spofforth and other estates in Yorkshire, as well as overseeing his own lands in four counties. Detailed study of the Knaresborough court rolls and Duchy of Lancaster records led to a re-examination of the dating and interpretation of his officeholding and career, particularly in the 1460s and 1470s. He did not regain the stewardship in 1460s, as was believed, but was re-instated in 1471; he was replaced within a few years, probably because of corruption. Principal officeholders at Knaresborough, 1438–1500, are listed, and further unpublished material includes cases which the litigious Plumpton initiated in King's Bench from 1461. His attitudes, often cheating and ruthless, to friends and family, are examined, and his career compared with those of other members of the gentry; Plumpton's status is examined, this being aided by the findings from a rare unpublished fifteenth-century subsidy roll.     

The Chronology of the Last Scandinavian Kings of York,AD 937–954

Abstract

The Cistercian Abbey of Holm Cultram was a twelfth-century royal foundation of Prince Henry, son of King David I when this part of northern England was under Scottish control. The abbey developed a successful network of benefactors spanning both sides of the Border. It was also effective in developing positive relationships with key ecclesiastical figures including Bishop Christian of Whithorn and bishops of Glasgow. The economic strength of the abbey was derived from wool, salt and fish production. In 1193, a daughter house named Grey Abbey was founded in Ulster. The benefits of the frontier location were cut short with the onset of the wars in the 1290s. Holm Cultram Abbey found itself on the path of the marching armies and had to provide supplies and lodgings. When the estates of the abbey and the precinct were attacked by the Scots on several occasions in the fourteenth century, the community turned to the English kings for compensation. On other occasions the abbots did not hesitate to pay ransom to prevent damages to the abbey. Not only the economic difficulties brought by the war, but also loss of contact with the mother house of Melrose and Scottish benefactors more generally, altered the character of Holm Cultram, which became a much more English institution when the cross-Border networks were cut off.     

Chancellors,Presidents and Speakers: Presiding Officers in the Scottish Parliament before the Restoration*

As a unicameral assembly for most of its history, the Scottish parliament was presided over by the chief officer of state, the chancellor. Before 1603, he presided in the presence of the monarch, who was an active participant in parliaments, in contrast to the custom in England. After the union of the crowns, the chancellor presided in the presence of the monarch's representative, the king's commissioner. As with the Speaker and the lord chancellor in the English parliament, it was customary for him to operate as an agent of the crown. He also presided over the drafting committee, the lords of the articles. During parliamentary sessions, there were also semi-formal deliberative meetings of the individual estates (prelates, nobles, burgesses and, from 1592, ‘barons’, that is, lairds sitting as commissioners of the shires), each presided over by one of their own number. The Covenanting revolution of 1638 led to radical procedural reform. This included replacing the chancellor with an elected ‘president’ (Latin preses), chosen by the membership at the beginning of each session. With separate meetings of the estates becoming a formal part of parliament's procedures, there was an elected president for each estate, sometimes referred to as ‘Speakers’ for they would speak for their estates in plenary sessions of parliament.     

Cellular Automata for Studying Historical Spatial Process of Traditional Settlements Based on Gaussian Mixture Model: A Case Study of Qiaoxiang Village in Southern China

ABSTRACT

The spatial evolution of traditional rural settlements is a natural process that occurs without professional development planning. With rural spatial organization now being stimulated by China’s economic structure adjustment, making top-down plans match bottom-up spatial principles is important for the continuity of rural communities. In this research, a Cellular automaton based model was introduced to describe the historical spatial rules of rural settlements based on a traditional village in Southern China. In order to reproduce the rural spatial characteristics and laws that were close to the actual situation truthfully and distinctly, in this model, we refined the growth process into three cyclical steps, and used a Multivariate Gaussian Mixture Model for the evaluation of spatial transition potential. Through historical simulation, evaluation of the current status, and future spatial predictions, results showed that: (1) the growth during the whole spatial process maintained logical consistency for optimal selection; (2) certain houses in the southeast region should be carefully protected as a core living culture exhibit, while the best utilization of other homes should be considered; and (3) the most probable region of growth for tourist services or new housing estates is scattered along the river in the central area of the village.     

Forts or agricultural estates? Persian period settlement in the territories of the former kingdom of Judah

ABSTRACT

The territories of the former kingdom of Judah were only sparsely settled during the Persian period, as exemplified by the extreme rarity of domestic structures unearthed in excavations. Viewed against this background, the large number of excavated forts and isolated administrative buildings from this period is remarkable, and they apparently outnumber the period's excavated dwellings. Not only is this an extremely unlikely situation, but various lines of evidence, pertaining to specific sites as well as to the phenomenon as a whole, render the possibility that all these structures were forts or administrative buildings re-examines implausible. Consequently, this article reexamines the phenomenon within the social landscape of the region in particular, and of the Achaemenid empire in general, in an attempt to embed those unique buildings within the broader demographic and political reality of this time. Given the location of many of the sites and the finds unearthed in them, and in light of the demographic reality in the region and of the broader Achaemenid imperial policy, the article suggests that most of the so-called forts were estates, created in the process of the resettlement of this previously devastated region.     

英国近代贵族大地产论略

近代英国经济的特征之一是贵族大地产的兴盛。从17世纪晚期至19世纪中期,为数不多的贵族始终占有相当份额的地产。甚至就整个欧洲而言,英国贵族大地产的规模和影响也格外突出。英国贵族地产大多是采用资本主义方式经营的,它在一定时期内适应着英国的生产力发展。英国近代贵族阶级长期占有大量地产,既有历史原因,也有社会政治因素;属于封建主义残余的贵族财产等级制和长子继承制,对维护贵族阶级大地产制也起着重要作用。     

Development and Differentiation in the Post-Independence Era: Continuity or Change in ARDA-Sanyati Irrigation in Zimbabwe (1980–1990)

Abstract

The Agricultural and Rural Development Authority (ARDA), formerly known as the Tribal Trust Land Development Corporation (TILCOR), is a state agency which manages all the settler or outgrower schemes adjacent to its estates. In Sanyati, the colonial government endeavoured to secure the plotholders on the Gowe Irrigation Scheme but after independence emphasis was on making Gowe a ‘self-provisioning’ asset. With reference to Gowe-Sanyati, this paper explores development and differentiation processes in an attempt to discern elements of continuity or change in ARDA-Sanyati irrigation. The reactions of the Gowe irrigators to state policies that proscribed accumulation are a manifestation of the tension which was informed by Rhodesian-era evictions and resettlements. In pursuance of accumulation the plotholding households in Gowe were reluctant to perpetually serve as a labour repository of the main irrigation estate.

Government interventionist policies in the Sanyati schemes are examined. The paper argues that the availability of technical, financial and other resources after independence contributed to the cotton boom and an intensified commercialisation drive which gave rise to greater forms of differentiation compared with the colonial period. In addition, the paper analyses the tenuous or fragile relationships between the plotholders and the estate. The major bone of contention was the inadequacy of the plots allocated to the farmers and the highly detested lease agreement which hindered accumulation. Inconsistencies with people's aspirations after independence led to a ‘crisis of expectations’ among those who believed independence would bring more land and no charge (land rent) for utilising the land. Although various charges impoverished the growers, the paper argues that poverty did not preclude differentiation as distinct categories of resource-rich and resource-poor plotholders emerged in the post-independence era.     

中国大城市保障房社区的邻里效应研究——以广州市保障房周边社区为例

随着我国保障房建设速度的加快,保障房社区将对已有的城市社会空间结构带来深刻影响,其社会效应亟需深入探讨。本文以邻里效应为切入点,基于社区调研数据,采用因子分析、回归分析和质性研究方法,研究广州市保障房社区对周边社区的影响,以及这种影响的形成机制。研究发现,保障房社区并没有为周边社区带来负面的影响,也不存在"贫困同质化"的现象。然而,保障房居民与周边社区居民缺乏人际交往,其社会融合度也比较低。结果表明,提升保障房社区的社会认同度,消除不同社区居民相互间的隔阂,对构建和谐社区具有重要的意义。