A Tale of Two Train Journeys: Lawrence Bragg,C. P. Snow and The ‘Two Cultures’

It was during two train-journey meetings with the physicist William Lawrence Bragg (1890–1971) that both Charles Percy Snow's (1905–1980) civil service career and, if the anecdotal evidence is to be believed, the ‘two cultures’ metaphor originated. The first part of this paper is concerned with the background, consequences and significance of the first of these journeys: Kettering station in 1939. It will address the somewhat hazy record of Snow's wartime work found in existing accounts, and argue that Snow's wartime experience helped shape his characterisation of the scientific side of his ‘two cultures’. The second part of this paper deals with Bragg's intellectual influence on Snow, tracing the former's interest in ‘two cultures’ arguments prior to probable encounters between the two on the Cambridge to London train in the late 1940s and early 1950s, including a historically hazy one in which together they allegedly coined the famous phrase. In examining their early relationship, it becomes clear that Bragg was a key influence and support in Snow's career as an administrator and as a cultural commentator.     

‘Westward on the high-hilled plains’: the literature of Shropshire and the early twentieth century imagination, 1896–c.1939

This article explores English national identities in the early twentieth century through the regional case study of Shropshire. Building on existing research on English regions, this article addresses the scarcity of border case studies. I argue that Shropshire was perceived as a border region that, at the same time as being incorporated into the model of the South Country, was also powerfully shaped by its proximity to Wales. Shropshire was valued as an escape from commercial modernity through its countryside landscapes, as a gateway to the past through its buildings, place-names, and folk customs, as a borderland of medieval conflict with Wales, and as a mysterious region of superstitions and the supernatural. This article suggests that the motifs and themes which worked through the images of ‘Shropshire’ and ‘England’ supported an imagination of diversity, multiplicity and contradiction—not solely one of national unity.     

‘Reconciled gradually to the system of indoor relief’: the poor law in wales during the ‘crusade against out-relief’, c. 1870 – c. 1890

Evidence is growing that Wales was a distinctive ‘welfare region’ under the New Poor Law. Higher rates of out-relief, tense relations with London and a deep dislike of the workhouse system marked the Principality out as different. This article considers Welsh distinctiveness in the context of the ‘crusade against out-relief’. Launched in the early 1870s, the crusade saw out-relief numbers tumble nationally. Little is known about the crusade in Wales but it is often assumed that it was a non-event. It is argued here that this is entirely incorrect. Official statistics reveal that tens of thousands of outdoor paupers in Wales had their relief stopped. Crusaders were successful partly due to the misleading way the Poor Law inspectorate used official figures to portray Wales as a district on the brink of crisis. The turning of outdoor paupers into ‘folk devils’ by sections of the Welsh press was also pivotal. Welsh distinctiveness was not eradicated during the crusade, but it was eroded.     

‘A Rather Undefined Social Position and Public Recognition’: Professionalisation,Status and Masculinity in Provincial Museums,c.1870–1930

This article examines the background, careers and self-presentation of the first generation of British museum curators in local government-funded provincial museums, c.1900, to explore the issue of masculinity among the lower-middle classes. It argues that while such men were sometimes mocked for the lack of masculinity they showed in their domestic lives, a focus on their professional lives reveals a different set of problems facing them as they attempted to be manly men; curatorial roles, like others available to the lower-middle classes, involved a dependence on local elites, and required many of the skills and attributes which were being colonised by new women professionals. The study then examines the tactics used, with some success, by such men to assert a professional masculinity, focusing on their identification with their museum, their development of a professional body and their investment in manly physical activities.     

The ‘Sleepiness’ of George Sarawia: The Impact of Disease on the Melanesian Mission at Mota,c. 1870–1900

George Sarawia, ordained in 1873 as the Melanesian Mission’s first Indigenous priest, was a pioneering figure in the mission’s plans for an Indigenous-led Anglican Church in the region. Sarawia founded Kohimarama, a mission station on Mota in the Banks Islands, Vanuatu, where he taught Mota Islanders and hosted visiting teachers and clergy. By the 1890s, some of the European missionaries had become critical of Sarawia and his flock on Mota, underlining their ‘natural, sleepy condition’ and recommending more intensive European supervision. This article will explore the role of epidemic and endemic disease, as well as the shortage of water on Mota, in creating substantial challenges for Sarawia and his mission. As he grew more incapacitated in later life, these challenges were insufficiently acknowledged by Sarawia’s critics.     

Mr. Ely’s amendment: Massachusetts Federalists and the politicization of slave representation

Responding to state electoral losses in 1804, Massachusetts Federalists vehemently pursued an antislavery measure called the Ely amendment, which sought to end the three-fifths clause. Despite failure to pass the Ely amendment, opposition to the three-fifths compromise became central to Federalist politics through the Missouri crisis in 1820. Federalists participating in the Missouri debates chose to let Republican politicians lead the opposition to slavery’s expansion after putting forth their critique of the three-fifths clause. Yet Federalists’ repeated attempts to pass the Ely amendment ensured that a generation of Massachusetts citizens connected the three-fifths clause with southern domination.     

The rhetoric of science and the critique of imperialism in British social anthropology,c. 1870–1940

In this article I discuss issues of memory and historicity in a contemporary African prophetic movement, the Tokoist church. I do so by focusing on the multiple processes of “biographization” of the prophet’s (Simão Toko) life from the different allegiances within the movement. I suggest that, despite recent critiques on the biographical method, the ethnography of those (unstable and heterogeneous) processes can be very helpful to understand the place of memory and historical consciousness in contemporary Christianity.     

Character, ‘Ordered Liberty’, and the Mission to Civilise: British Moral Justification of Empire, 1870–1914

In a path-breaking study of the thought of Sir Henry Maine, Karuna Mantena has recently argued that the overthrow, in the second half of the nineteenth century, of the liberal imperialism promoted by Macaulay and James Mill meant that the ‘civilising mission’ became a mere alibi for continued British rule in the empire and that it was drained of all moral content. The article demonstrates, using a wide range of contemporary sources, that, although many British imperialists thought that Asian and African civilisations might never progress to the point of enjoying constitutional government, they did believe that it was the purpose of British rule to bring to their colonial subjects the benefits of what they called ‘ordered liberty’. This they saw as the foundation of Britain's own greatness and as essentially a moral force. Nonetheless, the article goes on to show that one purpose of the civilising mission was to strengthen empire sentiment at home, and thus to underwrite the moral authority of the gentlemanly elites who ran it. The latter feared that the advent of democracy in Britain might otherwise undermine ordered liberty at home and weaken the commitment to the imperial cause.     

THE END OF A ‘NATIONAL’ DEFENCE INDUSTRY?: Impacts of globalization on the Swedish defence industry

In this article, the author scrutinizes the impacts of globalization on the Swedish national defence industry prompted by the end of the Cold War through the 1990s. Through analysing the data from international, Swedish government and industrial sources, the author establishes that the Swedish defence industry, due to its overreliance on arms exports as a result of post-Cold War globalization, has become increasingly irrelevant to Swedish defence needs. We may see the end of a ‘national’ defence industry in the Swedish case. The author further argues that overreliance on arms exports to extra-European markets leads to the erosion of Swedish national security and Swedish defence readiness. The author concludes that multinational business-interest analysis is needed to generate a closer examination of the export-oriented Swedish defence industry in the context of globalization.     

A Philosophical Experiment: The Wilberforce Memorial School for the Blind c.1833–1870

This article utilises a case study of the Wilberforce Memorial School for the Blind in York to argue for a more nuanced approach to the history of residential schooling. The early date of the school highlights both the novelty and ambition of its programme. The school's management and the opportunities it offered its pauper and working-class intake contradict the view of the institution as a site of social oppression. Nonetheless considerations of class, gender and funding are seen as dictating and circumscribing the curriculum. The role of the school in educating the wider public concerning the blind and their capabilities is also discussed.