The Engineers of a Minor Port—Peterhead,Scotland, 1772-1872

Abstract

In the period when Britain's ports and harbours underwent major developments as the Industrial Revolution got underway, our leading civil engineers were much in demand, not just at the major centres of mercantile activity such as London or Glasgow, but also at numerous less important locations. In Scotland, improvements were encouraged by government grants through agencies such as the British Fisheries Society, and at Peterhead, the Town Council and the Harbour Trustees transformed its haven into a harbour of more than a purely local significance. Their success was partly due to their employment of some of the leading harbour engineers of the day.     

The Personal or the Partisan? The Politics of House Appropriations Amendments, 1985-2016

Offering amendments represents an important tool for individual members to engage in behaviors that help them pursue reelection, like position-taking and credit claiming. When the House leadership limits the opportunities for rank-and-file members to offer amendments on most measures debated on the floor but leaves spending bills relatively open to amendment, we might expect that individual members will respond by redirecting their amendments to the appropriations process. In this article, I explore whether members use these opportunities to pursue personal goals and to enhance their party's collective reputation.     

The Fluidity of the ‘Farming Ladder’: The Experience of the Duffin Family,Yorkshire, 1870-1950

This article examines the nuances of the ‘farming ladder’ through a case study of the Duffin farming family. It explores the circumstances in which they flourished and faltered; the internal and external determinants affecting their ability to maintain a grip on the ‘farming ladder’; and the fluidity of the ladder. Drawing upon the personal archive of the family and complementary sources, the variable position of the family on the ‘farming ladder’ as they progress from agricultural labourers to farmers and then back to labourers is charted within wider historical and geographical frameworks. The social and spatial relationships forged are identified as being particularly important in the operation of the ‘farming ladder’.     

Zarrow,Peter, After Empire： The Conceptual Transformation of the Chinese State, 1885-1924

The centennial of China＇s 1911 revolution in 2011 provided an opportunity for commemorative symposiums that explored the multiple dimensions of the revolution and its meanings. Besides micro studies of details occurring before, after, and during the revolution, as aspects of a sociopolitical process, and general social inquiries about its success or failure.     

The Problem of the Epoch? Labour and Housing, 1918-51

As one of the salient political issues in twentieth-centuryBritain, housing helped define the differences between the mainpolitical parties but also gave rise to tensions and conflictingapproaches within them. This article traces some of these tensionsand anomalies as they manifested themselves in Labour's housingpolicies between the first and second world wars. While withinthe Labour movement there was a common acceptance of the needfor expanded public housing provision, the ways in which thisneed was to be met were the subject of considerable dissension.In the early inter-war period, Labour's housing policies werestrongly influenced by the building unions' notions of industrialself-government, ranging from guild socialism and the BuildingGuild to the corporatist inflexions of the Wheatley HousingAct of 1924. In the short term, there was little evidence ofthe marriage of industrial innovation, modernist aesthetics,and socialist politics that characterized responses to the housingproblem in other parts of Europe. However, by the time of theSecond World War the ascendancy of a professional modernizingdiscourse within the Labour Party, along with the emergenceof a younger generation of left-wing architects and planners,led to the marginalization of the building unions within Labour'spolicy-making apparatus. Increasingly restive at the developmentof Labour’s housing policy, union leaders continued toarticulate notions of economic citizenship rooted in guild socialism.These were largely disregarded, and have remained so in theliteratures both on housing policy and the Labour Party itself. ^* Kevin.morgan{at}manchester.ac.uk. Interviews cited in this articlewere recorded as part of a research project funded by the ESRC,award no R000237924.