Social networks and the transnational reach of the corporate class in the early-twentieth century

This paper explores the character, density and likely importance of connections between directors of a sample of 12 early-twentieth century British multinational companies. Drawing on the notion of ‘gentlemanly capitalism’, a reconstruction of multiple and interlocking directorships for 1899–1900 and 1929–1930 indicates that a complex network existed that comprised links, respectively, to 255 and 497 companies. We explore the social, cultural and political characteristics of the directors of our sample and argue that the ways in which members of this group interacted with each other would have influenced business attitudes, facilitated transfers of knowledge and promoted interdependencies, thereby shaping commercial behaviour. We argue that the directors of early multinationals formed the kind of definable ‘power geometries’ within the wider corporate elite that have been identified amongst today's business elites. Our results indicate that a distinct and increasingly dynamic multinational corporate community existed in the early 1900s, which was in many respects like its modern counterparts. A key finding is that the complexity of dyadic connections between directors and their personal networks of contacts increased markedly between 1899–1900 and 1929–1930.     

The One Nation Group: A Tory Approach to Backbench Politics and Organisation, 1950-55

The One Nation Group enjoys a mythic place in the history ofthe postwar Conservative Party. It has often been portrayedas being of extraordinary importance both for its early writings,One Nation (1950) and Change is Our Ally (1954), and for a behind-the-scenesparliamentary influence seen to exceed greatly that which wouldnormally be expected from a private dining group of ConservativeMPs. The group, with its firm association with ‘One Nation’Conservatism, has been seen to be at the fore of modernizingforces in the party in the early postwar years, and to haveplayed a pivotal role in the reshaping of Conservatism in thisperiod. This study examines the group via its publications,minutes of its weekly discussions, memoranda, and correspondence.These provide insight into the nature of backbench Conservatismand shed light upon the dynamics, activities, and beliefs ofa body that swiftly established itself as by far and away themost prestigious and respected of the unofficial Conservativeparliamentary groups. ¹I would like to acknowledge my debt to the following for givingfreely of their time in interview or correspondence for thisstudy: the late the Rt. Hon. the Lord Alport, TD, DL; the Rt.Hon. the Lord Carr of Hadley, FIC; the Rt. Hon. the Lord Gilmourof Craigmillar; the late Sir Gilbert Longden, MBE; and the lateJ. Enoch Powell, MBE; and two other sources who wished to remainanonymous. Stuart Ball, Nicholas Crowson, Dona Diani, and JohnRamsden have all read this article at various stages and offeredhelpful advice and criticism, and I would also like to thankJohn Barnes for advice when this project was in an earlier incarnation.     

The Offham Chalkpit Tramway: its History and Archaeology

Abstract

Chalk was in considerable demand for agricultural use in the early years of the nineteenth century, and an inclined plane, including a tunnelled section, was built in 1809 to connect the chalkpits at Offham with the newly canalised River Ouse. Tom Evans has examined the Shiffner correspondence to investigate the sources of the iron plateway supplied to the Offham scheme, and Ron Martin, together with other members of the Sussex Industrial Archaeology Society, has surveyed the field evidence for this interesting industrial survival in rural Sussex.     

Depth and diversity in parochial healthcare: Northamptonshire 1750–1830

Abstract

Notwithstanding interesting recent work, the nature of parochial healthcare under the Old Poor Law, particularly in its later years, remains very much under-researched. This article considers a sample of Northamptonshire parishes in order to investigate attitudes towards health care on the part of poor law officials between the mid-18th and early 19th centuries. It will be shown that long-term sickness could be matched by a long-term commitment to paying for diverse and innovative care for the sick poor. Parochial authorities drew on a range of formal and informal medical practitioners to improve the lot of the sick poor, as well as employing a considerable variety of nurses from amongst the wider pauper population. The article represents the first attempt to conduct a systematic study of parochial records for any county.     

Mind the gap: Town planning and Manchester's local railway network: 1947–1996

This article uses Manchester as a case study to explore post‐war relationships in Britain between local rail networks and urban form. During this period, Manchester's rail network has been severely rationalized with only limited investment in new infrastructure, although local services have been underpinned by public subsidy. During the 1950s and 1960s, there was little formal land use planning policy with regard to the rail network, but in the late 1970s strategic policies crystallized which sought to steer major activity generators to nodalities generally well‐served by public transport. However, these policies were undermined in the 1980s by Thatcherite deregulation. The early 1990s has seen more positive trends with the opening of Manchester's light rail line and the development nationally of policies aimed at creating more sustainable urban form through synergy between local rail networks and urban development. But there is evidence of counter‐trends and the whole future of the rail system has been thrown into doubt because of rail privatization. Conclusions are drawn that focus on the need for changes in the institutional arrangements for transport planning and strategic town planning through the creation of a strong regional tier of government, as found in other EU countries.     

Building a Knowledge Economy in Ireland Through European Research Networks

The success of the Irish economy, and the technology sector in particular, over the last decade has been well noted. This article seeks to uncover the role that Irish participation in the ESPRIT programme of the European Union's Fourth Framework Programme has played in the building of Ireland's knowledge economy through its promotion of research collaboration. The primary goal of ESPRIT was the promotion of networking between organizations of similar interest across Europe, and in this article we examine the effects of the imposition of these more formal networks on organizations. The shift towards the promotion of more informal networks among European organizations in the pursuit of innovation is highlighted. After looking at Irish participation in the programme, we gauge the success of various projects and partners, and note the differences between networks, which were in place before participation in ESPRIT, where personal networking was evident, and the more formal networks created by ESPRIT. What becomes most obvious from analysing Irish participation is the conscious move on the part of those networks with a prior existence to advance their own research agenda by means of ESPRIT.     

The Shifting Fortunes of War: Patronage of the Wurttemberg Hofkapelle during the Thirty Years War

German courts have long been renowned for their support of music.How long could this support continue in times of war? This articleconsiders the fate of the Württemberg Hofkapelle duringthe Thirty Years War (1618-48), a conflict that forced manydistinguished Hofkapellen to close their doors for much of thewar's duration. The Hofkapelle (literally ‘court chapel’or music ensemble) was the focus of much music patronage atearly modern German courts, and typically consisted of an orchestraof strings, horns, and percussion, as well as adult male singersand a boys’ choir. Based on an analysis of church councilaccounts that list all expenditure for court music throughoutthe war, the article asserts that demand for music during religiousservices under both Protestant and Catholic control of the duchyremained relatively constant. This demand enabled the Hofkapelleto continue musical performances, despite the enormous constraintsthe war placed on court expenditure. Music patronage was significant in several ways. Payment forperformers and composers could be highly competitive among Germancourts, with the best musicians earning salaries often far exceedingthose of other officials. Foreign musicians were much in demandin Württemberg as elsewhere, such as English lutenist JohnPrice, who founded a group of English lutenists at the Württembergcourt in 1618 that lasted until the death of Duke Johann Friedricha decade later. While the hardship of wartime effectively endedthe payment of large salaries, forcing many top performers toleave, members of the court still called for music at church,even if they had to pay for performances themselves. A studyof music patronage during the Thirty Years War thus revealsnot only the extent to which the court sought to support thearts, but also how that support reflected the shifting fortunesof war.     

The Six Fevrier 1934 and the 'Survival' of the French Republic

The Paris riots of the six février 1934 are rememberedchiefly as the event that provided the initial spark and theeventual rationale for the anti-fascist Popular Front. However,most French historians have tended to downplay the importanceof the riots themselves, arguing that the Republic was not underserious threat, and that the Left at the time greatly exaggeratedthe danger. Indeed, the fact that the regime ‘survived’these events has often been cited as proof of its resilience,of France’s deep-rooted ‘democratic political culture’,and its inbuilt ‘immunity’ to fascism. This historiographicalreview argues that the standard interpretation of the six févrieris deeply flawed, especially in its tendency to deduce the intentionsof the actors from the outcome of the events. The six févrierconstituted a serious challenge to the regime, and created adangerously fluid situation in which a variety of ‘outcomes’became possible. It should be analysed not as a discrete andtemporally circumscribed event but as a key moment in an ongoingprocess of political radicalization on the French Right.     

The Art of Hunger: Self-Starvation in the Red Army Faction

The founding generation of the Red Army Faction (RAF), a WestGerman terrorist group, spent two frenzied years in the undergroundfollowed by five years in prison, culminating with the suicidesof the group's leaders in 1976 and 1977. This paper examinesthe prison hunger strikes of the RAF as structured acts of communicationthat together with accompanying texts were central to a sustainedmedia campaign run from within prison. It examines the internaland external prison communication networks established to enablethe coordination of the strikes as well as the discursive functionsof the self-starvation of the RAF members. Within the prisonsystem hunger was constructed as ‘holy’ and ascribeda pseudo-religious function used to support a group identityand maintain an internal group discipline. In the texts producedfor publication beyond the prison walls, however, hunger becamea central element in the RAF strategy to counter what it sawas a mainstream medicalization of terrorism. This, in turn,was the tool employed to repackage the group's established rhetoric,as self-starvation allowed RAF prisoners to literally embodytheir long-standing ‘anti-fascism’ and ‘anti-imperialism’.     

'Pomorze' or 'Preussen'? Polish Perspectives on Early Modern Prussian History

The attitudes of Polish historical scholarship towards the historyof early modern Prussia has been deeply marked by the partitionsof Poland and the anti-Polish coalition between Prussia, Russiaand Austria, which denied Poland its own statehood for wellover a century. In contrast to nineteenth-century German ‘Landesgeschichte’,which focused on local research and archival resources, historiansfrom Poland have usually opted to stay more within patternsof national history-writing. When the Polish state was reconstitutedafter the First World War, hostilities built up between Germanand Polish historical schools on Prussia, expressed in the NationalDemocratic-influenced myl zachodnia (Western thought) on thePolish side, and a not less expansionist Ostforschung on theother side of the border. It was only after the catastropheof the Second World War, the redrawing of national borders ineast central Europe, and under the influence of Marxist historicalconcepts in the People's Republic of Poland that nationalistapproaches as well as the ‘black legend’ of thePrussia's past were temporarily suppressed and finally replacedby a more research-led scholarship. During the second half ofthe twentieth century, Polish historiography was in fact muchquicker and more thorough than its German counterpart to forgethe history of Prussia into a major academic subject. Sincethe 1980s, if not earlier, an extremely fruitful dialogue hasdeveloped between scholars—a dialogue which does not alwayspenetrate journalistic and public awareness, as recent polemicssurrounding the controversially planned ‘Centre for Expulsions’in Berlin have shown.     

TOM JONES (3HE40): GEOPHYSICAL SURVEY AND SPATIAL ORGANIZATION AT A CADDO MOUND SITE IN SOUTHWEST ARKANSAS

Abstract

This article outlines a process that has facilitated discoveries of intrasite pattern, architecture, and diagnostic artifacts at the prehistoric Caddo mound site Tom Jones (3HE40) in southwestern Arkansas. A methodology of multisensor geophysical survey using electrical resistance, electromagnetic conductivity, gradiometry, magnetic susceptibility, high accuracy survey and mapping, and data georeferencing enabled by geographic information system technology has proven to be an efficient, effective, and essential component of an overall research plan. In addition to providing insights regarding the intrasite organization of an upland Caddo ceremonial mound center, this technologically integrated approach has established that Saratoga chalk geology and Blackland Prairie clays combine to form an advantageous medium for geophysical discovery.     

From the Holiday to the Academy: Implications for physical geography in higher education arising from 'popular' field-based geography in Dorset

The popularity of physical geography at all levels of formal education is declining. This paper argues that a key factor in the decline may be the disparity between geographies studied within formal education and the popular geographies encountered during leisure pursuit. Through the example of the Jurassic Coast Project, an initiative for the interpretation of Dorset's coastal landscape, approaches towards the integration of popular and academic geographies are explored. Drawing explicit links between popular experiences and academic knowledge may benefit physical geography, improving its status amongst public and student audiences, and addressing the concerns that surround its decline within higher education.     

Women in Praise of Women: Female Poets and Female Patrons in Qajar Iran

This study examines the poetry of two women of nineteenth-century Iran—one royal, one non-royal—and the women patrons for whom they composed praise poetry. Through the reconstruction of female-centered patronage networks and associated female-only performance venues, and via an examination of the active roles played by female patrons both in affairs of state and in the management of the immense royal harem, this study highlights the various ways in which members of several generations of women in Qajar Iran were involved in the production, dissemination and appreciation of poetry. It is argued here that these patronage and poetry production networks should be read as evidence of a female-centered literary tradition, one that was in dialogue with (and often intersected) the dominant male tradition; one that empowered the women actors within it to create a sisterhood of poets through which their art could be passed on from mother to daughter, and from daughter to granddaughter (and occasionally from mother to son).     

A “Theological Junto”: the 1641 Lords’ subcommittee on religious innovation

Abstract

The 1641 Lords’ sub-committee on religious innovation has never been the focus of a dedicated study, despite its acknowledged significance. This article presents the sub-committee as an attempt to control parliamentary discussion of the Church. Its membership was carefully selected to ensure that it would have an anti-Arminian bias. Its discussions addressed a wide range of doctrinal and liturgical questions. The Conformist members of the sub-committee were attempting to re-assert the Reformed identity of the English Church, and roll back the doctrinal and liturgical developments of the 1630s. However, despite the political crisis, they were not prepared to give much ground to Puritan opinion. The sub-committee therefore illustrates the strength of commitment, even amongst leading Reformed theologians, to the idiosyncratic aspects of the English Church Settlement. It is therefore a significant witness to the development of English Conformist opinion.     

To Swear or Not to Swear?: Britain,Southeast Asia and the Attempt to Reform the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, 1964–1971

ABSTRACT

This article seeks to explore the British government’s perception of the role of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as a method of strengthening cohesion amongst the Commonwealth community, and in particular delves into the constitutional and diplomatic challenges that the British government faced in its attempt to utilise the Judicial Committee in order to maintain close ties with its former Southeast Asian colonies in the 1960s. Suggestions were made by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Privy Council Office from the mid-1960s that newly-independent republics such as Singapore and Malaysia should be allowed to send its citizens to London as members of the Judicial Committee in order to dilute the prejudice against the Committee as a remnant of colonial rule. However, the proposals were rejected by the Lord Chancellor’s Office on the grounds that Asian judges were of insufficient calibre to sit as members of the Judicial Committee, and that citizens of republics were unable to swear an oath of loyalty to the British monarch as was required for all Privy Counsellors. The Privy Council Office were of the opinion that a new system could be introduced whereby the Judicial Committee member would not have to be a fully-fledged Privy Counsellor and therefore would not have to swear the oath, while the Commonwealth Secretariat put forward its argument that Asian judges were good enough to ensure standards of the Judicial Committee would not be lowered. However, the Lord Chancellor’s Office argued that such non-Privy Counsellors would only be ‘second-class’ constituents of the Judicial Committee whose rulings would be unacceptable to countries such as Australia and instead proposed the creation of a Commonwealth Court of Appeal which the Foreign Office deemed unrealistic. In the end, no judges from the Asian republics were allowed sit on the Judicial Committee, resulting in Malaysia and Singapore abolishing their appeals to the Judicial Committee in 1984 and 1994 respectively.     

Local Production Systems and Organizational Change: Hierarchization and Competing Firm Networks in Marinha Grande,Portugal

European local production systems have evolved and restructured in recent decades. One path of change has been an internal reorganization towards more hierarchization among local firms and the emergence of formal firm networks and an economic reconcentration. This article supports these observations and provides evidence from the mould industry in Marinha Grande, Portugal. The formal firm networks are, however, heterogeneous and they constitute new competitive strategies, that challenge the historical organization and institutions of the industrial districts and local production systems in which small was beautiful.     

Kirkham Abbey

Abstract

Tom French died on 18 February 2001 after a short illness. He will be remembered as a distinguished scholar and historian of English stained glass and particularly for his contribution to the study of York Minster and its windows. In 1947, after distinguished service in the Royal Artillery, he joined the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments as an architectural investigator. He contributed to the Dorset county inventories and then moved to York, working on the five city inventory volumes published between 1962 and 1981. In the early 1970s he contributed to the Royal Commission's investigation of the Minster and became especially interested in its stained glass. He was active in the academic life of York, serving as a council member of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society, a member of the York DAC and Minster FAC and a Trustee of York Glaziers Trust. After retirement in 1980, Tom continued to research and publish on the architectural history of York Minster and became a member of the Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi. In 1987 he published, jointly with David O'Connor, the first CVMA volume devoted to the Minster, The West Windows of the Nave. This was followed by his solo volumes on The Great East Window (1985) and The St William Window (2000). At the time of his death he was working on a volume devoted to the glazing of the western choir clerestory and it is from this research that the following paper was derived.     

A Fall from Grace? National Unity and the Search for Naval Power and Colonial Possessions 1848--1884

Traditionally, German naval and colonial agitation has beendiscussed as a late nineteenth-century development that signaledthe cooption of many German liberals to a conservative policyof imperialism. This has been posited by many historians asantithetical to the true nature and objectives of politicalliberalism. Those few commentators that have noted the navaland colonial agitation of liberals during the early and mid-nineteenthcentury have argued that there was a period in which these imperialistpressures were subdued, when their end was heralded by the failureof the nationalist movements of 1848/49 to consolidate theirnation-building project. Through an investigation of the FrankfurtNational Assembly and the National Association of the 1860sit becomes apparent, however, that German liberal imperialismdid not represent the distasteful invention of a somehow corruptedliberalism of the 1880s, nor did it cease to be a leitmotivwithin liberal circles after 1849. Rather, German liberals,enamoured with the model of Britain as a global trading powerand concerned with the economic repercussions of undirectedemigration, had continuously argued for a German imperialistcapacity throughout the nineteenth century as an integral partof any attempt to build a trading nation that could competeinternationally.     

Women's policy networks and the Infanticide Act 1922

This article examines the reason for the passage of the 1922 Infanticide Act, arguing that it owes much to the influence and work of women's policy networks. Historians have disagreed as to why the Act was passed with relative suddenness in the early 1920s, at a time when infanticide was generally considered a much less pressing social issue than it had been in Victorian England. Moreover, several Bills brought between 1908 and 1913 proposing that the law on this subject be amended so that women who killed their newborns no longer faced the death penalty had all failed. Importantly, the roles of juror and lay magistrate had become open to women in 1920, following the passage of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919. The public interest generated by a case of newborn murder tried at the Leicester Assizes in 1921 (particularly amongst women's organizations, including the suffragette group the Women's Freedom League) led several leading women with political connections to push for a change in the law. Without the pressure these women could bring to bear on civil servants and politicians, attempts to bring in new legislation on infanticide would have been postponed well into the twentieth century.