Last out — First in

I first met Sir Granville Beynon as a first year undergraduate student at the University College of Swansea in 1953. I later joined his research group and was his postgraduate student from 1956–1959. This was a particularly exciting time in Sir Granville's career; he was heavily involved in the International Geophysical Year, 1957–1958, was appointed to the Chair of Physics in Aberystwyth (1958) and awarded the CBE (1959). I was the last student to complete a Ph.D. in Ionospheric Physics at Swansea and the first postdoctoral research assistant to be appointed in the new group formed at Aberystwyth. I have very fond memories of this period during which I received an excellent training in ionospheric physics and radio propagation.     

Richard,duke of York,and the crisis of Henry VI's household in 1450–1: some further evidence

The political crisis in England in 1450 and the deteriorating relationship between King Henry VI and Richard, duke of York, in the summer of that year are examined in the light of two new documents. These provide direct evidence of the reaction of the royal household, if not the king himself, and his advisers to the duke of York's return from Ireland, firstly from the Midlands in the summer of 1450, and secondly, from North Wales around April 1451. Both items were sent to Lord St Amand. The first, from the duke of Buckingham, notes the arrival of a notable force in Warwickshire and a stand-off between the bishop of Coventry and Lichfield and the men of Stafford and its region. The second, from a royal servant, Thomas Broun, is a memorandum of advice for St Amand, who was shortly to become chamberlain in North Wales. It focuses on the excesses of Sir Thomas Stanley, one of a small group of royal household officials holding office in this area, and the threat they posed to the king's regime and its financial stability.     

LYELL AND UNIFORMITARIANISM

T he centenary of the death of Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875), the most notable earth scientist of the nineteenth century, was celebrated in 1975 by a special joint symposium of the International Union of Geological Sciences and the International Committee on the History of Geological Sciences. Much of what Lyell and his contemporaries regarded as "geology has become intrenched in "physical geography or in "geomorphology," so that any valid revaluation of Lyell's work is of as much significance to geographers as to geologists. It is appropriate at this time that his great contribution be recognized, but it is also a suitable occasion to re-examine some of its limitations.     

Latitudinarianism,secular theology and Sir Thomas Browne’s influence in George Mackenzie’s Religio Stoici (1663)

This article revisits George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh’s Religio Stoici (1663) which is often acclaimed as the first in a venerable series of imitations of Sir Thomas Browne’s Religio Medici (1642) as well as a possible influence for John Dryden’s Religio Laici (1682). By contrast, this articles returns to the charged contemporary atmosphere that prevailed in Scotland in 1663, following the controversial re-establishment of Episcopalianism the previous year. Combining an instinctive epistemological scepticism with an audacious and polemical anticlericalism, Mackenzie’s tract attacked dogmatic intolerance and denominational exclusivity and instead advanced a courageous, solitary and very public plea for peaceful religious practice.     

The Real vs the Imaginary: Sir William Chambers on the Chinese Garden

Sir William Chambers was one of the most important English architects in the eighteenth-century, but both in his day and later his international recognition was closely connected with his admiration for and promotion of Chinese art, particularly Chinese landscaping. Between 1757 and 1773, Chambers published three treatises praising the ingenious mixture of nature and art in a Chinese pleasure ground, criticizing the then influential English gardener Lancelot (Capability) Brown, and trying to goad English garden design into the direction of China. He did not achieve his purposes mainly because he mixed what he knew as genuine about the Chinese gardening art with what he fantasized about it. While recent scholarship has focused on his fantasy, this article examines what Chambers knew or imagined about Chinese landscaping, what he and his detractors were for and against, and how the fiasco of his 1772 and 1773 treatises, which he brought upon himself, nevertheless helped to usher in a new phase in the English reception of Chinese landscaping ideas.     

James E Byrnes and the Politics of Segregation

Born in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1934, Thomas S. Morgan received his B.A. from Davidson College, his M.A. from Duke University, and his Ph.D. from UNC-Chapel Hill. He taught in high school in Baltimore, Maryland, and at Wake Forest University, and UNC-Chapel Hill, prior to coming to to Winthrop University where he has remained for the past 27 years. From 1978 to 1981 he was dean of Winthrop's College of Arts and Sciences. Morgan and his wife, Nancy, are parents of three sons. In addition, to publishing some scholarly articles, Morgan wrote the Study Guide for George Tindall's America: A Narrative History in its various editions. In 1972 he served as chair of the membership committee of the Southern Historical Association. Morgan served as president of Phi Alpha Theta from 1991 to 1993, presiding over the final years of service of Don Hoffman, the organization's secretary-treasurer, and the selection of Hoffman's replacement, Jack Tunstall. In April 1994, Morgan received an award for his "Outstanding Service and Exceptional Dedication" as Phi Alpha Theta president. This article is a modified version of his 1993 presidential address.     

Announcements

This article considers some of the late-Victorian and Edwardian influences on the popular historian, Sir Arthur Bryant (1899–1985) in the 20th century. It emphasises Bryant's role in strengthening patriotism and English national identity in the unpropitious circumstances of interwar and postwar Britain. The article examines his conservative cast of mind, one he communicated through best-selling histories and prolific journalism. It emphasises his increasing distance from organised Conservatism after the Second World War and the sympathy he attracted in some quarters of the Labour movement at the end of his life, as well as earlier on. However, it concludes that Bryant is a vital link between the late-19th century ‘moment’ of Englishness and its recent revival among Conservative thinkers, publicists and politicians.     

The death of Sir Victor Horsley (1857–1916) and his burial in Amarah

Sir Victor Alexander Haden Horsley (1857–1916), the pioneering British neurological surgeon, passed away 100 years ago. He died young in his sixtieth year from the effects of heat stroke while serving as consulting military surgeon to the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force in Amarah, modern-day Iraq, and was buried in the now largely abandoned “Amara War Cemetery.” By the time of his death in 1916, Victor Horsley had established himself as one of the most eminent innovators of modern neurological surgery. His pioneering researches in cerebral physiology earned him an early reputation in the field, and his experiences with vivisection allowed him to confidently operate on the brain and spinal cord at a time when surgical intervention of the nervous system was fraught with uncertainty. Outside the operating theatre, Horsley was a proud advocate for a number of sometimes controversial sociopolitical issues; national temperance, women’s suffrage, and medical unionism particularly interested him. He brought the same courageousness to the British army during the First World War, and labored tirelessly under considerable hardships to improve the conditions for soldiers. Otherwise robust and healthy, it was only through great self-denial and overwork that Horsley suddenly succumbed to the burning heat of Mesopotamia. He died as he lived—a fearless and painstaking fighter for the common man. His was a most beautiful life of unselfish devotion to others.     

Some recollections of my early days in research

Sir Granville Beynon's lecture course entitled “The Ionosphere” first introduced me, in the late 1940s, to topics which have interested me ever since and have had a major influence on the subsequent development of my own career. Electromagnetic theory, radioscience, electronics (especially radars), plasma waves, space physics and satellites are typical key words which spring to mind. Here I recount some of my early interactions and experiences while working in his research group and in the period which followed. Although our interests later diverged, the knowledge gained during my time with Sir Granville re-surfaces from time to time and serves as a reminder of the basic grounding which he gave his students.     

The Speaker in the Age of Party, 1672–1715

The discussion by King Charles II and his senior advisors in 1672 of the choice of a new Speaker for the forthcoming parliamentary session reveals both the way in which the appointment was prepared and the government's considerations in the appointment. Prominent among them was the Speaker's personal influence, and his personal views on the great issue to be debated, the Declaration of Indulgence. The choice of Sir Job Charlton, and the behaviour of his successor, Sir Edward Seymour, in the chair, mark a new phase in the history of the speakership, in which Speakers are less likely to be lawyers, for whom the office was a step on the road to high legal office, and more likely to be significant political leaders with their own influence and following. After the 1688 revolution, the tendency for Speakers to be party political leaders became still more marked. Nevertheless, the country ideology espoused by several of them, including Paul Foley, Robert Harley and the tory, Sir Thomas Hanmer, provides a pedigree for the model of the impartial speakership whose invention is often attributed to Arthur Onslow.     

Thomas Graham Brown (1882–1965): Behind the Scenes at the Cardiff Institute of Physiology

Thomas Graham Brown undertook seminal experiments on the neural control of locomotion between 1910 and 1915. Although elected to the Royal Society in 1927, his locomotion research was largely ignored until the 1960s when it was championed and extended by the distinguished neuroscientist, Anders Lundberg. Puzzlingly, Graham Brown's published research stopped in the 1920s and he became renowned as a mountaineer. In this article, we review his life and multifaceted career, including his active neurological service in WWI. We outline events behind the scenes during his tenure at Cardiff's Institute of Physiology in Wales, UK, including an interview with his technician, Terrence J. Surman, who worked in this institute for over half a century.     

Marinus of Tyre's place in the Columbus concepts

Summary

Thomas Jefferys (died 1771) was one of the most significant London mapsellers of the mid‐eighteenth century. He enjoyed an international reputation and apparent prosperity as a publisher of American and European maps during the Seven Years War. Yet in 1766 he became bankrupt. The paper offers an interpretation of Jefferys’ bankruptcy in the light of his business activities. After reconstructing the main phases of his career, the conclusion is reached that the causes of bankruptcy only operated in the period after 1765, when he became involved in the production of a series of English county maps based on original field survey. Hitherto, his maps had been compiled from inexpensive secondary sources; the field surveys involved a new set of costs which led to his failure.

The bankruptcy explains an otherwise puzzling change of ownership in some of his maps after 1765—especially the acquisition by Robert Sayer of a substantial share in his enterprises. These events may have wider implications in the history of eighteenth‐century cartography. Many map‐publishers were under‐capitalized and had to survive on low profit margins. These, in turn, may have retarded cartographical progress; the conclusion reached is that plagiarism was frequently an economic necessity for many mapsellers.     

The clandestine marriages of the Fair Maid of Kent

The obscure circumstances surrounding the marriages of Joan Plantagenet, the Fair Maid of Kent, are here clarified by reference to the pertinent original documents. In 1340, aged twelve, Joan clandestinely married Sir Thomas Holland. While he was away fighting in Prussia, she was induced by her family to wed the earl of Salisbury. When Holland returned and claimed his wife, Salisbury refused to give her up and Holland was compelled to bide his time. In 1347, while serving in the war against France, Holland received a large ransom for a high-ranking prisoner; he was now financially able to petition the curia for restoration of his conjugal rights, and he reported that Salisbury was holding Joan incommunicado. Under the first papal auditor the case reached an impasse, but a second auditor managed to ensure that Joan was properly represented at the hearings. The curia decided in 1349 that Salisbury's marriage was invalid, and Joan was restored to Holland. After the latter died, in December 1360, Joan secretly wedded her second cousin, the prince of Wales, even though Edward III was then negotiating a foreign marriage for the prince. This clandestine marriage was necessarily invalid because of consanguinity. King Edward, despite annoyance at the thwarting of his plans, petitioned the pope for a dispensation; and in October 1361, the prince and Joan were wedded in public.     

The clandestine marriages of the Fair Maid of Kent

The obscure circumstances surrounding the marriages of Joan Plantagenet, the Fair Maid of Kent, are here clarified by reference to the pertinent original documents. In 1340, aged twelve, Joan clandestinely married Sir Thomas Holland. While he was away fighting in Prussia, she was induced by her family to wed the earl of Salisbury. When Holland returned and claimed his wife, Salisbury refused to give her up and Holland was compelled to bide his time. In 1347, while serving in the war against France, Holland received a large ransom for a high-ranking prisoner; he was now financially able to petition the curia for restoration of his conjugal rights, and he reported that Salisbury was holding Joan incommunicado. Under the first papal auditor the case reached an impasse, but a second auditor managed to ensure that Joan was properly represented at the hearings. The curia decided in 1349 that Salisbury's marriage was invalid, and Joan was restored to Holland. After the latter died, in December 1360, Joan secretly wedded her second cousin, the prince of Wales, even though Edward III was then negotiating a foreign marriage for the prince. This clandestine marriage was necessarily invalid because of consanguinity. King Edward, despite annoyance at the thwarting of his plans, petitioned the pope for a dispensation; and in October 1361, the prince and Joan were wedded in public.     

The Patronage of Rembrandt's Passion Series: Art,Politics, and Princely Display at the Court of Orange in the Seventeenth Century

This article sets out a new reading of a neglected poem by Sir Robert Howard, The Duell of the Stags (1668). It places the poem in the political context of the fall of Clarendon and rise of Howard’s friend and ally the Duke of Buckingham, and of Howard’s concurrent falling-out with his brother-in-law John Dryden. It explores the influence of Thomas Hobbes’ political theory on Howard’s poem, especially refracted through Sir William Davenant’s Hobbesian epic Gondibert (1651). The author argues that Howard’s poem implicitly attacked Dryden’s mode of panegyric for the Restoration regime by offering a radically alternative reading of Hobbes, casting royal power as fragile and contingent.     

The Role of Faith in Historical Research

The implied strategy and the history projected in the new book of Jens Bruun Kofoed, Text and History, fails to measure up to the critical principles of both theology and science established by Thomas Acquinas' centuries' old distinction between faith and reason. An apologetic intention in Kofoed's book attempts to demonstrate that the biblical history of his evangelical faith is not unreasonable. Thomas Thompson, on the other hand, thinks it is necessary to hold the line between faith and science, which St. Thomas drew some seven centuries ago. What Kofoed argues in an effort to project a history of Israel, which would be an alternative to that of the “Copenhagen school” is not science. Nor are his rules of evidence those that the world of secular history requires. Led by an apologetic rhetoric and understanding of historical argument, Kofoed's revised Århus dissertation is dominated by a critique of the “Copenhagen school,” which attempts to show that an alternative answer is not impossible. Although emphasizing the historical methods of Thompson and Niels Peter Lemche in his critique, Kofoed neglects to include in his discussion their discussions of method or, in Lemche's case, anything he has written before 1991. His understanding of their dependency on the Annales school is clearly mistaken as is his understanding of the debates about the relationship between historicity, genre and composition. Finally, his discussion of the comparative method is misleading and ill informed.     

Gall’s German enemies

ABSTRACT

Franz Joseph Gall’s (1758–1828) proposal for a new theory about how to represent the mental faculties is well known. He replaced the traditional perception-judgement-memory triad of abstract faculties with a set of 27 highly specific faculties, many of which humans share with animals. In addition, he argued that these faculties are dependent on specific cortical areas, these being his organs of mind. After several years of presenting his new views in Vienna, he was banned from lecturing for what he considered absurd reasons. The edict enticed him to make a scientific journey through the German states, both to present his ideas to targeted audiences and to collect more cases. This trip, started in 1805, was extended to include stops in Denmark, Holland, and Switzerland before finally ending in Paris in 1807. For the most part, Gall was received with great enthusiasm in what is now Germany, but there were some individuals who strongly opposed his anatomical discoveries and skull-based doctrine. In this article, we examine the concerns and arguments raised by Johann Gotlieb Walter in Berlin, Henrik Steffens in Halle, Jakob Fidelis Ackermann in Heidelberg, and Samuel Thomas Soemmerring in Munich, as well as how Gall responded to them.     

The Reputation and Authority of the Speaker and the Speakership of the House of Commons, 1640–60

The speakership during the civil war and interregnum has received scant attention by historians. This article considers the occupants of the Speaker's chair as a group, making some observations about their age and background, including within its scope the short-lived and irregular speakerships of men such as Sir Sampson Eure and Henry Pelham. The popularity of the Speaker within the Commons is found to have depended much on his perceived competence and goodwill, while his reputation in the country at large depended greatly on the unpredictable cut and thrust of political opinion. The speakership of William Lenthall in the Long Parliament is examined in some detail and judged to be exceptional in a number of respects, not least in his grappling with the explosion in the number and power of executive committees. Lenthall's dealings with the press suggest that he was well aware of the uses of print as well as its potential for damage to his reputation. The contemporary allegations of venality aimed at Speakers are examined with respect to individual occupants of the office and are also set in the context of fee-taking by Commons' officials. While this period seems not to have been a particularly important one in terms of lasting procedural innovation in the chamber, it was significant in heralding the possibility of a separation between the person and office of Speaker. The article provides as an Appendix an authoritative list of Speakers in this period.