Understanding the historic legacies of empire from the timbers left behind: Towards critical dendroprovenancing in the British North Atlantic

The forests of British North America were integral to Britain's maritime empire. Many of these timbers exist today as wooden beams and flooring at historical dockyards and garrisons such as the Royal Naval Dockyard of Bermuda. In this paper, we investigate what timbers from this Dockyard can tell us about interconnections and empire-building throughout the North Atlantic region. To do this we drew from approaches of critical physical geography, historical geography, and dendroprovenancing by using timber as a way to interrogate collaboratively the changes in—and connections across—socio-ecological landscapes. We examined HM Customs records between 1825 and 1850 to determine the flow of timbers to Bermuda. We then sampled timbers from buildings constructed between 1825 and 1853 and analyzed them using isotopic and dendrochronological techniques to establish the probable location of origin of the timber samples. HM Customs records showed that prior to the 1840s, timbers primarily came from British North America, whereas post-1840 timbers primarily came from the southeastern United States, with some still coming from Europe and British North America. To establish whether timber use by the Royal Navy and Royal Engineers matched the pattern in the customs documents, we looked to the dendrochronological records. Dendrochronologic evidence showed that military construction followed the same pattern, with buildings constructed pre-1840 using material from British North America and buildings constructed post-1840 using timbers sourced from the southeastern United States. Finally, using this information we explore some of the connections between regions, in terms of resource use, and the implications of those uses—for example, that the British Admiralty continued to benefit from the practices of slavery through the use of products produced from enslaved labour in other parts of the North Atlantic well after emancipation.     

A Gift of Lace: Queen Mary’s Coronation Train, 1911

This paper is concerned with the context of the commissioning and the making of a Youghal lace coronation train, its ‘artistic beauty’, as well as the confusion about where it was worn and its ‘associations’ which, when it was made, displayed and worn, were diverse and complicated. The lace train began its material life in the Presentation Convent in Youghal in the south of Ireland, but had been commissioned then gifted to Queen Mary by the unionist ‘ladies’ of Belfast. Once made, it was exhibited in Belfast and London before its delivery to Buckingham Palace in time for the queen’s departure for India where, according to a number of published accounts, it was to be worn by Queen Mary in the ceremonies surrounding the Delhi Durbar; it was, in fact, worn in Calcutta. Considered one of the most magnificent examples of Irish needlepoint lace ever made, it expressed the loyalty of unionist women, but in its crafting it alluded to the space of nationalist women. The object highlights the workings of the Youghal Lace Cooperative that functioned in much the same way as do today’s fair trade networks (securing markets, returning profits to artisans), while at the same time the object speaks of social relationships, contested spaces, political tensions and agency.     

The Sector Theory and the Canadian Arctic, 1897–1970

ABSTRACT

Although European discovery in the Arctic began during the Middle Ages, sovereignty issues did not become a major concern until the early twentieth century. At that time, the controversial sector theory was taken up by Canada, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, but opposed by the United States and Norway. This article examines the sector theory in Canadian state practice, clarifying the version of the theory to which Canadian officials subscribed and the aims they hoped to achieve through its use. The international response to Canadian claims is also described.

The article demonstrates that Canadian use of the sector principle during the 1920s was pragmatic and successful, but in later decades, confusion arose both inside and outside the government. Inconsistent public statements were made by government representatives in the 1950s and 1960s; these have puzzled and misled scholars ever since. Differences between the Canadian and Soviet versions of the sector theory, lack of adequate institutional memory in Ottawa, and partisan political rivalries all played a part in creating the confusion, but perhaps the key factor was the inherent difficulty of state control over this remote yet geopolitically crucial region.     

An Anatomy of Spatial Planning: Coming to Terms with the Spatial Element in UK Planning

“Spatial planning” is a phrase that now resonates throughout many planning systems across the globe. It is being used as a label to describe pan-national, regional, strategic and even aspects of local planning processes. Within the UK, spatial planning is being utilized alongside, or even in place of, more traditional phraseology associated with planning, such as “town and country planning”. It is being used by a range of institutions of the State, professional groups and academic commentators to describe the processes of planning reform, modernization, policy integration, and strategic governance that politically are now required to make planning fit for purpose in the 21st century. The precise meaning and definition of spatial planning remains difficult to pin down, as does its origins within the UK. This paper attempts to dissect the various components of the spatial planning phrase and set out the meaning and origins of the term in the UK context. It covers re-territorialization, Europeanization and integration origins of spatial planning thinking and provides a conceptual, rather than practical, debate on the anatomy of spatial planning, situated within ongoing processes of institutional transformation, through the lens of governance and distinctiveness in state policy development.     

The imperial race and the immigration sieve: The Canadian debate on assisted British migration and empire settlement, 1900–30

During the 1920s assisted migration from Britain sparked a complex and often bitter debate in Canada. It had long been held that migrants who required assistance were highly unlikely to make desirable new citizens. While the great majority of Anglo-Canadians wished to see increased British immigration in order to strengthen imperial ties and maintain the cultural character of their nation, they feared an influx of ‘unfit’, unemployed urban workers. In some quarters, these negative attitudes intensified as a result of Empire settlement schemes. Complaints about assisted migrants have been interpreted by some historians as evidence of growing nationalist, anti-imperial feeling in Canada. However, a broader overview of the debate indicates that many observers blamed the problems of Empire settlement on Canadian economic and social conditions, calling for reforms that would help British newcomers to succeed. At the end of the 1920s, even the strongest critics of assisted migration were still eager to encourage British settlement, provided that the immigrants could be drawn from rural areas rather than the cities.