From English to British liberty, 1550–1800

This essay was written for a symposium on Dutch conceptual history in a comparative European perspective. The concept in question here is liberty, and the context first English and then (following the creation of the United Kingdom in 1707) British. What follows primarily addresses two themes, both challenging. First, what role did the concept of liberty play over an exceptionally long and turbulent period of English history punctuated by two revolutions? Second, what relationship existed during this period between English and Dutch understandings and experience of this concept?     

Pillars and perspective: demarcation of the Belgian Congo–Northern Rhodesia boundary

From 1911 to 1914 an Anglo-Belgian boundary commission demarcated the 885 km boundary between the Belgian Congo and Northern Rhodesia along the watershed of the Congo and Zambezi rivers with a total of just 46 markers. Such low-density boundary demarcation with widely spaced pillars was typical of early British boundary-making in southern Africa. Less than fifteen years later, a second Anglo-Belgian boundary commission was created to re-demarcate the boundary. Not only was it unique for a colonial boundary in southern Africa to be re-demarcated, this second Anglo-Belgian boundary commission worked for six years with a budget that exceeded any previous British boundary commission in colonial Africa. This commission marked the Belgian Congo–Northern Rhodesia boundary on the ground with nearly five times the number of pillars as the first commission, literally etching the boundary in the African landscape. Its techniques of survey and boundary demarcation set a new standard, serving as a model for later British colonial boundary commissions and influencing boundary-making theory through the present day.     

Development Imperative,Terrae Incognitae: a Pioneer Soil Scientist 1912–1951

James Arthur Prescott was a prominent soil scientist whose career responded to an increasingly complex, recognisably Australian web of interpenetrating spatial scales, served to promote revolutionary global advances in his chosen field, and in the process negotiated the blurred boundaries between ‘pure’ and ‘applied’ research. Encounters with this instructive life suggest that, while resolutions of pivotal anxieties might turn on ineluctably personal qualities, they also reflect a dynamic interplay between international, imperial, national and state contexts. Prescott's innovative contributions to soil science, fruits of a tenaciously consolidated career, influenced resource appraisal and environmental management across a prodigious continental expanse. A sustained focus on local and regional development brought him into contact with a wide range of contemporaries, including pioneering geographers, and culminated in his election to a Fellowship of the Royal Society.     

A Lingering Diminuendo? The Conference on Devolution, 1919–20

This article looks at one of the more obscure moments in British constitutional history, the rise of federal devolution in the United Kingdom in the early 20th century and, in particular, the context to the Conference on Devolution that sat between October 1919 and April 1920. The conference, as this article will briefly discuss, has been relegated to footnote status in the historiography on federal devolution and British politics. However, while the conference has not been the subject of detailed academic attention, the claim that devolution and constitutional reform in this period was a by‐product of the crisis in Ireland pre‐partition has gathered considerable traction among political historians. This article will redress both the paltry analysis of the Conference on Devolution within the academic literature and the Irish‐centric historiography on federal devolution in the early 20th century. On the latter front, this article will demonstrate that the conference was the product of forces that extended beyond the Irish crisis, in particular parliamentary congestion. As for the conference itself, this article will use a wide range of archival sources to examine critically the conference's deliberations and in doing so will challenge prevailing assumptions regarding the supposedly one firm source of agreement during the conference: the powers that the devolved bodies should enjoy.     

Celebrating British multiculturalism,lamenting England/Britain's past

Drawing upon Littler and Naidoo's ‘white past, multicultural present’ alignment, this article examines English newspaper coverage of two ‘British’ events held in 2012 (the Diamond Jubilee and the London Olympic Games). In light of recent work on English nationalism, national identity and multiculturalism, this article argues that representations of Britain oscillated between lamentations for an English/British past – marred by decline – and a present that, while being portrayed as both confident and progressive, was beset by latent anxieties. In doing so, ‘past’ reflections of England/Britain were presented as a ‘safe’ and legitimate source of belonging that had subsequently been lost and undermined amidst the diversity of the ‘present’. As a result, feelings of discontent, anxiety and nostalgia were dialectically constructed alongside ‘traditional’ understandings of England/Britain. Indeed, this draws attention to the ways in which particular ‘versions’ of the past are engaged with and the impact that this can have on discussions related to multiculturalism and the multiethnic history of England/Britain.     

‘Oxford in the bush’: the founding (and diminishing) ethos of Rhodes University

Over the years, many members of the Rhodes University community have proudly claimed their university to be a kind of transplanted Oxford, while others have viewed this claim as pretentious – hence the derogatory label ‘Oxford in the bush’. This article explores the connections and comparison between the two institutions. In the early twentieth century, both universities strongly identified with the British imperial cause; and for decades Rhodes University regularly celebrated its symbolic association with the historical figure of Cecil Rhodes, who also happens to be one of the most commemorated figures in Oxford. There was also a shared ethos, as both laid stress on a style of education that was character-building, a prerequisite for which was a strong grounding in the classics. There was, too, a cultural affinity between Rhodes and Oxford, exemplified in the strict segregation of the sexes, the importance attached to sporting achievement, and a tendency to engage in frivolous activities. The article goes on to show how over time the Oxford tradition at Rhodes came to be challenged and undermined, especially from the late 1960s onwards.     

From laissez-faire to supranational planning: the economic debate within Federal Union (1938–1945)

This article focuses on the early years of Federal Union (FU), the leading British federalist association created in 1938. It sets out to demonstrate that FU members heavily disagreed about the economic powers of the future Federation and that these divisions weakened the appeal of the federalist cause. Archival evidence suggests the organisation shifted from economic neutrality, favoured by allegiance to nineteenth-century liberalism, which emphasized the benefits of free trade while keeping a minimum of centralized force in order to prevent interstate rivalries from boiling over into war, to a radical advocacy of supranational planning, aimed at enforcing social rights and welfare entitlements granted to all the citizens of the member-states. This swing to the Left had several implications, including abandoning the prospect of an Anglo-American union, developing a more sympathetic attitude towards the Soviet system, and breaking ties with influential members of the British establishment who had initially lent support to FU, such as Lionel Curtis and William Beveridge. By pointing at the tension between the models of ‘Federation Pure and Simple’ and ‘Federation Plus’, this article also highlights the supple and muddled nature of federalism as an ideology.     

Pastoral Power, Governmentality and Cultures of Order in Nineteenth-Century British Columbia

I deploy Michel Foucault's concepts of pastoral power and governmentality to investigate the material consequences of two very different visions of the governance of Native people in nineteenth-century British Columbia. This entails a consideration of these modalities of power, and of the usefulness of relocating them in a colonial context. But I also argue that the conceptions of order embedded within these two modalities of power bear the stamp of, and demonstrate, very distinctive cultural geographies.     

‘True British sailors’: a comment on the origin of the men of the Mary Rose

Bell et al. (2009) have recently published an isotopic investigation of the origins of 18 men whose remains were found in the wreck of the Mary Rose, Henry VIII's warship, which sank in 1545. They conclude that a high proportion of the ship's crew were foreigners and that this may have contributed to confusion on board ship and the sinking of the vessel. We have re-evaluated the data of Bell et al. and conclude that only one of the 18 sailors demonstrably spent his childhood outside the British Isles.     

论诺尔-贝克的集体安全观及其影响

20世纪20-30年代,英国国际法学者、外交官菲利普.诺尔-贝克关于国际集体安全的论述对当时的学术界和外交界产生了很大的影响。他不仅是英国国际关系学科的奠基者之一,还亲历了国联公约的起草和国联的组建工作。因此,诺尔-贝克是当时公认的国际问题专家。就思想传承而言,诺尔-贝克的集体安全观对后来的国际关系学者,包括英国学派的主流理论产生了明显的影响。虽然他后来被指责为过于理想主义,但是诺尔-贝克毕生致力于世界和平所做出的贡献还是为世人所公认,为此,他于1959年荣获了诺贝尔和平奖。