Woman's Work in the Service of Empire: Lady Margaret Field (1905–94) from School Teacher to Governor's Wife

The presence of single and also of married British women in overseas colonies, especially those employed by or married to men in the Colonial Service in the later colonial period, has been the subject of scholarly enquiry. Their lives, roles and values and their distinctive contribution, if any, to the development of empire and of its ending have been debated. Their gendered roles were usually subordinate in a masculine culture of empire, and especially as wives they are commonly regarded as marginalised. The archived records left by Lady Margaret Field reveal her commitment as a single woman to a colonial mission and her sense of achievement as a school teacher and educational administrator, while also acknowledging the independence and career satisfactions she subsequently lost when she married a senior Colonial Service officer who rose to be a governor. But it is also apparent that, though incorporated and subordinate as a governor's wife to her husband's career, she was not marginalised to a separate sphere. As is evident from this case study, governors’ wives had important and demanding political duties, and such responsibilities need to be acknowledged.     

Monarchy and constructing identity in ‘British’ Gibraltar,c.1800 to the present

British Gibraltar began as a fortress, and royal coronations, jubilees and visits were initially celebrated in Gibraltar primarily by the British military and the colonial government. However, a substantial civilian population developed, to service the garrison and engage in trade. Sections of this civil community, not British-by-birth, increasingly demonstrated their loyalty to the crown on such royal occasions, in order to raise their status internally, protect their interests and increase their political influence inside Gibraltar. Spanish participation in royal events in Gibraltar, especially by members of the military and political elites from across the frontier, were also once commonplace and in Gibraltar uncontested. However, the relationship with Spain deteriorated, especially from the 1950s. Gibraltar's civil community then used expressions of loyalty to the British crown on royal occasions to assert its Britishness and to emphasise the duty of the British government to resist Spanish claims.     

Applications of the Location Set-covering Problem

The location set-covering problem is extended to apply to three new situations. (1) The demands are assumed to occur continuously alone arcs of a network. (2) A mobile unit departs from one of the locations to be chosen and picks up the demand, providing service at a still more distant point. (3) New demands and sites occur over time.     

Correction in the Countryside: Convict Labour in Rural Germany 1871-1914

Over the course of the Empire demand for labour in the countrysideand penal reform together created the conditions for a greaterdeployment of prisoners, workhouse inmates and young offendersin agriculture. Farming on site, and especially leasing offenders,were the most cost-efficient ways of detaining men. Agriculturalwork was also regarded as key to their rehabilitation. It servedto equip inmates upon release for the sector of the economymost in need of workers. ‘Outside work’ away fromthe institution was also seen as an intermediate stage in theprisoner's sentence before release. Two developments in thecharitable sector complemented this correctional strategy: theemergence of a network of workers’ farming colonies whichacted as half-way houses for ex-prisoners after release, andex-offender employment programmes run by prisoner welfare societies,channelling ex-offenders towards agricultural employment. Despitethese efforts to reintegrate offenders, re-offending rates remainedhigh. Penal authorities either attributed this to the incorrigibilityof some inmates, or pushed for longer sentences. In some casespenal and medical authorities were inclined to re-interpretthe criminal behaviour of repeat offenders as behaviour symptomaticof mental illness, and some inmates were transferred to asylums.In the discourse surrounding the failure of reform the argumentthat the exclusionary and punitive nature of the prison andworkhouse régime actually worked against rehabilitationheld little sway, nor the argument that high re-offending ratescould be attributed to the vagrancy and begging laws which criminalizedsystemic poverty and homelessness. Absent here was any understandingthat the life offered following release, working as ancillaryworkers or hands on the estates, bore too striking a resemblanceto work in agriculture during detention. This in itself wasone major reason why many ex-offenders directed into agriculturalemployment after release refused to stay and work.     

Observations On State Trading in the Russian Economy

The paper presents an overview of state trading activities in Russia in light of that country's prospective accession to the World Trade Organization. The authors cover the origins of Russian state trading, developments after the collapse of the USSR, state involvement in barter trade, and its control of the organizational structure and remaining monopolies; they also attempt to estimate the government's share in Russia's foreign trade turnover in 1996 and mid-1997. A discussion of implications embraces issues relating to the inefficiencies of state trading and Russia's designation as a nonmarket economy by the United States and the countries of the European Union. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F13, F14, K33, N20, P33. 1 table, 20 references.     

The British government,child welfare,and child migration to Australia after 1945

In 1943, the British Colonial Office initiated a far-reaching process of arrangements to prepare plans for detailed reconstruction in the territories subject to British control. Reconstruction as a concept, a tendency and an action plan was basically directed at building and constructing that which had been destroyed in the war, based on a plan thought out in advance. This article explores the struggle between the British plan for the reconstruction of Mandatory Palestine and the Jewish interpretation that the main aim of their steps is to implement the White Paper policy of May 1939. After six months of confrontation, the British intention to promote economic steps while presenting them as separate from the political tension over Palestine's political future and the Jewish-Arab confrontation proved to be a false assumption.     

Governor Sir John Field in St Helena: Democratic Reform in a Small British Colony, 1962–68

In the age of decolonisation, Whitehall generally accepted the case for political advancement even in small British colonies like St Helena judged too lacking in resources to become independent states, provided this could be granted without risk to good government. The previous experience of Sir John Field in West Africa and his sensitivity to UN expectations lay behind the democratic reforms he introduced, which by 1968 had established an elected Legislative Council and an Executive Council made up mainly of LegCo members. But the steps he took owed little to sustained popular demand for self-government, as was common elsewhere, and much to his determination to make islanders politically more responsible. Public engagement was inhibited by practical constraints, local culture and a discouraging financial dependence on the UK government.