This thesis is an ethnographic study of Asian children who attended Cherrydale School, a mixed comprehensive in the south of England. It is concerned with the first generation of Asian children educated in Britain and is a study of their lives at home and at school. The main focus of this thesis is an exploration of the circumstances in which Asian children negotiate their way in different cultures. This study reveals the complexity of their lives which defies simple explanations. It describes the different ways in which 'race', class and gender combine to produce marginality for Asian children. A study of one single factor would not have given a holistic picture of their lived experience. The field work for this study was undertaken between 1987 and 1990. It draws on the children's, their parents', peers' and teachers' views on education and schooling. It represents different perspectives. To have ignored either the home or the school would have provided an incomplete picture of the world in which these teenagers live. Chapter 1 outlines the main theme of this exploratory study. It introduces the unique position in which Asian children find themselves in Britain in the late 1980s. Chapter 2 surveys the existing literature in the field. As there is very little previous ethnographic research on Asian adolescents which takes into account their home and school experiences, I have referred to a wider body of literature which includes anthropological and ethnic/'race relations' studies. Chapter 3 is about methodological issues. It includes an account of the initial problems of negotiating access, and continuously renegotiating access throughout the duration of this study. Chapter 4 is about Asian parents' world. It is based on matters concerning the parents' past and present which have a direct influence on their children's lives. Chapter 5 establishes a link between parents' education, their employment and their hopes for their children. Chapter 6 looks at children's accounts of their homes and schools, and the effect of gender on their experiences. It also looks at their relationships with their parents, teachers and other members of their communities. Chapter 7 is based on the effect of parents' occupations on children's aspirations including their employment opportunities and their hopes for the future. It also explores the effect of gender. Chapter 8 underlines the connection between gender and spatial constraints at home and at school among Asian boys and girls. Their relationships with their white, African- Caribbean and Asian peers are also discussed, as are the different images they adopt. Chapter 9 is concerned with Asian children's experiences of racism, their descriptions of "good", "bad" and "normal" teachers, their positive and negative experiences of school. Chapter 10 looks at the ways in which the school as an institution responds to the presence of Asian children. It is based on interviews and discussions with several mainstream and ethnic minority teachers. Chapter 11 concludes the thesis by drawing together the main findings of this study and discusses possible similarities between the circumstances of Asians living in Cherrytown with those living outside it. More research is needed in the area of home and school based studies. This chapter makes some concrete suggestions for further research.

At Papplewick, Nottinghamshire, there is physical evidence of 18th century industry. This study focuses on George Robinson and Sons, who were cotton-spinners between 1778 and 1830. The firm’s records have not survived, so detail of their operation has been re-constructed using alternative sources. The thesis investigates some accepted ideas about the concept of industrialisation, and attempts to address the question of when, where and what constituted the Industrial Revolution in this particular locality. The study adopts a transdisciplinary approach, viewing physical evidence from the landscape alongside documentary sources. Evidence from archaeological exploration is presented. The historic landscape is viewed in the context of biographical and socio-economic data relating to people and events. These water-powered mills were the first in the world to apply steam to cotton-spinning. The study considers the evolution of the water-system, and the introduction of steam to this pioneer site. It also examines transport networks, delivery of raw materials and capital expenditure. Personnel associated with the mills are identified, charting their employment and migration. Cartographic sources of different ages are used to provide a spatial framework for the description. The principles of reverse engineering are applied - attempting to understand, on one hand, the function of the mills and water-system, and on the other to de-construct the factors which influenced this innovative undertaking. It is generally accepted that three key attributes of the Industrial Revolution were adoption of new technology, introduction of centralised production, and socio-economic changes, accompanied by urbanisation. The Robinson mills could be perceived as the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the Leen valley. However, when the company was wound up (in 1830) industrial activity in the valley reverted to manufacture of hosiery and bobbin-net lace, both of which were, at that time, cottage industries.

This is a history of communication, specifically those communications found in past (imagined) communities which augmented, shaped and renegotiated shared culture. This culture, perceptible during the late Georgian era in public forms such as books, pamphlets, prints, performance, architecture, paintings and a wide range of ephemeral material, positions itself inextricably within the visual imagination. This then is also a history of visual communicative cultures, of the various shapes and forms that occupied the ocular registers of past peoples. Graphic satire was one of these contemporary visual forms and it is therefore a task of this thesis to place this printed single-sheet medium within the lives and cultural perception of late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century Britons; specifically, due to where these satires were published, Londoners. Like all historical sources, graphic satires present specific challenges. They were publicly facing compositions designed to shock and provoke; outwardly packed with sex, titillation, violence and prurient curiosity, framed by lewd, deliciously vicious and bawdy narratives, and set against the dirt and grime of London's streets. Hence satirical prints were as much an aspect of rude culture as visual culture, yet this does not mean they had nothing serious or important to say. Indeed one of the major thematic agendas of graphic satire in this period concerned notions of British liberty. It is therefore the central task of this thesis to unpick how and why this medium represented libertarian values in the way it did.

This thesis presents a three-area local case study of expressions of public opinion and the ‘public mood’ regarding British policy towards Germany and defence preparations. The period covered is November 1937 to September 1939. By using local case studies, which existing scholarship has largely ignored, the thesis adds to the national synthesis of events during this period, thereby allowing a more complete history to emerge. The inclusion of local case studies confirms much of the existing narrative but challenges some of the traditional assumptions on issues such as the level of opposition to appeasement and the changes that had already taken place prior to March 1939, when elite opinion shifted. That shift therefore marked the culmination of a process that had begun over a year earlier. This process had been the result of a series of international crises, which provided the psychological changes required in the mind of the British public to enable the nation to prepare for war, despite the continuing desire to avoid a conflict. By combining an analysis of expressions of opinion towards foreign policy with actions taken as part of defence preparations, the thesis identifies the Munich crisis as the major turning point, but it would require a further crisis before the change could be incorporated into mainstream opinion.

This thesis provides a coherent history of Celtic ideas in the modern era. Combining intellectual and cultural history in a transnational framework, it has two main aims. The first is to chart the transformation of perceptions of the Celts from those of a sought-after European ancestor to those of a marginalised people living on the ‘fringes’ of western Europe over the longue durée of 1700-1900. The second aim is to illustrate the wider intellectual, cultural, and political ramifications of this protracted ideological shift. I examine the scholarship of antiquarians, historians, philologists, race scientists, and other intellectuals of all stripes, before investigating how Celtic cultural nationalist movements grew out of these ideas and remained anchored in them. With the racialisation of nations and the cultural shift wherein the nation became a salient political consideration in the period c.1780-c.1820, Celtic ideas were no longer mere passive descriptors of nations, their particular pasts, and their places within wider European history, but active connectors of peoples with both their history and their supposed national destiny. Developments in scholarship combined with the changing imperatives of national thought led to the emergence of an archetypal Celtic image around 1830, where ‘the Celts’ became usefully politicised by both English chauvinists and Celtic nationalists alike. This era also saw the beginnings of Pan-Celticism, where race, far from being used to castigate the Celts, became a central pillar around which members of the different Celtic nations rallied. Tracing Celtic ideological vicissitudes over this longue durée serves as a case-study for how national thought and its conceptual relatives evolved over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, following the early-modern squabbles over Celtic ancestry through to the early-twentieth century Pan-Celtic movement, the version of Celticism we have inherited more or less intact today.

This research looks to present a reinterpretation of medieval forests, the least well understood landscapes of medieval Western Europe. The thesis focuses on the Forest of High Peak and Sherwood Forest and seeks to address several key themes, including the diversity of forest landscapes, the long-term impact of Forest Law, and evidence for power-relations and social dynamics within the forests. A wide variety of sources are utilised within this research, including map analysis and regression techniques, analysis of material culture, documentary sources, place names, church architecture, and funerary monuments. Evidence is found for forests having had a dynamic landscape character, including not only woodland, but also moorland, farmland, industrial areas, and urban areas, as well as a range of human activities that included mining, glass and charcoal manufacture, ironworking, leatherworking, carpentry, construction, and intensive arable and pastoral farming. Far from being universally oppressive, it emerges that through its protection of woodland Forest Law also preserved common rights and areas of royal demesne, the impact of which was a high degree of peasant agency during the medieval period.

The House of Lords has been rising in profile in academic, political, and popular narratives. Whilst existing research has developed our understanding of the House of Lords and its role in bringing about defeats of the Government and the genesis and paths of amendments made within both chambers, there has been little distinction made between how the Lords brings about a defeat, and the Lords bringing about a defeat that is later overturned. Equally, the role of the Lords in amending a bill as a reviewing chamber, and amending one as a second chamber in its own right have not been separated. Research into comparable international examples has shown that this period between an amendment being moved and a defeat being sustained or overturned can define the bicameral relationship, and it is this area of the House of Lords relationship with the wider British political system that this thesis examines. This thesis studies the extent to which the Lords attempts and succeeds with amendments to bills, looking at the changes in both as the procedure known as ping pong progresses. It also examines the behaviour changes, both through debate language and through tangible voting turnout as, ping pong progresses to build up a picture of behaviour within the chamber. This thesis bridges the gap between the procedural single case study model and the large scale defeats and amendment tracing study model to show that the House of Lords has become a chamber that is driven more than ever by historical and political realities, as well as the political needs of the policy in question. This research argues that the House of Lords maintains a delicate balance between two roles, that of a second chamber which is performing a function complimentary to and distinct from that of the first chamber in passing legislation and that of a chamber that is aware of its somewhat uncomfortable position as a non-democratic institution, filled with non-directly elected members. Ultimately in the House of Lords, for ping pong to begin there is a need for strong feeling on the policy in question. The House of Lords ability to achieve its aims is measured in three points, first in its desired amendments to legislation, second in its actions as ping pong divisions progress, and the debates leading to them take place and lastly in the final degree of conciliation it achieves. In all three points, the role of self restraint has a positive role in achieving an outcome that is closest to the Lords original aims, whilst still allowing the Government's legislative programme and aims to pass. It is this understanding that allows the Lords to have the greatest influence over legislation, and perform a significant role.

This thesis examines the role of social work within post-war England, particularly its place within the welfare state and wider society. The thesis focuses on social work’s ambiguous position ‘in the gaps’ and ‘on the margins’, where it operated between a variety of spheres, including other professions in the medical and social services, policy-makers, individual clients and communities, and social researchers. Within this position, social workers were commonly tasked with mediating between these different groups, and helping to interpret the various languages and expectations present in post-war English welfare and society. This meant that social workers aimed to make the provision and consumption of welfare more effective, both through working closely with individuals, families, and communities, and through promoting efficient coordination and cooperation between the welfare services. The thesis discusses the problems which this approach sought to address, and the issues which resulted. The study of social workers offers an insight into the negotiations and compromises implicit in post-war society, and also allows us to consider how issues of social change and the problems which emerged or persisted in post-war England were navigated. The thesis also considers the relationship of social work with the psychological and social sciences, and seeks to reconsider how concepts from those disciplines were utilised within welfare practice. This includes an emphasis on pragmatic practice, on the discretion of the individual worker, and on the attempts of social workers to generate knowledge about the field of their work and the efficacy of their intervention. Overall, the thesis shows how closer attention to social work can illuminate some of the tensions which arose in the post-war provision of medical and social services, in the everyday practice of welfare, and as a result of social, cultural, and demographic change.

This thesis examines the social, cultural and political contexts of flooding in early modern England. It explores the relationships between floods and the productive practices and organising principles of the communities in which they occurred. Drawing on insights from the environmental humanities and social sciences, this thesis approaches flooding as a socio-natural phenomenon, in which humanity and nature played mutually influential parts. Taking in evidence from England as a whole, and with special reference to South Holland in Lincolnshire, and the Severn Estuary Levels in Gloucestershire, this thesis locates flooding at the forefront of cultural and political changes occurring over the early modern period. Following recent European approaches to histories of flooding, this thesis considers the ways in which early modern society contributed to, and sought to mitigate the effects of particularly damaging flooding. In five chapters it analyses the productive and destructive role of flooding in local communities, how these floods were interpreted by those they affected, the political nature of disputes about flooding and the impact of flooding on the early modern state. Together, these chapters stress the need to understand flooding as a socially and culturally generated phenomenon that had political implications. Far from being purely 'natural', flooding was a complex process which contemporaries both recognised and actively negotiated. In analysing an environmental process with specific reference to the traditional domains of social, cultural and political history, this thesis links the small but expanding subdiscipline of early modern English environmental history to broader historical narratives, showing the potential for an environmental approach to pre-modern England.

Information is the essence of democracy and the lynchpin of power-ownership. Possession and control of information allows us to demarcate who controls or influences the political system. Freedom of Information (FOI), rooted in Enlightenment values, contains within it a key principle of democracy that there must be access to information (and knowledge) for all equally. My approach in my 25-year journalistic career has been to use FOI as a means of testing the promise and practice of democracy. It serves here as a ‘canary in the coalmine’ to measure how well citizens can access the political system.