Over the past three decades, historians of the long eighteenth century have emphasized both the stability of the British state and the progressive growth of national sentiment over the period. The enormous mobilization of manpower during the French Wars is often characterized as the culmination of this evolution. Arming to fight the French, it is argued, was a formative process, which encouraged greater social cohesion, and forged an overarching sense of national identity. This thesis will contend that the ‘Nation-in-Arms’ interpretation has been constructed at a considerable remove from the culture and lives of common people. Adopting a ‘history from below’ approach, it will re-evaluate the popular experience of mass arming, by focusing upon two relatively neglected branches of the armed forces, the army and militia. Three central themes have been selected for investigation: The recruitment process, the experience of soldiering in the home garrison, and the role of armed force in maintaining public order. It will be shown that, between 1790 and 1805, the government was faced by a mixture of popular ambivalence and hostility towards the raising of the army and militia. It will be demonstrated that economic privation was the preeminent cause of enlistment and that, once recruited, soldiers and militiamen retained their working-class attitudes, and viewed their service primarily as a contractual form of labour. The extent to which armed service was viewed as conditional and negotiable will be emphasized through an examination of the military crimes of mutiny and desertion. Finally, an analysis of military deployments during industrial protests and food riots will demonstrate that, during the French Wars, the state became much more reliant upon armed force for maintaining public order. By adopting a ‘history from below’ approach, the limits of social stability and social cohesion will be tested, and a richer, more variegated, understanding of the popular experience of mass-arming will be offered.

This thesis examines the lives of poor children living in Shropshire between 1834 and 1870. They lived in three different environments: in the workhouse, as part of a labourer’s family, or as part of a family in receipt of out-relief. The standard of living of the families of agricultural workers, the predominant form of employment in most of Shropshire, was very low, with wages too low to provide adequate levels of nutrition. Families in receipt of out-relief had an even lower standard of living than those of agricultural labourers, because levels of out-relief were lower than labourers’ wages. This thesis also examines the life that children led if they were inmates of the workhouse. Children in the workhouse received an education, the quality of which varied across the county, but was very good at the Bridgnorth workhouse school, latterly known as South East Shropshire District School. Poor children living at home would have had limited opportunity for education because of the cost. Medical care was organised by the Poor Law Union for indoor and outdoor paupers, and provided free. It was not provided for independent families. Apprenticeships were satisfactorily organised by the Shropshire Unions, though some apprentices were inappropriately placed in mines. Amounts of out-relief differed across Unions with those Unions committed to the use of the workhouse ungenerous in their payments when compared to Unions taking a positive view of out-relief. For poor children, life in the workhouse, despite its disadvantages, provided greater material benefits than a childhood spent in a poor labourer’s family or in a family on out-relief.

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The Covenanting Movement was essentially composed of radicals and conservatives. Radicals were in a minority among the noble estate, but had a strong base among the gentry and the burgesses. In addition, pragmatic Royalists were Royalists who accepted and subscribed compulsory Covenanting oaths and obligations in order to secure admission to public office, particularly Parliament. The radical wing of the Covenanting Movement dominated parliamentary proceedings from 1639-1646. A radical political and constitutional agenda had been formulated prior to the 1639 Parliament. Such an agenda was enacted in the Scottish Constitutional Settlement of 1640-41. The radicals similarly-orchestrated the calling of the 1643 Convention of Estates and the signing of the Solemn League and Covenant. Whilst there was a rapprochement between radical and conservative nobles in 1645-1646, the cutting edge of the radicals was maintained by the gentry and burgesses and the emergence of a Scottish Commons can be detected. The crisis over the position of the king in 1646-1647 led to the ascendancy of conservatism among the Scottish Estates, 1647-1648. The defeat of the Engagement Army in the summer of 1648 led to a coup d'etat in Scotland and the instillation of a radical regime which held power unchallenged until the defeat at the Battle of Dunbar in September 1650. Thereafter there was a patriotic accommodation between the various political factions in Scotland in light of the growing threat to national independence from Cromwellian military forces. Following military defeat at the hands of Cromwell, Scotland eventually became incorporated within the Commonwealth and Protectorate. In political terms, the continuance of an "Argyll interest" can be observed. The Restoration witnessed the rescinding of Covenanting legislation. although Covenanting procedures were adopted, rather than abandoned. Whilst the Restoration witnessed the reassertion of noble power. a significant political role for the gentry was still maintained. That the gentry and burgesses provided the political backbone of the Covenanting Movement was reflected in the complicated committee structure of Parliament. 1639-1651. In addition. non-parliamentary gentry and burgesses were regularly involved in the proceedings of both parliamentary session and interval committees. Detailed parliamentary procedures and regulations were established in 1640-41 and continued to be modified according to circumstances throughout the 1640s and continued to 1651. The Restoration Parliament of 1661 saw a return to more traditional parliamentary regulation, particularly under the control of the crown and crown royal appointees.

This thesis examines the role of British newspaper coverage of Africa in the process of decolonisation between 1957 and 1960. It considers events in the Gold Coast/Ghana, Kenya, the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, South Africa, and the Belgian Congo/Congo. It offers an extensive analysis of British newspaper coverage of Africa during this period. Concurrently, it explores British journalists’ interactions with one another as well as with the British Government, British MPs, African nationalists, white settler communities, their presses, and African and European settler governments, whose responses to coverage are gauged and evaluated throughout. The project aims, firstly, to provide the first broad study of the role of the British press in, and in relation to, Africa during the period of ‘rapid decolonisation’. Secondly, it offers a reassessment of the assumption that the British metropolitan political and cultural context to the end of empire in Africa was extraneous to the process. Thirdly, it aims to contribute to a growing literature on non-governmental metropolitan perspectives on the end of empire.

Despite their use in every British general election of the twentieth and twentieth first century, the political poster remains largely unconsidered by the majority of historians working in the field of British politics. This thesis is the first study dedicated entirely to the posters role in British elections. Through five election case studies, the work contextualises the poster within the broader narratives of election culture. Unusually for studies of political communication, it is the type and content of the communication – namely the poster – that forms the central focus of each chapter. Each of which seeks to locate the production, content and display of posters parties produced for an election, within the broader landscape of that elections particular culture. Understandably given the structure of the thesis, chronologically long, but heavily focused on specific events, the conclusions are at times pertinent to a particular moment. By studying communication in this way, however, by locating posters in one election and understanding them as products of the culture that produced them, the research expands on and questions some of the key totems that define research into British political communication. Moreover, the thesis positions the poster not as an archaic dying form of communication; one replaced by those electronic media that have been of far greater interest to academics, namely television and more latterly online platforms. Rather, as argued here, parties’ use of the poster has constantly been in a state of flux. Ultimately, posters are objects that are constantly being re-imagined for each new age.

This thesis examines the lives and emotions of male and female ground personnel who served in Bomber Command during the Second World War. Histories of Bomber Command usually focus on the flyers, or on the strategy of the bombing campaign. The experiences of four fifths of the service, the ground personnel, are often neglected. They are frequently reduced to two dimensional stereotypes, as the ‘Erk’ who serviced the aircraft, or the WAAF ‘chop girl’ whose sexual promiscuity presaged death. The RAF assigned personnel to different trades ranging from the most technical to the most mundane. The central theme of this thesis is the gendered hierarchy of trades within Bomber Command. It was constructed in part by widespread beliefs about fear, heroism and stoicism, the interconnected discourses of class and gender, and specific quirks of RAF culture. These included its trade selection process, dialect, pay scale, and trades’ perceived importance to the raison d’être of Bomber Command. The hierarchy is important in explaining the experiences of ground personnel, as some personnel were overstretched while others felt that they were not ‘doing their bit.’ Bomber Command servicemen and women were part of a community that experienced high rates of air crew loss. This thesis also discusses their emotional responses to service life and the treatment by the RAF medical services of those who suffered breakdowns. In examining non-combatant military personnel who served on operational stations but were also part of the home front, my thesis will inform and bring together different areas of study. It gives a voice to an important but previously underrepresented group and in doing so, contributes to the histories of the RAF, emotions, military medicine and psychiatry, as well as understandings of the wartime experience, work and citizenship.

Bengal raw silk was never renowned for its high quality, yet it attracted the interest of the European trading companies from the seventeenth century. This thesis explores the English East India Company’s silk manufacturing activities in Bengal and the Company’s trade in Bengal raw silk in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. The Company’s interest in Bengal raw silk was driven both by economic and political factors – profit maximization and mercantilist ideas about governance. The English East India Company considered Bengal raw silk to be an item with potential high returns as the British silk weaving industry required supplies of raw material unavailable domestically. However, the quality of the Bengal raw silk was low and it could not be easily used in British weaving. Britain thus relied on the importation of raw silk from Italy, Turkey and the Mediterranean region. The English East India Company saw an opportunity to replace these supplies with silk imported from Bengal. In order to improve the quality of the raw silk produced in Bengal, the Company decided to adopt the Piedmontese system of silk reeling – the most advanced reeling system in Europe. The thesis shows that this new system of reeling was profitable. Yet, the quality of the Bengal raw silk did not improve as much as expected: a large part of the silk produced was of substandard quality. My thesis argues that the primary reason why substandard raw silk was produced was the inadequate institutional framework of production which facilitated principal-agent problems.

Following their breaching of German dams in May 1943, No. 617 Squadron, Royal Air Force, was maintained as a specialist precision bombing unit. For the remainder of the Second World War the Squadron carried out precision attacks using new and unconventional weapons, culminating with Barnes Wallis’s deep penetration bombs, TALLBOY and GRAND SLAM. This thesis will show that the numerous accounts of the Squadron’s history have failed to take account of many factors that determined its role. By concentrating on the operational record and weapons, both popular historians and scholars have given a distorted and interpretatively incomplete description of the Squadron’s development. This in turn has led to an incomplete perception of the Squadron’s Development and a misconception of its full contribution to the bomber offensive. This thesis identifies policy and decision making bodies and examines their role in selecting weapons and targets for the Squadron. It explores the issues which determined the role played by the Squadron: changes in Air Staff policy for Bomber Command, choice of targets, the development and production of weapons, and tactical requirements. Comparison is made between the planners’ original intentions and the final operational record. Many of the Squadron’s operations emerged from an inability to follow through from initial planning. Such failure resulted from factors that included unrealistic expectations of weapon performance, delays in the development of new weapons, and political intervention. Alternative targets were selected not only to take advantage of the Squadron’s existing capabilities but also to address specific issues that were often imposed on the planners by outside agencies which would have otherwise diverted Bomber Command from the main offensive. In other instances the Squadron was used to supplement existing operations carried out by main force. The gestation time for new weapons was such that when a weapon emerged its originally intended targets were no often longer relevant. Accordingly, new targets had to be found. The Squadron’s role in the development and assessment of weapons, equipment and new techniques for the Command is revealed to be greater than previously recognised. This new approach to the Squadron’s wartime role examines the policy and planning backstory to the Squadron’s operations. It reveals a hitherto unrecognised complexity in the evolution of the Squadron’s role, and demonstrates how haphazard delays and setbacks were transformed into new policy to meet ever changing requirements.

The somewhat neglected topic of attitudes to mining, as an influence on labour supply in the coal industry, is the subject of this thesis. By the 1940s antagonism to mining was a nationwide phenomenon, although the regional experiences of miners and their families varied considerably between the wars. The study therefore starts at regional level before moving on to consider from a broader perspective the topic of changing attitudes to pit work. The first part of the thesis comprises a comparative study of the Somerset and Lothian (Mid and East Lothian) coalfields, two districts which have attracted little attention from historians. An overview of the industry in both areas is given in the opening chapter, where the regional characteristics of ownership and management are also discussed. The following three chapters focus respectively on change and continuity in the work place; life in the mining communities; the relationship between the miners' unions and the wider labour movement. The perspective shifts to national level in chapter five but the theme of regional influence on attitudes to pit work is carried forward by extensive reference to a Social Survey inquiry carried out in Scottish mining communities (including those of Mid and East Lothian) in 1946. Finally, the impact of the Second World War and of nationalisation are considered, before a survey and commentary on general attitudes to mining and miners over time. The conclusion reached is that post-nationalisation labour-supply problems had their origins in the decades before the Second World War. As the social and psychological isolation of the mining communities broke down over the inter-war period, circumstances within the industry and wider socio-economic change combined to erode the tradition of occupational inheritance and to promote the growth of negative or hostile attitudes to mining as an occupation.