The Times in the 1860's was the most powerful newspaper in Britain and the world. Through the labours of its exceptionally talented staff in London, the provinces, and abroad, it provided readers with vital information on major questions of the day, and instructed them on its editorial page as to the opinions they should hold. This thesis examines the record of The Times in covering and commenting on the American Civil War. When war threatened in America, Times editor John Delane quickly sent his experienced foreign correspondent, William Howard Russell, to supplement his regular correspondent in New York. Russell was in place to report the beginning of the war, the retreat from the first battle of Bull Run, and the Trent Crisis of November/December 1861. Refused permission in the spring of 1862 to accompany Northern armies on the first major campaign of the war, he angrily returned to England, In this period of just over a year. The Times moved from being the foreign newspaper most educated Americans wanted to read, to being the foreign newspaper most Americans vehemently disliked. Contemporary observers charged then and later that The Times's coverage of the war poisoned relations between Britain and the United States for a generation. This study analyzes this remarkable charge by exploring the private opinions of key players in the drama. The Times is unique among newspapers in possessing an unusually complete archive of letters written by its editors and correspondents. In addition to these letters and Russell's diaries, the papers of William Seward, American Secretary of State, and two of his diplomats, John Bigelow and Henry Sanford, the papers of Times correspondent Bancroft Davis and the diaries of American Minister Charles Francis Adams have been tapped to document American reactions to The Times. Lord Palmerston's papers have been consulted to determine the relationship between the policies advocated by The Times and those of Palmerston and his foreign secretary, Lord Russell. The major concentration of the study has been on the period just before the war up to the time of the Trent crisis, for it was then that The Times's policy was forged. While it has not been possible to examine every issue that was debated in The Times during this four year war, the study goes beyond Russell's tour to describe the reportage of the five other Times correspondents in America, and the part they played in ruining or rescuing The Times's reputation.

This thesis presents Thomas Manton as a leading figure in the Presbyterian bid for the centre ground of English ecclesiastical culture in the Interregnum and Restoration. Not only was Manton active on multiple committees of national significance for religious settlement from the 1650s to 1670s, but he likely has the largest corpus of sermons for any seventeenth century Puritan. Much modern scholarship has overlooked the more moderate, sober religious figures while giving greater attention to figures who cast a unique but unrepresentative profile. This thesis aims to correct this by tracing the career and writings of a minister who, though a jure divino Presbyterian, served both Cromwell and Charles 11 as chaplain, and whose sermons have been cited by Presbyterians, Independents and Baptists for hundreds of years after his death. This thesis will explore the political and ecclesiological landscape of the Interregnum and Restoration through the life and works of a single divine. Manton's early years in Devon and Tiverton, his education at Blundell's School and Wadham College, Oxford, his early clerical experience with Presbyterianism, his London parishes, and patronage networks will all be considered for their significance in developing a national leader. Then Manton's role not only among the Presbyterians but between the Presbyterians, the Independents and successive regimes will be evaluated. He is present and involved at nearly every major turn, beginning with the death of Christopher Love, then working for the unity of the godly in the Commonwealth alongside Cromwellian Congregationalists, and finally working for a broad religious settlement in the Restoration. Though he was ultimately ejected from the Church of England, Manton continued work for the accommodation of the godly from within and to protect the church from heresy from without. Nearly fifty years after Manton's death, his lone biographer, William Harris, himself expressed surprise that others had not yet attempted a life of 'a person of so great worth and general esteem, and who bore so great a part in the public affairs of his own time' (Memoirs, vii). This thesis is the first modern scholarly work to set Manton in his historical and cultural context, as well as the first work based on a full reading of his Complete Works. By better understanding Manton, we can better understand the Presbyterians and Independents, and the politics of religion in Interregnum and Restoration England.

Historians are becoming increasingly aware of the value of studying local communities as definite types. In many ways Myddle was a typical woodland community in Tudor and Stuart times, though it differed from some in having relatively few craftsmen and only a handful of dissenters. Important changes took place in the physical appearance and economy of the parish at the beginning of the period. The open-fields were abandoned when over 1,000 acres were brought into cultivation by the felling of woods and the draining of meres, and the farmers concentrated upon the rearing of beef and a pastoral economy. In the absence of the lord, the parish was led by several families of minor gentry or yeomen standing, who were often freeholders, but who rarely held land outside the parish. The small tenement-farmers were the backbone of the community, both in terms of numbers and of long-residence. They were granted security with 99-year leases determinable upon three lives, and several of these families were resident in the perish throughout the period. In 1563 there were only 54 households in the parish, but by 1672 there were at least 91 families. The increase was largely due to immigrant labourers. In the early-sixteenth century labourers formed only 7percent of the population, but by the late-seventeenth century they accounted for nearly 40 percent. Richard Gough's unique book has been the basis of the study, with manorial, ecclesiastical, and parochial records adding greatly to what he had to say. With the aid of Gough, all the families in the community have been studied, often in great detail. In this way, large and complex changes can be described, and the scope of economic history can be expanded to include the approaches of the social anthropologist, so that in the final chapter the mental world of the community is explored as far as the sources will allow.

Flows which are suspensions of auto-diffeomorphisms of manifolds are studied in this thesis. The structure of the product of two such suspended flows is investigated and its relation to product diffeomorphisms, together with some simple statements concerning Anosov flows are given. A generalization of suspension to deal with any finite number of commuting auto-diffeomorphisms is considered and analogous results to those obtained above are proved together with some additional ones. A functorial representation is given for suspended flows. Other flow invariant operations on manifolds are considered for this class of flows. Also considered are diffeomorphisms with non-wandering sets which have parts homeomorphic to Cantor Sets. The cohomologies of their insets are computed using Cech cohomology theory. This is a first step in the problem of using Morse Theory to obtain Morse-inequalities for Smale diffeomorphisms as defined in the introduction.

This thesis examines revivalism sociologically and phenomenologically. It is contended that sociology and phenomenology of religion are not incompatible disciplines, but may and should be complementary. It is possible for both to be fruitfully applied to the study of religion and religious phenomena, and this has been attempted in the present work. The eighteenth-century revival in London in its formative years, 1736 to 1750, is studied in depth. In addition to the contemporary and subsequent published works, such as journals, pamphlets, books, letters and local histories of various description, considerable use has been made of unpublished manuscripts, and other primary sources not previously used in the same way as in this thesis. An examination is then made of a wide chronological and geographical range of other post-Reformation revivals in the Christian tradition. In doing so, those revivals are included which have been of considerable significance in terms of their impact upon, and importance to the religious life of the community with which they are associated, or which have exerted a profound influence in helping to stimulate other such phenomena. Where this has not been of special relevance, the revival has been chosen because it is well documented, often by a contemporary person involved in it, in such a manner as to give added insight into either or both its social and religious aspects. On the basis of these studies, revivalism is considered as a social and religious phenomenon. This is undertaken in the broad context of major world religions, and by reference to those sociological and phenomenological theories and concepts which appear most pertinent to this particular manifestation of religious behaviour.

As the proto-industrial debate has already provided encouragement for a large number of regional studies both in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, some justification for the selection of Guthlaxton Hundred and Countesthorpe in particular for a further study of change needs to be offered. The hosiery industry has frequently been cited by both supporters and critics of proto-industrialisation as an example of domestic-based industry which later developed into factory-based manufacture. It was as a result of the, apparent, appropriateness of the model as an explanation for the growth of frame-work knitting, that David Levine selected the most heavily industrialised Leicestershire hosiery village of Shepshed for his study of demographic change. Family Formation In An Age of Nascent Capitalism was greeted with deserved critical acclaim for its application of the relatively new technique of family reconstitution and its clear exposition of the demographic and social consequences of the early stages of industrial change. Yet, in comparison with other Leicestershire villages, Shepshed's demographic profile was extreme. Unfortunately, Levine's thesis rapidly became the established orthodoxy and the experience of Shepshed, the inevitable outcome of the development of the growth of frame-work knitting. Guthlaxton Hundred covers a wedge shape area of Leicestershire reaching from the outskirts of Leicester to the Warwickshire border and contained, in the eighteenth century, a variety of different types of parishes ranging from small 'closed' agricultural villages to large 'open' knitting villages. Countesthorpe, a medium sized village with a population of 540 in 1801 and situated seven miles to the south of Leicester, represented a typical example of a hosiery village, if it is possible to identify a typical example in a very diverse industry. Countesthorpe was clearly within the orbit of the Leicester merchants, had a long tradition of involvement in by-employment and, as demonstrated by the parish registers and 1851 census return, the majority of the adult population were directly employed in the production of knitted goods.4 The size of the parish was also important; Countesthorpe was smaller than Shepshed; this enabled the scope of the research to be broadened. Rather than limiting the study to an examination of the demographic consequences of rural industrialisation, I wanted to consider the impact of agrarian change and the wider implications of such developments on the structure of society. These were areas which Levine had been unable to consider when examining Shepshed but were within the longer historiographical tradition of Leicestershire established by Phythian-Adams, Thirsk and Hoskins. Countesthorpe's contiguity to Wigston Magna was a further reason for its selection. The Midland Peasant had prefigured much of the research into regional social and economic change; a study of a similar parish offered the opportunity to examine Hoskin's thesis in the light of new arguments. This study of Guthlaxton Hundred and Countesthorpe in particular allows an examination of those changes and explores the consequences of the movement to pasture and the development of framework knitting for the structure of communities and the disunities within them.

The argument of this study is that during the eighteenth century the Guernsey merchants displayed considerable entrepreneurial energy and initiative. By improving the harbour facilities of St Peter Port and by establishing a network of factors throughout the Atlantic world, the merchants successfully developed St Peter Port as a major entrepot. Trade, not privateering, was the fundamental source of the town's prosperity. The entrepot attracted foreign merchants and migrants to St Peter Port. Port. New port industries replaced the old putting-out system of stocking knitting. The influx of migrants, combined with natural increase, created significant population growth. As the town became increasingly prosperous, the merchants rivalled one another in conspicuous consumption. By the second half of the 18th century the elite of St Peter Port were consciously imitating the metropolitan fashions of London. The town acquired many of the amenities characteristic of Dr Borsay's "English urban renaissance" - a promenade, theatre, assembly rooms, purpose-built markets and new civic buildings. However, the influx of English migrants created cultural pluralism. The traditional French system of status designation broke down; and the elite fashioned an alternative form of social segregation by moving to the outskirts of the town. Throughout the 18th century the urban morphology was shaped and reshaped by the merchants as they organised the town to suit their requirements. By the early 19th century the town boasted a wide range of retailers catering to the wealthy. Paradoxically, despite the emergence of this new "middling" class, the pattern of income distribution remained constant. This thesis is, in part, revisionist. Hitherto the history of St Peter Port in the 18th century has been described in terms of privateers and privateering success. The thesis also attempts (for the first time) to quantify the volume and value of the town's trade. Finally, the entrepot trade is seen as the engine of growth that led to the "Englishing" and modernising of this town.

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This dissertation examines the development of electoral politics in Great Britain between 1868 and 1880. It focuses on the general elections of 1868, 1874 and 1880 together with the intervening by-elections and explores the impact on popular politics of changes in the size and composition of the electorate as well as alterations to the electoral system arising from the 1867 Reform Act and the Ballot Act of 1872. It further argues that electoral statistics are important and useful but many historians have chosen not to use them in relation to this period because of the inherent difficulties in their measurement when there was a preponderance of multi-member seats. This is corrected by the use of an improved technique - a stratified voter methodology - to calculate these statistics more accurately and provide a more meaningful basis for analysing voter turnout, swing and related trends. Core themes are the nationalisation of popular politics and the development of mass support for the Conservative party. These are considered through an exploration of the interaction of ideology, language and electoral politics and the ways parties sought to build their allegiances and support through ideas, language and organisation. The impact of the Ballot Act on corruption, undue influence and party organisation is investigated together with the importance of by-elections to the electoral process, emphasising their importance in the development and nationalisation of popular politics. Finally, a new survey of approximately 900 candidates’ addresses is used to show the development of ideology and language, together with the construction of national party messages. These investigations show the rapid decline of the importance of localised ‘politics of place’ in elections in this period but also that local organisation was important to the development of national ideology and was more extensive in 1868 than previously thought. Overall, the parties, especially the Conservatives in developing their support amongst the new electorate, are shown to have had a more adaptable and positive approach than they have sometimes been given credit for.