This thesis offers a comparative analysis of British wartime civilian internment policies, focusing on three key case studies: the South African War (1899-1902), the First World War and the Second World War. It seeks to determine the place of the ‗concentration camps‘ of the South African War within the history of internment and the extent to which world war internment episodes were shaped by both historical and contemporary experiences. It suggests that reactions to internment, at both state and popular levels, are revealing about Britain‘s self-image in relation to civil rights, justice and the treatment of minorities. In particular, the thesis argues that gender ideologies were highly significant in determining the development of internment policies, playing a central role in shaping popular images of the enemy and underpinning official assumptions about the treatment of women by the state. The debates and discussions which emerged around internment policy also provide insight into the ways in which the experience of war can accentuate the exclusion of minorities and the reinforcement of racial stereotypes. The thesis examines the ways in which racialized and gendered discourses converged during each conflict to create particular understandings of the enemy, which in turn had a discernible impact on the development of internment policies.

This thesis offers a new interpretation of the life and importance of George Padmore (1903-1959). Padmore was one of the most well-known ‘black communists’ in the 1930s. He became a major nexus for anti-colonial resistance in London between 1935- 1957 and one of the foremost political thinkers behind the pan-African movement. Through an analysis of his writing and his networks this thesis argues that Padmore engaged in a permanent state of political activity, guided by a practice of ‘pragmatic anti-imperialism.’ By tracing his journalism in West African and West Indian colonies, it shows that Padmore’s influence was far more extensive than previously imagined. This study begins from the hypothesis that the pragmatism of Padmore’s politics can only be demonstrated by examining his whole life, and thus takes the form of a biography. Taking Padmore’s pragmatism as a starting point, the forms in which he was understood and labeled by others are fundamental to this study since they demonstrate the extent to which Padmore was willing to compromise and ‘play the game’ of imperial politics, and they show the boundaries of the field in which he operated. Overall, this thesis aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of race and non-violent resistance in anti-imperial politics in the first half of the twentieth century by focusing upon the role of a mobile, life-long activist from the diaspora who attacked the moral basis of late colonial rule from within.

From 1960-4 the British government embarked on two large-scale space research programmes to develop satellite launchers. After first being cancelled as a military project in 1960, the Blue Streak missile was converted into the first stage of a British-led European collaborative project to build a three stage satellite launcher (through the European Launcher Development Organisation - ELDO). Born out of the Black Knight warhead re-entry testing vehicle, the independent Black Arrow project aimed to launch small satellites for scientific experimentation. With European collaborations, American scientific knowledge, and an Australian testing site, decisions affecting British space research had wide reaching diplomatic as well as domestic consequences. However, by 1973, both of these programmes had been cancelled. By examining the complex formation of British policy on these two space research projects, I will identify the alliances of actors involved focusing on understanding the role of civil servants, and the domestic, economic, and foreign policy priorities which directed their policy-making. This thesis seeks to address two contradictions raised by British policy on space research, and historical analysis of this period. Firstly, if we accept that Britain was not in decline in this period, the how can the history of two projects which is dominated by their cancellation be explained? Secondly, how British governments could reconcile their policy towards ELDO (threatening to withdraw almost yearly from 1966-73) with their stated aim to accede to the European Communities and their repeated rhetoric that the increased potential for scientific and technological collaboration was a key benefit of British accession? In order to address these contradictions I focus on decisions and decision-makers within government. By tracking policy arguments and options to their very beginnings I show throughout this thesis the way in which individuals frame, shape and direct policy. This thesis provides new insights into the foreign and domestic policy priorities of the four governments in this period by tracking the balance of priorities in policy making in two major space research projects. Close examination of ELDO and Black Arrow highlights that their cancellation is not a symbol of British decline, but instead represent active choices by decision-makers to engage in new areas of research. This supports the work of historians challenging the idea that Britain was in decline in this period, and suggests that cancelled projects should be re-examined.

This research examines British intellectual debates on warfare throughout the mid-20th century. The thesis identifies different discourses that emerged as a result of the changes in international relations and military technology at this time. It posits that intellectual contribution on the whole had a more significant impact than many historians have previously accredited. The thesis examines the work of specific intellectuals that made significant and detailed input into these debates and identifies their role in framing these discourses, as individuals and as part of a larger intellectual community. It also highlights the involvement of these intellectuals within the state apparatus and links their intellectual contribution to their role in government. The subject of war and its perception by intellectuals is conspicuously absent in the historiography on British intellectuals. Some of the most important studies of British intellectuals, including Stefan Collini’s Absent Minds, have engaged only slightly or not at all with the intellectual discourse surrounding international relations and warfare. This thesis attempts to fill this gap for the middle of the 20th century and demonstrates that warfare became a prolific and highly visible part of the contribution of intellectuals to British life. Recent literature has attempted to discuss the British state as a warfare state, rejecting arguments on British declinism. The thesis engages with this debate, and while it focuses on Britain’s approach to warfare, it also challenges the interpretation of Britain as either a welfare or a warfare state. The study of intellectuals does not feature heavily within this historiography on British warfare. While historians, such as David Edgerton, engage with specific intellectuals and their writings, a discussion of intellectual discourse does not appear within these analyses. This thesis argues that intellectuals as a group developed ideas and arguments on warfare and the British state in conjunction with one another, creating an intellectual discourse which influenced political decision making and public opinion. The thesis also examines a more modern understanding of the intellectual: the expert. Using both scientific and military thinkers, the thesis explores how experts became intellectuals in response to the growing threat of warfare and the rise of a military-industrial complex. Using intellectuals that conform to the classic definition alongside expert intellectuals, the thesis highlights the importance of analysing both groups as part of the larger whole, and discusses the similarities and differences between the works generated by these intellectuals. The thesis spans the years from 1932 to 1963 and discusses the continuities between intellectual debates across this period. The post-war years and the nuclear conflict feature heavily within this analysis, but the thesis highlights the importance of the 1930s in influencing later intellectual perceptions of the nuclear age and the fight against communism. The majority of this research resulted from sources published within the public domain including monographs, newspaper and periodical articles, public speeches and radio broadcasts. The research also uses the personal archives of the individual intellectuals and political documents from the time, including papers from the Ministry of Defence located in the National Archives, Defence White Papers and the Hansard House of Commons official reports.

This thesis examines the relationship between the private naval armaments industry, businessmen and the British Government’s supply planning framework between 1918 and 1941. More specifically, it reassesses the concept of the Military-Industrial Complex by examining the impact of disarmament upon private industry, the role of leading industrialists within supply and procurement policy, and the successes and failings of the Government’s supply organisation. This work blends together political, naval and business history in new ways, and, by situating the business activities of industrialists alongside their work as government advisors, it sheds new light on the operation of the British state. This thesis argues that there was a small coterie of influential businessmen, led by Lord Weir, who, in a time of great need for Britain, first gained access to secret information on industrial mobilisation as advisers to the Supply Board and Principal Supply Officers Committee (PSOC), and later were able to directly influence policy. This made Lord Weir and Sir James Lithgow among the most influential industrial figures in Britain. This was a relationship which cut both ways: Weir and others provided the state with honest, thoughtful advice and policies, but, as ‘insiders’ utilised their access to information to build a business empire at a fraction of the normal costs. Outsiders, by way of contrast, lacked influence and were forced together into a defensive ‘ring’ – or cartel – and effectively fixed prices for British warships in the lean 1920s. However, by the 1930s, the cartel grew into one of the most sophisticated profiteering groups of its day, before being shut down by the Admiralty in 1941. More generally, this work argues that the Japanese invasion of Manchuria was a turning point for supply organisation, and that between 1931 and 1935, the PSOC and its component bodies were governed by necessity. Powerful constraints on finance and political manoeuvre explain the nature of industrial involvement. Thus, it is argued that the PSOC did a broadly effective job at organising industry with the tools it was given, and the failings were down to the top levels of policymaking – the Cabinet – not acting upon advice to ease procurement bottlenecks early enough, to the extent that British warship construction was more expensive and slower than it could have been. In sum, this group of industrialists, the Admiralty and a few key figures in the PSOC such as Sir Harold Brown, effectively saved MacDonald, Baldwin and Chamberlain’s National Government from itself.

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The thesis deals with Britain's early Cold War history and the political history of the Church of England. It mainly uses primary sources, and contributes to our growing understanding of the early Cold War, especially in its cultural/religious elements. It explores how the Church of England dealt with the development of the early Cold War in Britain. It argues that in order to understand better the Church of England's role, an account of its perspective on issues of state modernisation dating back to at least the 1930s is necessary. It was then, during a decade of authoritarianism, and especially at the Oxford Conference of 1937, that the Church' standpoint towards secularisation was established, while the transnational agenda of the ecumenical movement was also adopted and internalized by Church of England. The thesis also examines the agencies which it built and worked with: in particular the British Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches. As the Church is the Established Church, its relationship with specific government agencies, especially the British Foreign Office and the Ministry of Information also became increasingly important. The thesis reveals the Church of England's lack of autonomy in time of crisis and the importance of key individuals for the institutional leadership of the Church. Its ecumenical agenda had played an important role, but this was under pressure after the War, as a Europe-wide Christian community was increasingly challenged by 'Western Union' plans for a Cold War Western, Christian community and bloc. By 1948 the Church had been enrolled in the Cold War between East and West which was apparent in its alignment with British government policies and its withdrawn role in the ecumenical community. The thesis adds to our understanding of the Church of England's relationship to the state in these years, and contributes to the cultural dimension of the early Cold War in Britain.

This thesis examines the development of the soldier in late-Victorian Britain in light of the movement to rehabilitate the public image of the ordinary ranks initiated by the Cardwell-Childers Reforms. Venerated in popular culture, Tommy Atkins became a symbol of British imperial strength and heroism. Socially, however, attitudes to the rank-and-file were defined by a pragmatic realism purged of such sentiments, the likes of which would characterise the British public’s relationship with their army for over thirty years. Scholars of both imperial culture and the Victorian military have identified this dual persona of Tommy Atkins, however, a dedicated study into the true nature of the soldier’s position has yet to be undertaken. The following research will seek to redress this omission. The soldier is approached through the perspective of three key influences which defined his development. The first influence, the politics of the War Office, exposes a progressive series of schemes which, cultivated for over a decade, sought to redefine the soldier through the popularisation of military service and the professionalisation of the military’s public relations strategy and apparatus. A forgotten component of the Cardwell-Childers Reforms, the schemes have not before been scrutinised. Despite the ingenuity of the schemes devised, the social rehabilitation of the soldier failed, primarily, it will be argued, because the government refused to improve his pay. The public’s response to the Cardwell-Childers Reforms and the British perception of the ordinary soldier in the decades following their introduction form the second perspective. Through surveys of the local and London press and mainstream literature, it is demonstrated the soldier, in part as a result of the reforms, underwent a social transition, precipitated by his entering the public consciousness and encouraged by a resulting fascination in the military life. The final perspective presented in this thesis is from within the rank-and-file itself. Through the examination of specialist newspaper, diary and memoir material the direct experiences of the soldiers themselves are explored. Amid the extensive public and political discussion of their nature and status, the soldier also engaged in the debate. The perspective of the rank-and-file provides direct context for the established perspectives of the British public and the War Office, but also highlights how the soldier both supported and opposed the reforms and was acutely aware of the social status he possessed. This thesis will examine the public and political treatment of the soldier in the late-nineteenth century and question how far the conflicting ideas of soldier-hero and soldier-beggar were reconciled.

Rowland Kenney was a British propaganda agent operating in Norway during both the First World War and the Second World War. He has been forgotten by history but the re-discovery of his private collection of materials allows for an analysis of his work. Kenney was deeply involved in the development of propaganda policy and practice. In the First World War, his work in Norway resulted in thousands of pro-British articles appearing in the Norwegian press as well as the realignment of the Norwegian national news agency. In the interwar years, in spite of severe medical difficulties, Kenney continued to work within the field of propaganda, becoming instrumental in the establishment of the British Council. At the start of the Second World War, he returned again to Norway, but was forced to flee during the German invasion of April 1940. During the Second World War, Kenney became the Director of the Northern Section of the Foreign Division in the Ministry of Information where he continued to affect policy-creation and the development of propaganda. There is no doubt that Kenney was a key figure in this development. His professional network and his varied roles within the propaganda bureaucracy speak to his level of involvement, and his documented accomplishments even more so. Finally discovering Kenney's story and his impact illustrates vividly a few aspects of how the practice of propaganda mutated and changed between 1916 and 1942.