No description available.

This thesis shows how, and to what extent, the British offshore industry affected the lives of women in North East of Scotland from the 1970s to the start of the new millennium. It presents new evidence, in the form of oral history life story interviews, which prove the long and sustained impact that women have had upon the industry, clarifying previous misunderstandings by scholars and politicians and revealing for the first time, a chronology of women’s history offshore. This thesis remedies the fact that the history of the British North Sea oil industry has almost exclusively been portrayed from the perspective of male employees and without recourse to gender analysis.  My argument is that this has impeded not only discussion of women’s historical contributions, but also critical reflection upon men’s experiences of the industry.  My approach to writing the history of the British North Sea oil industry promotes and facilitates the inclusion of women’s previously unrecorded experiences.  It also reinterprets many of the perceived ‘facts’ of men’s experiences. By presenting new empirical evidence and applying a gendered analysis to it this thesis makes an original contribution to scholarship and opens up an exciting field for further research.

Limited historical research has been done on women in medieval Scotland. In part this had been due to the expectations of Scottish historians regarding both women’s role in the past and women’s presence in the historical record, and the acceptance of Scottish historians of women as a subject of historical inquiry. This thesis, through examining the role of women in Aberdeen in the later middle ages, and exploring the expectations and acceptance of women’s roles as practiced by late medieval Aberdonian society, encourages other historians to re-evaluate these expectations. Fundamental to this study is a record-based methodology employing computer technology. This permitted quantitative as well as qualitative analysis of women’s identification, activities and involvements. Understanding women’s role in marriage is essential to understanding women’s roles in urban and wider Scottish society. Significantly, it was the theory of marriage and not, it seems, attitudes towards women in general that joined wives to husbands as junior partners. Women were active and vital participants in the economic and community life of the burgh. Examining women’s roles requires rethinking the basic economic functioning of the burgh, looking beyond the “burgesses and craftsmen” language of the records – which superficially appears to be describing independent individuals functioning within craft and guild institutions – to reveal a more comprehensive model where households emerge as the fundamental economic unit. Generally, while burgh society seemed to have expected participants of certain activities to be men, and expected participants of certain other activities to be women, they nonetheless accepted the participation of women in some “men’s activities” and men in “women’s activities”.

At the end of the nineteenth century, the most pressing urban problem facing the authorities was that of public health. In 1890 the government introduced legislation to encourage local authorities to clear insanitary housing and re-house the displaced tenants. Many city councils responded, but in the vast majority of cases, these early experiments foundered in the face of stiff opposition from ratepayers' associations. In Aberdeen, a limited number of workmen's dwellings were built, but the Council soon abandoned the policy and left house building to private enterprise. Increased government intervention in all aspects of public life during the First World War brought home to local authorities that the only way forward was to enter into partnership with central government. For the next twenty years successive governments sought, by subsidies and grants, to encourage councils to build working class housing. Some legislation was successful, some was less so, but as the nineteen-thirties progressed, the most congested areas were cleared and the inhabitants rehoused. In 1939, the Department of Health for Scotland was confident that Scotland's housing problems would be solved by 1942. Unfortunately, war again intervened and building was halted for six years; when the war ended in 1945, the problem was as bad as ever. In the course of fifty years, municipal government had metamorphosed from a purely local form of administration accountable only to its ratepayers into a junior branch of central government. Change was inevitable, for no local authority had the economic muscle to replace its housing stock or plan for future development without state assistance. At the same time, democracy itself had suffered, the day of independent representation in council chambers had all but ended, with councillors assuming party labels and following orders from party headquarters in London.

The Second Scottish War of Independence has proved an increasingly popular subject of analysis for historians of fourteenth-century England and Scotland.  In spite of this interest, little academic analysis has been undertaken regarding the military activities of Scottish soldiers during this conflict.  This study provides the first academic analysis of the military history of Anglo-Scottish warfare during the years 1332-1357. By re-analysing the activities of Bruce Scottish troops during this phase of conflict and by establishing the context in which Bruce Scottish troops fought (why men served, who was in charge, how troops were armed), the author has attempted to establish the type of war being fought.  By analysing the behaviour of Scottish troops, the impact of the war on the people most affected by it, and the perception of war amongst both war commentators and the warriors themselves, the author has attempted to demonstrate the extent to which Scottish behaviour was in accordance with accepted contemporary norms, and the factors which were at work in controlling the activities of those who made war their occupation. Research has proven that Bruce Scottish military activities was well-organised and led either by the king or his representatives.  Bruce Scottish military actions could be fought on both small and large scale, and the ability to recover from defeat was a major facet in Scottish survival against the combined Balliol/English threat.  Although French assistance was important to the survival of David II and his commanders, Scottish survival was inherently dependent upon the outbreak of the Hundred Years War.  And Scottish conduct was consistent with English behaviour in what was, in spite of its various complications, a standard contemporary conflict.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This thesis examines the incidence and effects of plague in early modern Aberdeen. In so doing, it refutes the presumption that Scotland lacks the sources necessary to allow the impact of past epidemics to be gauged and redresses the current imbalance in the historiography of plague studies. The unparalleled survival of Aberdeen's bureaucratic records allows detailed study of the city to be undertaken and enables the focus of responses to plague to shift from Italy to Northern Europe. Sixteenth-century Aberdeen was one of the nation's largest and most important burghs. Its supposed 'isolation' belied its diverse offerings, from which towns across the North Sea particularly benefited. The city as susceptible to plague yet suffered a comparatively low incidence of outbreaks. Free from plague for the entire fifteenth century, magistrates passed innovative regulations to combat the French Disease and subsequently dealt with two major plague epidemics, in the 1510s and 1540s. Aberdeen shared many of its myriad effects - social instability, disruption of government, and commercial disaster. Subsequent impoverishment overwhelmingly dictated the bureaucratic treatment of the poor; unlike elsewhere begging was not inherently considered a threat to social health, despite the acknowledgement that plague flourished amongst society's most deprived (and depraved) members. Poor relief became necessary only during outbreaks, when government had to implement temporary solutions in the absence of regulated charitable provision. Thereafter the city avoided outbreaks for a century. After the Reformation of 1560 plague was acknowledged as a divine punishment, whereas beforehand epidemics had been met with no apparent religious reaction. In three areas - the incidence of outbreaks, the bureaucratic treatment of the poor and the absence of a religious response - Aberdeen's experience of plague belies many traditional assumptions about early modern epidemics.