In this thesis, I present three studies that add to the literature on job satisfaction in Great Britain. In the first study, I use data from the British 2004 Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS) to examine the relationship between job related training and job satisfaction. I use a random effects ordinal regression model that exploits the matching of workplace information to employee information to control for unobserved heterogeneity at the workplace level. Using this technique, I find clear evidence that job related training is positively associated with all the dimensions of job satisfaction considered. I also find evidence that that the impact of training on workers' satisfaction varies for different groups of workers and depends on the amount of training individuals have relative to colleagues in the same workplace In the second study, I also make use of the 2004 WERS data, including the new financial performance questionnaire, to examine the relationship between job satisfaction and workplace performance. I find that average job satisfaction is positively associated with subjective assessments of financial performance and labour productivity and that these associations are statistically significant at conventional test levels. I find that measures of job satisfaction are negatively related to rates of absenteeism and voluntary employee turnover. I also find that job satisfaction is positively related to gross value added per full-time equivalent employee but this association is not statistically significant when measures of absenteeism and voluntary employee turnover are included in the model as explanatory variables. Finally, I find no statistically significant relationship between measures of satisfaction and profitability. In the third study, I use the first six waves of the Welsh boosts to the British Household Panel Survey to explain the determinants of overall job satisfaction and four facets of job satisfaction in Wales. My results show that low-paid workers in Wales do not report lower job satisfaction than their higher paid counterparts. Moreover, I find that despite there being disproportionately more low-paid workers in Wales than in either England or Scotland, job satisfaction is higher in Wales than in the other countries.

In the arc of the years 1890 to 1910, British Quakers wrestled almost continually and inconclusively over the question of the Society of Friends' right relationship to the State, to the Empire, to politics, and to government. Conflicting pressures toward respectability and radicalism repeatedly tested the Society's loyalties to the Imperial nation and to its heritage of Dissent. It is in this period of what came to be known as the 'Quaker Renaissance' that I have located the emergence of what I call 'Friendly patriotism' - a complex set of attitudes by which public - spirited Quakers attempted to straddle multiple identities. Radical Dissenter and Evangelical Nonconformist; Christian Prophet and Subject of Empire - the 'Friendly patriot' of the period struggled to be true to sometimes wildly divergent traditions and impulses in his desire to embody an ideal of 'Christian citizenship'. No longer a 'Peculiar People', no longer relegated to a social or economic periphery, Quakers had been self-consciously integrating themselves into the mainstream of British life with enviable speed and success. At the close of the nineteenth century, the Society of Friends developed an acute sense of a special Quaker mission to improve the public culture of the day. What were perceived as the Society's unique spiritual and ethical testimonies were to become the essential ingredients of a national and international regeneration. The health of the Emprie rested, in part, with the capacity of civic-minded Friends to commit themselves to its care. Quakerism began to view itself not simply as being integrated into British public life, but integral to its further development. The welfare of the State became intimately linked to the effectiveness of Quaker participation in its political institutions. In this thesis, I have chosen to focus upon three of the most vivid expressions of the social and poltiical feeling within the Society of Friends which I have called 'Friendly patriotism'. The Quaker response to the Nonconformist campaign against the 1902 Education Act, the Quaker approach to international relations within the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century European peace movement, and the Quaker crusade on behalf of Anglo-German friendship before the First World War revealed the Society's eagerness to interpret and re-interpret its extraordinary heritage of pacificsm and social responsibility in the light of the requirements of the new century. The outward turning of the Evangelical spirit, the firm conviction of Quakerism's unique message for both the churches and the governments of the world, and the profund belief in the Society of Friends' responsibility for the spiritual well-being of the Empire are reflected in each of these dimensions of the Society's life during the period. This work attempts to lift Quaker historiography out of the inevitable parochialism of 'in-house' denominational scholarship in which it has long been mired, and place a critical moment in the history of the Society of Friends within the context of a broader intellectual and cultural framework.

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Studies on prostitution have typically focused on the experiences, problems, and histories of prostitutes, rather than examining men who seek to purchase sex. Race has also been overlooked as a central factor in shaping the sex industry and the motivations of men who seek to purchase sex. This study utilizes online reviews of prostitutes to examine the way men who purchase sex discuss Asian prostitutes in comparison to White prostitutes. This paper traces the history of colonialism and ideas of the exotic Orient to modern stereotypes of Asian women. These stereotypes are then used to frame a quantitative and qualitative analysis of online reviews of prostitutes and compare the ways in which Asian prostitutes and white prostitutes are discussed. Further, the reviews are used to examine more broadly what services, traits, and behaviors are considered desirable by men who use prostitutes. The study finds that there are significant quantitative and qualitative differences in how men discuss Asian and White prostitutes within their reviews, and that these differences appear to be shaped by racially fetishizing stereotypes of Asian women. Prostitution also appears to reinforce male dominance and patriarchy in the form of masculine control and the feminine servicing of male sexual and emotional needs.

In the late 1990s Suffolk County Council Archaeology Service (now Suffolk Archaeology) began a series of excavations in advance of construction work at the US Air Force base RAF Lakenheath (Eriswell, Suffolk). During the course of this work three substantial Early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries (dated from 475 to 650 CE) were excavated. These sites are some of the largest and best preserved Anglo-Saxon cemeteries excavated in modern times. Many of the inhumations were furnished. Amongst the host of grave goods were approximately 800 non-ferrous metal objects. This presented a significant opportunity to examine Early Anglo-Saxon non-ferrous metallurgy. Previous studies of Early Anglo-Saxon non-ferrous artefacts have tended to focus on acquiring quantitative data using invasive sampling on specific (predominantly cast) object types. The data from these small subsets of objects were then extrapolated to create an interpretation of the technological and metallurgical skills of the era. As this tended to exclude sheet metal objects and the more utilitarian metalwork it is suggested by the author here that this approach is not representative and leaves something to be desired. In this study it was decided to focus on producing a broad data set that, whilst being qualitative, would allow broad trends in alloy composition to be assessed (if present) against a variety of variables. Data was predominantly acquired using handheld portable X-ray fluorescence (HHpXRF). The results showed that the usage of copper and silver alloys in the Early Anglo-Saxon period is more complex than has previously been suggested. It is thought that this is predominantly linked to decisions regarding an object’s manufacturing technique, but there is also evidence to suggest that elements of cultural identity may have also had a role to play. There is also evidence for continuity of practice between the late Romano- British and Early Anglo-Saxon periods.

his thesis explores Early Bronze Age round barrows in a distinctive landscape, the Anglo-Welsh borderland. It is a landscape of contrasts, encompassing the lowlands and plains of the Midlands counties to the east and the uplands of the west. Although the region has been recognised as a valid unit of study, many previous studies have been constrained by national and county boundaries. Recent research on the prehistoric archaeology of the region has addressed this problem but until now the area’s round barrows have received little attention. This thesis se rves to redress this imbalance and considers round barrows in their historic and regional context. A multi-scalar approach to the study has been taken. At the macro scale, the morphology, distribution and broad topographic settings are examined in addition to an analysis of factors relating to the survival and destruction of the regions barrows. It is argued that the location of the borderlands may have led to some of the distinct architectural elements present in the region. For the most part, round barrows in the study area do not coalesce in to large cemeteries as seen elsewhere; the general pattern being that of isolated or paired barrows, yet relatively dense clusters have been identified. These are analysed at the meso scale to establish the relationships of barrows within these clusters to each other, to earlier monumentality and to the wider landscape. Here it is suggested that different rationales led to their formation, in some instances rep resenting different communities’ access to resources and routeways. The analysis then proceeds at the micro - scale and considers the problem of why build a round barrow in the first place. By examining a single, well excavated site of two barrows in close proximity with a reasonable degree of contemporaneity, it is possible to mitigate against certain variables to explore the role of choice when a community built a barrow. The role of deposition, including that of human remains is considered and it is argued that such practices were strategies to effect change within the world of the living.

While much has been written about British support for Republican Spain during the Spanish Civil War, this thesis offers a novel framework through which to consider this topic. It explores the popular humanitarian response to ‘Spain’ within the context of Britain’s bourgeoning civil society and popular political culture, following the advent of mass democracy in 1928. There has perhaps been a recent tendency amongst historians to underplay the breadth of British support for the Spanish Republic, and to suggest that the humanitarian character of this support was, very often, indicative of a detached and apolitical response. This thesis asks why the Spanish Republic had the unique appeal that it did, examining how people in Britain framed the conflict in Spain, and exploring what they did in practice in terms of raising humanitarian aid for, and awareness about, the Republican cause. In particular it does this by considering the response to ‘Spain’ within the peace movement, Co-operative movement and amongst British Christians. The thesis challenges the idea that many of those involved with the humanitarian campaigns saw Spain as a distant country and that they were detached from events there. It argues that, while political interpretations of the Spanish conflict were far from uniform, the plight and cause of the Republic resonated with notions of British identity in the 1930s, and with the crises that different groups and individuals perceived to be threatening their world order. It explores how the topic of non-intervention was debated within civil society and argues that support for this policy was not necessarily indicative of isolationism. It suggests that support for Republican Spain, even where it was largely ‘humanitarian’ in character, went alongside interest in the issues surrounding the conflict and is illustrative of a degree of both democratic engagement and popular internationalism within 1930s Britain.

This thesis focuses on two main themes in the architectural history of the country house in Wales, investigating firstly its development, and secondly some of the distinctively Welsh features of these houses. It argues that both themes have been marginal in recent historiography of Welsh architecture, culture and society. In this work, houses owned by families of Welsh descent are discussed to ascertain whether ethnicity and nationhood are actually identifiable in the architecture. Critical analysis of built fabric is supplemented and supported by primary sources such as the poetry of the bards, building accounts and records, architectural drawings, travel journals, photographs, works of art and a variety of secondary sources. In this thesis, it becomes apparent that one of the most distinctive features of country houses in Wales is the unit-system. This form of dual planning is a peculiarly Welsh feature, enabling two ‘households’ to co-exist simultaneously, adjacent to each other but not necessarily physically connected. Such forms of building are absent from most regions of England, and its presence here is due to differences in the development of the Welsh family. The existence of a different legal system and associated customs in Wales, such as the prominence of gavelkind and female inheritance, are thus expressed in physical form. This practice has set a precedent for design and planning which has influenced a distinctly Welsh country house plan, based not only upon the need to accommodate several family members but also on a desire to preserve the domestic property of their ancestors as a physical manifestation of precedency, pedigree and memory. This elevation of genealogy is a defining feature among Welsh gentry families, who distinguished themselves not by wealth but by blood, which in England became reversed. The development of the Welsh country house offered an alternative form of nationalism, which was multifaceted in nature, and formed an essential element of architectural history in Wales.

This thesis uses football as a case study to examine the identities of working-class boys and men in post-war Britain. As the most popular spectator sport in England for over a century, with a widely recognised status as a site for the expression, and tool in the construction, of collective loyalties and identities, football and the discourses around it provide a valuable window into working-class culture. Through the examples of Merseyside and North East football fans, this thesis re-evaluates the extent of cultural change in the post-war era, by demonstrating the persistence of long-standing traditions and bases of identification in relation to class, gender, age and place. It also, however, challenges popular and academic understandings of such traditional culture by presenting a complex narrative of coexisting and conflicting identities that differ from stereotypical images of the ‘working man’s game’.Drawing on a combination of retrospective personal testimonies from football fans and post-war public and press discourses, this thesis contributes to a number of debates that have emerged in existing historiographical literature of this period. Firstly, it builds on attempts to dispute the findings and predictions of contemporary social commentators over the impact of affluence on traditional working-class lifestyles, values and identities, by revealing the continuation of older community attachments and practices among football fans. Additionally, it intervenes in discussions of the emergence of ‘youth’ as a distinctive basis of identification capable of overriding identities associated with class, masculinity and place, or else as the subject of adult moral panic and a source of generational rupture and conflict. This thesis, in contrast, argues that football provided a means of inter-generational cooperation. The transmission of cultural values and identities across age groups, which football enabled, further emphasises the idea of cultural continuity presented throughout. This builds on growing historiographical reappraisals of the mythologised ‘swinging sixties’ as a decade of revolution.

The two centuries from 1818 to 2004 cover profound social and economic changes in what was, for much of the period, the most powerful country in the world. Britain led the way in moving capital and labour out of agriculture and into newer industries, such as coal-mining, textiles and transportation. The changes were accompanied by deep institutional changes, especially in the franchise. The rate of change is remarkable: within seventy years Britain was almost completely democratic, in contrast to the 'rotten boroughs' and virtual feudalism of the pre- 1832 unreformed Parliaments. The changes are mirrored in the role given to agriculture within society, and in particular the amount and type of economic rent transferred from the consumer and the taxpayer to the farmer. This thesis uses two centuries of data and 'survival analysis' statistical techniques to show that Olson's celebrated theory of collective action can be substantiated in a dynamic context. I show that as the share of farmers in the workforce diminishes, and their relative wealth shrinks, the probability of the Cabinet increasing protection grows. The reverse is also the case, showing that the Cabinet responds positively to pressures from a group whose utility was diminishing. / Land and Food Systems, Faculty of / Graduate