This thesis addresses the roles and experiences of fourteen London correspondents for New Zealand newspapers, 1884-1942. It argues that these correspondents made a small but significant contribution to news flow into New Zealand and that the importance of London’s role as an imperial, cultural and news-flow metropole make it central to studies of the New Zealand press during this period. However, correspondents identities as New Zealanders and the unique requirements of the New Zealand press system were also important, meaning that correspondents and their correspondence need to be addressed in terms of layered identity and of both imperial and domestic press systems.

Between 1857 and 1913 approximately 120,000 of the labouring poor from the East End of London were assisted to emigrate to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and sometimes South Africa in order to transplant surplus urban labour to emerging colonial markets and to provide the poor with a means of personal and financial improvement. These charities described the work they did as building “The Bridge of Hope for East London.” By the end of the nineteenth century, Eastenders had long been plagued by poverty, dependency on the Poor Law, and periods of unemployment. Typecast as morally, socially, economically, and racially degenerate in an emerging slum discourse, Eastenders were rarely considered ideal colonial emigrants. For Canada, these emigrants made poor prospects for the westward-expanding nation intent on recruiting agricultural immigrants. At times over the course of these six decades, the Canadian government grew so concerned about their migrations that it took legal measures to bar their entry. By 1910, Canada effectively banned charitably assisted emigration from East London in an attempt to control its borders and dictate the kinds of immigrants it desired even when they were English. Despite these shortcomings and obstacles, assisted emigrants from East London made new lives for themselves and their families in Canada most often in cities. We know something about their experiences from letters some of them wrote to the emigration charities that sponsored them. As a migrant group, they present a unique type of English settler in Canada. Forever failing, despite their many successes and their integration, to meet the ideal imperial British standard, Eastenders were considered undesirable on both sides of the Atlantic – a blight on British prosperity at home and unsuitable representatives abroad. Eastenders occupied an uneasy “third space” struggling to fit in somewhere between home and empire. This dissertation, employing analytical models and methodologies inspired by the ‘New Imperial History,’ the ‘British World’ model, post-colonial theory, and transnationalism seeks to understand why and under what circumstances Canada restricted charitable emigration from East London by 1910. It examines how British charities, politicians, commentators, and, above all, emigrants developed and experienced an imperial discourse and practice of assisted emigration over the course of six decades under ever-changing economic circumstances at home. Overall, it argues that British emigration charities, under the mounting pressures of poverty at home and spurred on by liberal and imperial reformist attitudes, rarely heeded Canadian warnings about the sending out of poor urban emigrants from East London even though they were English. Instead, these emigrationists developed a system of assisted emigration that largely suited their own objectives of poverty management. East End emigrants experienced this system with varying degrees of success, failure, benefit, and harm. The dissertation explores their experiences in two case studies in addition to three chapters on the evolution of assisted emigration discourses and practices in the East End. In placing assisted emigration of the urban poor from East London at the centre of a discussion of late nineteenth and early twentieth century intra-imperial responses to poverty, the dissertation reveals a complex interplay between social welfare, liberalism, and migration in two disparate but connected parts of the ‘British World,’ home and abroad. In doing so it fosters a deeper understanding of the evolution of colonial immigration policy and complicates the limits of race and class for studies of English emigration.

An estimated 22,000 children were born in England during the Second World War as a result of relationships between British women and .American GIs. Of these children, around 1,200-1,700 were born to African .American servicemen. These figures are estimates only; the actual number of births will never be known. / The research study is based on personal interviews with eleven members of this cohort. The interviews explore their life experience and examines their sense of identity as ex-nuptial children, of mixed-race parentage, who had no contact with and usually little information about their GI fathers. Of the eleven mothers, over half were married with at least one other child at the time of the birth. Nine participants/respondents were raised by their mother or her extended family. Two were institutionalised. At the time of the interviews all of the respondents were either searching for, or had found, their black GI fathers. / This is a qualitative study which aims to bear witness to the lived experience of this cohort and to analyse the meaning individuals gave to their experience. Data collection involved personal interviews with the eleven participants. The data was then subject to a thematic analysis and the major themes and issues identified. Content analysis was undertaken using a constructivist approach. / The interviews are presented as elicited narrative relayed through an interpretive summary. Consistency was maintained by using common questions organised within a loose interview framework. The findings were organised around the major conceptual issues and themes that emerged from the case summaries. Common themes, including resilience, racial identity, self esteem and stress were identified. / The researcher has professional qualifications as a social worker and clinical family therapist. She has ten years experience in the field of adoption, including the transracial placement of Aboriginal and overseas children in Australian families. She is also a member of the researched cohort. Issues arising when the researcher is also a member of the researched cohort are discussed in the methodology. / The experience of this cohort suggests that despite the disadvantages of their birth, they fared better than expected. The majority demonstrated high levels of resilience, successfully developing a sense of identity that incorporated both the black and white aspects of their racial heritage. However, for some this success was only achieved at considerable personal cost, with several participants reporting relatively high levels of stress and/or stress related symptoms, such as anxiety, mental illness and heart disease.

This dissertation relates to the dismissal of Admiral Jellicoe, First Sea Lord from November 1916 to December 1917, by Sir Eric Geddes, First Lord of the Admiralty, at the behest of the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George. The dismissal was peremptory and effected without rational explanation, despite Jellicoe having largely fulfilled his primary mission of combating the German U-boat threat to British merchant shipping. The outcome of the war may well have been affected if the level of shipping losses sustained through U-boat attack in April 1917 had continued unabated. The central argument of the dissertation is that the dismissal was unjustified. As an adjunct, it argues that the received view of certain historians that Jellicoe was not successful as First Sea Lord is unwarranted and originates from severe post war critism of Jellicoe by those with a vested interest in justifying the dismissal, notably Lloyd George. Supporting these arguments, the following assertions are made. Firstly, given the legacy Jellicoe inherited when joining the Admiralty, through the strategies adopted, organisational changes made and initiatives undertaken in anti-submarine weapons development, the progress made in countering the U-boat threat was notable. Secondly, the universal criticism directed at the Admiralty over the perceived delay in introducing a general convoy system for merchant shipping is not sustainable having regard to primary source documentation. Thirdly, incidents that occurred during the latter part of 1917, and suggested as being factors which contributed to the dismissal, can be discounted. Fourthly, Lloyd George conspired to involve General Haig, Commander of the British Forces France, and the press baron, Lord Northcliffe, in his efforts to mitigate any potential controversy that might result from Jellicoe's removal from office. Finally, the arguments made by a number of commentators that the Admiralty performed better under Jellicoe's successor, Admiral Wemyss, is misconceived.