The way that historians do research has changed as more and more digitised primary sources have become available online. Whilst desktop access to historical resources is becoming the norm in the digital age, many historians prefer working with original sources. This observation triggered an investigation into the information needs and behaviour of historians with a view to identifying ways in which information retrieval system (IRS) might be enhanced to meet their specific needs. During the investigation it became apparent that the information-seeking behaviour (ISB) of historians involves a great deal of creative thinking and that IRS aimed at historians would benefit from features specifically designed to stimulate their creativity. The research described here follows a “mixed methods” approach in which quantitative and qualitative research techniques have been applied sequentially. The first, quantitative, phase of the study concerned the question of which format of primary sources (original or digitised) historians prefer to work with and why. Results from an online questionnaire, distributed to historians in the UK, revealed the historians’ preference for originals but with a very positive attitude towards digitised sources, which were considered to be more “useful”. This led the study to explore ways in which the “usefulness” of IRS could be further improved to support historical research. The exploration of these issues involved a qualitative analysis based on “grounded theory” techniques and led to certain specific recommendations to the designers of future IRS intended to support historical research.

The purpose of this research is to examine the use of popular political language and its consequence on the poor, especially the undeserving poor. The study examines how, such ‘anti-pauper language’ affected social outcomes for the poor, and how certain authoritarian groups used language to remove the ‘taint’ of pauperism from the town of Huddersfield between 1834 and 1874. Over the past forty years, the focus of urban history has tended to centre on the cultural processes and localised identities, leaving important questions concerning the context of poverty to be centred on the experiences of major British towns and cities. However, this thesis extends that form of research, by focusing on a town’s response to poverty and how language shaped the response of an emerging industrialised town. The thesis focuses on how Huddersfield managed these responses to poverty and how the town used language to try and halt the spread of pauperism throughout the town. The study concentrates on the various uses of authoritarian language under the old Poor Law and how the same forms of language were reinterpreted after 1834, under the new Poor Law. It suggests that although the context of authority changed, the language remained the same and was used toward the same outcomes. Furthermore, this study witnesses how these various groups and organisations, used their authority to maintain social order and to enforce such behaviour amongst the deserving poor, whilst at the same time undermining the undeserving. This study assesses the uneasy alliance between these groups, whose aim and intention, was divided between helping the deserving poor and improving the image of the town, whilst at the same time, openly opposing and largely ignoring, the undeserving poor. A recurring theme within this study surrounds the negative, often bigoted language, used against the Irish migrants who settled in the town in the late 1840s. By concentrating on the Irish, this study is able to suggest that they were a more ‘degenerate strand of the undeserving poor’ and therefore, they are used as a prime example of the kind of power and influence, language had over the poor. This study illustrates the importance of language in a study on local responses to poverty and how, it is a way of articulating authority and shaping the way the undeserving poor were treated during the nineteenth-century in Huddersfield.

William Fairbairn was a major engineer, active in many branches of mid-nineteenth-century engineering. From an apprenticeship as a colliery millwright, he went on to establish a world-class engineering business in Manchester, playing a major role in mill-building, experimental engineering, bridge construction and iron shipbuilding. Despite his importance there is no modern study which brings together the many diverse areas of his work, and the company he founded, nor does any study give adequate emphasis to the discrete and different chronological phases of Fairbairn’s career. The thesis aims to provide a composite study of Fairbairn’s life and work, answering three main questions. First, how is the rise of Fairbairn and his Company to positions of leadership and influence within the engineering industry accounted for? Secondly, in what respects were both Fairbairn and the Company he founded important and influential, and how was that influence spread? Thirdly what caused one of the most successful engineering companies, with a global reputation, to cease to trade within a year of its founder’s death? The opportunity is taken to re-assess the range and significance of Fairbairn’s contributions to nineteenth-century engineering. This thesis argues that Fairbairn was more an ‘innovator’ and optimiser than an inventor. Five areas stand out as particularly influential amongst the multiplicity of his achievements, as a builder of mills with their prime-movers, as the foremost experimental engineer of his time outside the universities, as a leading iron shipbuilder during iron shipbuilding’s most critical decade - 1835-1844, as a builder of tubular structures – bridges and cranes - during a two-decade window, and in connection with steam boilers. The thesis shows education to have been a lifelong commitment of Fairbairn, with his Ancoats works the successor to Maudslay’s ‘nursery’. It also poins to him as a transitional figure in a time of rapid change. However his career was unpredictable. No one model of technological innovation fits all Fairbairn’s work, and his investigations and experiments challenge the imposition of any uniform theory of technological change. Set-backs are identified, as well as Fairbairn’s successes. Reasons are argued for the dissolution of his partnership with Lillie, the closure of his shipyard, and his failure to obtain various bridge commissions. The ultimate demise of a great engineering firm, within a year of its founder’s death, is traced primarily to the matter of succession following Fairbairn’s retirement from a managerial role, and the contrasting approach of his successors.

This thesis takes as its starting in point an examination of the complex and contested construction of English national identity and its deeply problematized intertwining with ideas of Britishness. By examining three case studies of failed English national museum projects, this dissertation has demonstrated that these proposals have not coalesced around a consistent interpretation of Englishness, but upon specific, threatened forms of culture such as the preservation of rural, agricultural and folk heritage; or have been motivated by a particular desire to inculcate a sense of citizenship through the improvement of history education. Each of these projects failed because of practical and financial shortcomings, but their failure also reveals much about contemporary debates upon the nature of English national culture, as well as several consistent issues which have impeded the creation of an English national museum. Firstly, that the absence of cohesive definitions of Englishness and Britishness means that the notion of a national museum has become intensely politicised, and therefore, public funding has not been forthcoming. Secondly, those definitions of Englishness that have arisen have formed around localised, often rural cultures, and thusly the idea of a single, London based national institution has met resistance from regional museums. Finally, the thesis demonstrates that museological paradigms have shifted significantly over the course of the twentieth century. Changing attitudes to interpretive practices, the role of curatorial authority, proscriptive ideas of culture, and museum-visitor relationships, have effectively made the very concept of a centralised national museum antithetical to the museum community. The original contribution of this thesis then, is in demonstrating how the inability and reticence to define a homogenous English national identity has impacted upon the creation of an English national museum.

This thesis examines the household of James IV and the people within it. It is the first dedicated study of the royal household in this reign, which contemporaries and historians agree was a high water mark for the Scottish court. Chapter 1 explores the historiography of the court in the fifteenth and sixteenth century and the distinction between the terms ‘court’ and ‘household’. The household was defined by the rules and structures it brought to the world of the court, and those people who served and received rewards according to them, whereas the court was defined as the space around the king and those who occupied it. Chapter 2 considers the forms of structure that the household brought to the court in more detail. The household had two main definitions. In its wider form, expressed by the bill of household from 1508, it encompassed any man of the social standing of gentleman or above, all of whom were theoretically entitled to the king’s hospitality at court, as well as a long list of specified officers, servants and individuals sorted into groups which included the king’s council, chapel royal and officers of arms. Across these definitions and sub-divisions, the household was also ordered according to hierarchy, and this ordering both respected forms of hierarchy in society more broadly, whilst offering opportunities to rise in status, at least in the environment of the court, through household service. Chapter 3 compares this blueprint of the household to the evidence for actual attendance and service at court by members of the household. It shows that the bill of household reflected those who were at court on or near the time it was written, but that the frequency and duration of their attendance varied according to seasons and events, and on a day-to-day basis because of the itinerant movements of the court. It also suggests that household officers operated within broadly defined areas, and that the area they operated in was not necessarily dictated by the office they held. Chapter 4 shows that there was more to life at court for members of the household than just providing service to the king. Members of the household were differentiated by the variety of rewards they could receive, and they could seek advantage for members of their family. The court was also a centre for events that promoted social integration whilst maintaining hierarchical divisions. Chapter 5 looks at some of the ways the household had an effect on the world beyond the physical confines of the court. The wider impact of the household, or, at least, the idea of the household, can be detected in the rental of royal lands and the holding of non-household offices by members of the household, as well as the use of language in documents in the Register of the Great Seal, which also shows how an individual could be associated with the household without being formally attached to it. The household, then, gave structure to, and its members were physically at the core of, the court of James IV, and it provided a framework for day-to-day interaction outside of the formal business of institutions of government such as parliament, council and exchequer. It was an influence on the lives of its members both inside and outside the court.

This thesis demonstrates that the most popular periodical genre of the second half of the nineteenth century was the provincial newspaper. Using evidence from news rooms, libraries, the trade press and oral history, it argues that the majority of readers (particularly working-class readers) preferred the local press, because of its faster delivery of news, and because of its local and localised content. Building on the work of Law and Potter, the thesis treats the provincial press as a national network and a national system, a structure which enabled it to offer a more effective news distribution service than metropolitan papers. Taking the town of Preston, Lancashire, as a case study, this thesis provides some background to the most popular local publications of the period, and uses the diaries of Preston journalist Anthony Hewitson as a case study of the career of a local reporter, editor and proprietor. Three examples of how the local press consciously promoted local identity are discussed: Hewitson’s remoulding of the Preston Chronicle, the same paper’s changing treatment of Lancashire dialect, and coverage of professional football. These case studies demonstrate some of the local press content that could not practically be provided by metropolitan publications. The ‘reading world’ of this provincial town is reconstructed, to reveal the historical circumstances in which newspapers and the local paper in particular were read. Evidence from readers demonstrates the many ways in which they used the local press, both collectively and individually, including its use in sustaining local identities and sense of place. However, the local press was only one factor among many in the development and sustenance of local identities. The originality of the thesis lies in its introduction of empirical reading evidence into English newspaper history, its challenge to the taken-for-granted but problematic concepts of ‘local’ and ‘national’ newspapers in this period, its detailed study of the journalistic techniques used to capitalise on local patriotism, and its critique of many theories of nineteenth-century press history which have been based on a minority of the period’s newspapers, those published in London.

This thesis analyses poor law administration in Wigan Union from 1880-1900. The late-nineteenth century is fertile territory for poor law historians, and this study intends to further enhance our understanding of the period. Local studies are vital given that the weakness of central authority ensured a wide variety of practice amongst unions, and are essential to the development of a better informed national picture. With that purpose, the thesis focuses on the important Lancashire industrial town of Wigan. Analysis addresses selected themes that require greater attention from historians in order to facilitate a more developed understanding of the poor law. Chapter one analyses politics in relation to guardians’ elections before and after the democratisation of the boards in 1894. Chapter two explores the role of boards of guardians, both individually and collaboratively, as active political agencies and defenders of the public interest in relation to removal of Irish paupers and in battles over rating with canal and railway companies. Chapters three and four focus on what was arguably the greatest poor law controversy of the period – the ‘Crusade’ against outdoor relief, initiated nationally in 1870. Wigan Union was an apparent supporter of this ‘reform’ movement, but appearances were deceptive. Chapter five addresses the problem of the ‘casual poor’, another major national concern of the period. Analysis illustrates the detail of local practice and the nature of central-local relations between the guardians and the LGB. Chapter six examines the themes of dismissal of union officers and superannuation for those deemed to have given good public service, further illustrating conceptions of professionalism and central-local relations. From this analysis, the Wigan board emerges as a politically engaged institution; financially cautious but with a paternalistic sense of obligation to the poor and pragmatic rather than ideologically driven in its policy and practice. Strong local conceptions of identity, professionalism and public service are evident within a nuanced context of central-local relations.

There has been a considerable growth in research in recent years into the history of both journalism and sport, two hugely influential areas of popular culture. The two fields cover a wide spectrum of interests and there is much ground that is common to both. However, studies of journalism and the growth of the newspaper industry have largely ignored the role of the sports journalist and the place of sport within a developing press. Moreover, studies of the expansion of commercial sport and the games-playing habit, whilst touching on the place of the press in their development, and utilising newspapers as primary source material, have paid little or no attention to the place of the sports reporter in the promotion and recording of the sporting sub-culture. This thesis aims to address the shortcoming in current research with a study centring on the growth of the occupation of sports reporting from the mid-Victorian era to the inter-war years. The thesis notes the adoption of sport as a circulation aid by the popular press, considers the type of recruit attracted to sports reporting, the job's practical aspects, the position of the sports journalist within the editorial hierarchy, and the acceptance of sports reporting as a legitimate specialism within a widening editorial agenda. The career of journalist James Catton is introduced to the study to examine in detail the manner in which occupational trends impacted upon the individual reporter, and in order to trace the manner in which sports reporting could be said to have adopted a 'professional' outlook during the period of this study. The thesis reveals the uncertain standing of the sports journalist within the newspaper industry, the part-time nature of much sports reporting, with sport regarded as an occupational rite of passage for the young and the trainee, and the struggle to rid the occupation of a reputation sullied by a perception of hackneyed journalism. The biographical section of the thesis introduces a contemporary voice, that of James Catton, to let it speak to an experience that might otherwise prove difficult to capture. Catton's working life highlights the possibilities and the demands of a career in sports journalism, and the success that the adoption of a 'professional' approach to the work could secure.

This thesis demonstrates the existence and significance of Jacobitism in the British Atlantic World, c. 1688-1727. Throughout the period under investigation, colonists were increasingly integrated into Britain’s partisan politics, religious controversies, and vibrant public sphere. This integrative process encouraged colonists to actively participate in British controversies. Moreover, this integration was complex and multi-faceted and included elements of a Tory political culture in addition to their Whig counterparts. During this period, colonists increasingly identified themselves and others according to British political and religious terminology. This was both caused and encouraged by imperial appointments, clerical appointments/SPG activity, and an increased consumption of British political news and commentary. All three informed and shaped colonists’ views regarding Jacobitism. In light of these developments, this thesis examines in three case studies colonial manifestations of Jacobitism within a larger British Atlantic context. Taking into account the voluminous recent research on Jacobitism, this examination reveals that there was an identifiable transatlantic Jacobite subculture. This subculture is recognizable by its associations with elements of British culture inextricably linked to Jacobitism: nonjuring, Scottish Episcopalianism, high church Anglicanism, and – increasingly after 1710 – Toryism. These associations were demonstrated by overt expressions of Jacobitism, such as seditious words and celebrations of Jacobite holidays. They are also illustrated by accusations of Jacobitism. This thesis seeks to incorporate Jacobitism into the burgeoning field of Atlantic History and demonstrate the significance of Jacobitism as an important element of a process of colonial Anglicization. This contribution to historical understandings of the Anglicization of the British Atlantic World seeks to encourage discussions between the disparate fields of British and colonial history.

This thesis explores the role Li Hanjun played in the initial stage of the Communist movement in China. It describes Li’s early life, including his family background, his upbringing, his schooling and the environment he grew up in. It analyses some of Li’s early writings to demonstrate his philosophical predispositions and political orientation, as well as his character and temperament. It examines Li’s understanding of Marxism and his endeavours to disseminate it and to introduce various socialist theories into China. It describes his contacts with socialists of other countries and his cooperation with Korean socialists and Soviet agents in China, which helped open up the Communist movement in East Asia. The research focuses on Li Hanjun’s activities in establishing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the opinions he expressed at the Party’s founding congress. It also deals with his ideas and actions in directing labour movements in China. Li Hanjun was a dissident within the CCP and later left the Party. This study clarifies the divergence of views between him and other Party leaders, and shows that his rejection of the Bolshevik doctrines of centralism and dictatorship and of unconditional receipt of financial aid and orders from the Communist International (Comintern) were the main causes of the conflicts and his expulsion. The thesis discusses Li’s vision of socialism, and shows that his ideal socialist society was not one in which a centralist government and the dictatorship of a Communist élite should control and intervene in everything but a collectivity of associations of free and autonomous working people organised in cooperatives. The thesis ends with a critical assessment of Li as a historical figure. It recovers historical facts that have sunk into oblivion, and thus differs from comparable studies published both in China and abroad. It fills important gaps in the history of the early Communist movement in China.