Volunteer-run museums in English market towns and villages have been largely over-looked by scholars examining the history and development of museums in England, and work on contemporary museum volunteering or the relations of museums to their communities have not distinguished between volunteer-run and volunteer-involving museums. This thesis attempts to redress the balance by examining a number of volunteer-run museums in Dorset and the characteristics and motivations of the volunteers involved in their development. This element of the project included a survey of museum volunteers in the county and studies of a selected group of museums through interviews and through archival research in museum records. The thesis also presents a historical analysis, through a number of case histories, of the development of volunteer-run museums in English market towns and villages from 1884, demonstrating clearly how the development of these small museums reflects larger changes in the rural community from the paternalism of the late nineteenth century, through growing independence and democracy after 1918, to the counterurbanisation of the second half of the twentieth century. Changing perceptions of rural identity are also apparent in the history of these museums. The second element of the project was largely undertaken in the archives of selected institutions founded at different periods, an unexplored source of extraordinary richness. Contextual discussions include an account of three unsuccessful attempts to set up an English folk museum, the importance of the growing interest in local history at a popular level, and the impact of the Festival of Britain in focussing attention on the history of towns as enshrining civic pride and liberties. Taken together, these two elements have enabled a clearer picture to emerge of the importance of volunteer-run museums to their communities, to the participants themselves and to the wider museums community.

This study investigates the history of Morris Dancing in the twentieth century through written sources detailing the development of the dance, but more importantly, through the oral testimony of some of those dancers who began their dancing careers after the second world war. Three particular questions were identified, firstly concerning the way in which ancient dance forms are generally linked, perhaps incorrectly, with place; secondly, the way in which the part that women played in the development of the dance has been written out of the popular modern view of the Morris; and finally, the part that Morris Dancing has played in the production of an invented myth of English history and English tradition. These, and further questions raised during the interviews, forced the study to take a wider view of the history of the dance. Looking back towards the earliest records became important because of the apparent changes that have affected Morris Dancing throughout the centuries, a dance form that is assumed to have been firmly established as an unchanging ritual, but in fact, it would seem, has always been prepared to follow whatever alterations have been demanded by society. Looking forward also became important, because as the dance has clearly changed dramatically during its history, interviewees were keen to explore the ways in which the dance could continue to develop. To follow this final area interviews were conducted with a few of those young dancers who are taking the dance forward. Sections have also been included which will try to explain some of the mysteries of the Morris for those readers who come to the dance as observers rather than performers. Through these sections further areas of study have been identified that cannot be followed in this present work but should be noted for further investigation.

This thesis considers the interrelationship between the discourse and performance of gender, national identity and political agency in Scotland during the Union debates of 1706-07 and the mid-to-late eighteenth-century Scottish Enlightenment. These two periods are offered in contrast to each other in order to demonstrate the means by which changing discourses of gender and national identity impacted upon the performance of political agency. The first section of this thesis (Chapters 2 and 3) demonstrates that anti-Union discourse in 1706-07 was founded upon a conception of a masculine Scottish nationhood defined by ‘heroick ancestors’. This is contrasted with women’s political agency at the time, demonstrated most markedly by elite women’s ability to influence parliamentary politics. I argue that despite masculinist discourses of nationhood, during the Union debates status was a more important determinant of political agency than gender. The second section of my thesis (Chapters 4, 5 and 6) considers the centrality of male refinement and ‘civilised’ femininity to discourses of North British nationhood in the context of the Scottish Enlightenment. I examine the construction and performance of male refinement within intellectual societies and convivial clubs and then consider women’s limited inclusion in the urban Enlightenment public sphere, demonstrating that discourses of femininity necessarily precluded women’s full public engagement in this sphere. The final chapter (Chapter 7) considers martial masculinity, particularly the masculine ideal of martial Highland manhood in order to demonstrate the problematic aspect of notions of hegemonic masculinity and in order to bring the story of the Highlands and Empire into the story of Enlightenment Scotland. This thesis will demonstrate the centrality of gender to discourses of national identity and examine the impact of these on the performance of political agency in eighteenth-century Scotland and in doing so offers a contribution to the history of gender and political power.

This thesis examines women’s professional employment in Wales between 1880 and 1939. It explores women’s negotiation of professional identities, their formation of professional networks, and their relationship with the broader women’s movement over this formative period in the emergence of the professions. The thesis contributes to neglected histories of women and the middle class in Wales, and enhances our understanding of the strategies women used to enter professional society. As the first major study of women’s professional employment in Wales, the thesis suggests that the Welsh women’s experience did exhibit some distinctive features. Women’s education attained a political and cultural importance in Wales from the late nineteenth century. But the nation’s economic development offered limited opportunities for educated women’s paid employment. This exacerbated the high proportion of women in the teaching profession, and meant that women’s professional employment was confined to a smaller range of occupations in Wales by the outbreak of the Second World War. Unlike most related studies of women’s work which focus on individual occupations, this thesis provides a comparative approach of women’s employment in medicine, teaching and academia. Such an approach reveals the interconnections and networks between groups of professional women and allows for analysis of an overarching feminine version of professional identity. In doing so, the thesis argues that women participated in professional society by exploiting – rather than directly challenging – contemporary gender norms and existing professional practices. By exploiting contemporary gender norms, women developed a distinctive feminine professional identity which highlighted their ‘natural’ skills and, following professional practices, they increasingly institutionalised their networks into women’s professional organisations and capitalised upon professional ideals of meritocracy.

This thesis explores the role played by small-scale cinema entrepreneurs in the south Wales valleys in establishing cinema as the predominant cultural medium of the twentieth century. The focus and methodology draw heavily on the �new cinema history� that emerged in the early 2000s and champions a reorientation of cinema history away from a concentration on films as cultural products towards a more sociological approach that views cinema as a social institution located within specific community settings. The continuing dominance of small-scale cinema ownership in the south Wales valleys (in most areas of the UK, the major cinema chains, such as Odeon and ABC, came to control the market) meant that cinema proprietors were often prominent local figures. Not only did they exercise a considerable amount of influence on the audience experience, they were also active players in their local communities, cultivating relationships with civic leaders, contributing to a range of local good causes and promoting the community benefits of cinema. Given the controversial nature of cinema, they became adept �cultural brokers,� negotiating with regulatory authorities, appeasing oppositional groups whilst keeping a weather eye on fluctuating popular tastes. The divisive nature of cinema makes it an ideal lens through which to examine the dynamics of civil, social and commercial life of south Wales towns as they transitioned from conditions of economic boom to post industrial bust. The focus of this study is Bargoed in the Rhymney Valley, which was home to the Withers, one of the most important, and yet little known, cinema-owning families in south Wales. By holding the magnifying glass up to a single town and business the aim is to move beyond generalizations and examine closely how various social, economic and cultural forces interplayed at the local level.

In the second half of the 19th century, Alexandra Princess of Wales and later Queen Consort to her husband Edward VII became one of the most recognizable women of the period. Her image was circulated around the globe by the million and her every movement recorded daily in The Times. Despite her contemporary celebrity, she has become a lesser-known figure in modern history. With little in the way of political influence, Alexandra recognized that her ppearance in public was powerful. She used clothes throughout her life to both display and disguise herself. despite the centrality of dress in her life, no other study has ever examined her remaining items of clothing until now. This thesis considers in detail those garments that have survived from Queen Alexandra’s wardrobe, most of which, owing to their geographic spread, have never been studied before. This object-led approach allows an analysis of a life, which has been considered before in more traditional biographies. However, the close examination of the garments and of Alexandra’s approach to her clothing reveals aspects never before considered. It has also prompted the consideration of previously under researched areas such as royal laundry, the role of the dresser and the logistics of 19th century royal travel. As a multi-disciplinary project it has shed new light onto Alexandra’s life and dispelled certain apocryphal stories which only the material culture itself could reveal.

This thesis examines the last years of the Walpole ministry. It attempts to shed light on the inner workings of that ministry through an examination of its foreign policy, exploring the origins and impact of the 1739 war with Spain. This dissertation is the only extended modem study of the Anglo-Spanish diplomacy in these years. It is the only work to give adequate consideration both to the varying influence of British domestic pressures and to Spanish concerns. The thesis attempts to treat Spain's negotiations as variable, contingent on chance and on personalities, as well as on certain intractable beliefs and principles. Events are viewed largely from the perspective of the centre, the handful of leading ministers and diplomats who discussed and made political and diplomatic decisions. The personalities of ministers both in Spain and England, their interactions and rivalries and their differing views, are important to understanding how diplomacy worked. Though concentrating mainly on such interactions, and particularly the growing rivalry between Newcastle and Walpole, the thesis tries to show how influential others were. The inner circle of British ministers was preoccupied with the voice of those `without doors', and public opinion set limits to diplomacy even in Spain. The domestic context of British foreign policy included also a developing popular patriotism. The thesis contends that the Walpole ministry nearly succeeded in procuring a genuine commercial peace with Spain, and that the reasons for failure did not arise exclusively from domestic political clamour. Royal prestige and individual ministerial personalitites, in both countries, affected the outcome at least as much. The full explanation of a complex breakdown can only be found in a close attention to the chronology of negotiation. The thesis is therefore mainly chronological in form. In each chapter, though, an attempt is made to take up relevant themes and develop them with a less strict regard to chronology. Some issues, such as the role of monarchy, and of public opinion, the press campaign and Opposition tactics, the contribution of the South Sea Company, recur.

This dissertation argues that the idea of a German Menace was not simply a product of concerns about the defence of the British Isles, but rather it was born out of the mentality of British imperialism. Over the period 1896-1903, imperial antagonism between Germany and Britain, in various contexts around the globe, inspired the popular perception of the German Menace as a distinctly imperial threat. Where the established historiography locates the beginning of the Anglo-German rivalry within the development of the naval armaments race after 1904, this study traces the British fear of Germany much earlier and, crucially, much further away from the shores of the North Sea. The Dreadnought Race was a product of pre-existing anxieties; this thesis will explain the context of imperial anxiety out of which the coherent concept of the German Menace developed. It reveals how specific imperial crises informed British popular beliefs and how the stereotypes of German covetousness, autocracy and efficiency coalesced to form a powerful force in British society and politics that had reached its peak by 1903. By 1903 Germany was widely regarded as a menace to the British Empire.

This thesis examines the effects of the campaign for disestablishment upon the religious and social life of Monmouthshire in the period 1840-1880. From a position of strength in 1840, nonconformists intensified their efforts to redress their religious and social grievances and to support the programme of the Liberation Society founded in 1844. The main focus of this study is the increasing influence of the Baptists, the strongest Nonconformest denomination in Monmouthshire during this period. The importance of the Baptist College and those involved in its leadership under its principal Dr Thomas Thomas, is analysed through the Dissenters’ campaigns against compulsory Church rate and state-funded education. Thomas’s leadership was paramount, not only in the Baptist College but also through crane street chapel of which he was pastor in a joint appointment for thirty –seven years. His stature was publicly recognised when he was appointed President of the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland in 1872. He had become leader of the Baptist churches in Monmouthshire by1857 when he was chiefly responsible for setting up the Monmouthshire English Baptist Association at Pontypool. Thomas became noteworthy as a leader not only of Monmouthshire Baptists but also in the religious and social life of the county. His relationships with other religious leaders and his influence upon them are examined. This study seeks to fil a historiographical gap in our understanding of the impact of the campaign for Disestablishment in its early phases upon the religious life of Monmouthshire. It also provides a picture of the two institutions that were essential to the development of the Dissenters’ campaign for religious equality, Pontypool Baptist College and Crane Street Chapel. From the available resources, an analysis is provided.

This thesis examines how the authors of ephemeral print used the gender framework for political ends during the first Civil War. In particular it considers how both the royalist and parliamentarian pamphleteers constructed and promoted a hegemonic, patriarchal definition of manhood amongst their male supporters in order to encourage them to fight for either king or parliament. It also demonstrates how the pamphleteers of each party drew upon deep-seated cultural allusions and a pre-existing language of insult in order to claim that their enemies were ‘unmanly’ or ‘effeminate’ and therefore unable or unwilling to uphold the patriarchal social order. The thesis shows that the pamphleteers of both sides set out to demonstrate that their own men were exemplars of patriarchal manhood, while simultaneously claiming that the anti-patriarchal behaviour of their opponents had betrayed their unsuitability for a position of authority within the commonwealth. Gendered language was therefore a powerful way to legitimise the claim of one’s own side to patriarchal authority and political power while simultaneously delegitimizing the claim of one’s opponents. The introduction outlines the key questions which the thesis seeks to address and gives my reasons for undertaking this study. Chapter one examines the reluctance of past generations of historians to study the wartime tracts and highlights the importance of the new cultural history, gender studies and the linguistic turn in bringing the gendered language of the wartime tracts to academic attention. Recently, there has been a surge of interest in the print culture of the Civil Wars. In particular, the pioneering work of David Underdown has led other historians to explore how the wartime pamphleteers made use of cultural references in order to communicate political ideas. Chapter one situates my thesis within these recent developments in scholarship. Chapter two considers the main gendered themes of the parliamentarian tracts during the first Civil War. It explores how and why manhood was constructed and how gendered insult was utilised by the pamphleteers. Chapter three focuses on how three principal royalist personalities were represented in parliamentarian tracts, namely Charles I, Queen Henrietta Maria and Prince Rupert. Chapter four considers the broader gendered themes within the royalist literature of the period and tests the assertions of previous historians that royalist propaganda was frequently elitist and self-defeating. Chapter five explores the royalists’ treatment of three key parliamentarian figures: Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, Sir William Waller and Lady Ann Waller. It explores the careful treatment that Essex initially received from the royalist polemicists and contrasts this with the increasingly barbed attacks that were made against Waller, particularly by commenting upon the actions of his wife, Ann. The conclusion summarises the key arguments of the thesis and relates my findings to other broader questions regarding the operation and contestation of patriarchal power during the conflict, the practice of printing and how the use of gendered language developed in the polemical works of the later 1640s. The thesis ends with a brief discussion of some areas in which further research might enable us to better understand the vital role that gender played in reinforcing authority during the turbulent 1640s.