The purpose of this thesis was to highlight an aspect of the heterogeneous character of working class culture. To this end, it investigated the Irish Catholic population of Manchester and Salford, two cities not normally associated with sectarianism, in the period 1890-1939, a time when anti-Irish and anti-Catholic sentiment was supposedly on the wane in the face of 'class' feeling. The study concluded that hostilities based on nationality and religion were a recurrent feature of popular culture. The rise of the Labour party failed to transform such deep-rooted sentiments, to some extent it made use of them. The Catholic Church used its extensive influence in order to isolate adherents from non-Catholics, thereby contributing to the prevalent - although often latent - sectarian feelings. Despite changes which helped weaken the strength of mutual mistrust, in 1939 Irish Catholics remained culturally Janus-faced: they were neither fully Irish nor completely Mancunian. Consequently, they held a contingent and variable place within the city's working class. This study utilised numerous source materials, including oral history, the local press, Catholic diocesan and parochial archives, as well as political records.

This thesis examines effects of the Boer War (1899- 1902) on images of the soldier. The thesis argues that the trauma of the Boer War for British political culture be may explored in changes in representations of the soldier to be found in the production and reception of contemporary literary genres and popular forms. This change cannot be theorized adequately in terms of an intensification of patriotism, the development of nationalism or a crisis of imperialism. A pervasive approach, often drawing on the work of Edward Said, has as its central premise that imperial polity imposes a discourse of domination on its relacitrant Other. This approach will be found to lack the conceptual nuances needed to address the different forms of representation examined in the thesis. These different forms of representation articulate a range of responses to the repercussion of the war on the relation between the shifting external boundaries of Empire and the internal boundaries of civil society between state and civil society, civilian and military identities, class antagonisms and national projections. Changes in the image of the soldier bear the irresistable politicization as well as the contrary paradoxical burdens of the attempted pacification of those related external and internal boundaries. The thesis includes a study of a range of sources, including as yet undiscussed texts, which verify and explore further the argument that literary and popular forms and representations display the changing fault lines of political culture rather than simply present or act as vehicles for a truiumphalist and unequivocal discursive domination.

This thesis explores the practice of government secrecy in Britain from 1945-1975. Drawing on oral testimony, unpublished correspondence, and newly released archival material, it addresses the question of how and why governments kept information secret in the context of the Cold War and profound domestic social change. Topics incorporated within the ambit of this study include the origins and troubled history of the Official Secrets Act; the customs and cerebral landscapes of the civil service; the investigative journalism of Chapman Pincher; the disappearance of naval frogman 'Buster' Crabb; and the censorship of political and intelligence biographies. In a departure from traditional histories of secrecy, often written by detractors in the spirit of shrill political partisanship, it will be shown that many secrets were entirely defensible, concealed legitimately in the interests of national security and good government. The argument emphasises that the most effective antibodies to state secrecy were memoirists - who, possessing deep reservoirs of secret knowledge, exploited their status and old boy contacts to circumvent regulations they had themselves parented, and abided by, during their official careers. By 1975, it will be offered that Whitehall had begun to volunteer more information, especially under the aegis of official histories and other selectively discharged 'insider' accounts, in order to ameliorate public relations and deflect calls for more wide-ranging open government initiatives. While primarily political history, this thesis also incorporates socio-cultural analysis of the secret bearers themselves.

This thesis traces the British role in the evolution of international law prior to 1914, utilizing naval arms control as a case study. In the thesis, I argue that the Foreign Office adopted a pragmatic approach towards international law, emphasizing what was possible within the existing system of law rather than attempting to create radically new and powerful international institutions. The thesis challenges standard perceptions of the Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 which interpreted these gatherings as unrealistic efforts at general disarmament through world government, positing instead that legalized arms control provided a realistic means of limiting armaments. This thesis explores how a great power employed treaties to complement maritime security strategies. A powerful world government was not advocated and was unnecessary for the management of naval arms control. While law could not guarantee state compliance, the framework of the international legal system provided a buffer, increasing predictability in interstate relations. This thesis begins with an account of how international law functioned in the nineteenth century, and how states employed international law in limiting armaments. With this framework, a legal analysis is provided for exploring the negotiations at the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907, and in the subsequent Anglo-German naval arms race. What emerges is how international law functioned by setting expectations for future behaviour, while raising the political cost of violations. Naval arms control provided a unique opportunity for legal regulation, as the lengthy building time and easily verifiable construction enabled inspections by naval attachés, a traditional diplomatic practice. Existing practices of international law provided a workable method of managing arms competition, without the necessity for unworkable projects of world government. Thus failure to resolve the arms race before 1914 must be attributed to other causes besides the lack of legal precedents.

This thesis investigates the factors involved in the processes of health policy change. It questions the validity of path dependency theory in the context of changes observed within the United Kingdom health system under the Conservatives between 1979 and 1997. The development of the National Health Service (NHS) ‘internal market’ reforms is considered together with five specific cases of change affecting public-private boundaries. The research combines literature research, including biographical and archival sources, with a selection of interviews with important actors from the health policy arena of the time. The cases are mapped using an adapted version of the three policy streams developed by Kingdon for the analysis of agenda-setting processes, as a structured basis for comparison. The research finds little evidence of the self-reinforcing processes that are required to generate path dependency, or that a change of path can take place only at a critical juncture.It shows that small changes can produce substantive and enduring changes of path. It also identifies that the factors involved appear to go beyond Kingdon’s three streams, and attaches importance to the potential for disloyalty to the status quo. Cultural or technical change, as well as policy change, can generate disloyalty amongst those who deliver services. The presence of the potential for disloyalty is, therefore, an important factor in the achievement of a change of path. Taken together the changes between 1979 and 1997 show a notable consistency of purpose in pursuit of a dual agenda of consumerism and public spending control. Whilst analysis of individual cases of change can suggest an absence of strategy, each case plays a part within a remarkable consistent Conservative programme of change the roots of which predate the National Health Service.

This thesis investigates the restructuring of local government in the reign of George II in the county of Surrey. The decay of mediaeval and Tudor institutions such as manors and church courts, the redefinition of the role of the Assizes in local administration, the ending of the isolation of the boroughs, the marked professionalisation of County Quarter Sessions contributed to a very considerable change in the nature of local government in the period. The research opens with an introduction on the administrative relationship between central and county government, is then divided into three parts, each subdivided into chapters. Part one discusses forms of government at parish and borough level and charts the development of vestries and, against a background of municipal insecurity, assesses the reality of an urban renaissance in eighteenth century Surrey towns. Part two examines the important work of the court of Quarter Sessions and, in particular, the impact of administrative prescription on the individual Surrey inhabitant. Part three looks at the influence and social status of the county magistracy and their commitment and dedication to administrative work in the localities. The importance of administrative procedure as an agency of social control in the eighteenth century is emphasised in the conclusion, which also stresses the uses of administrative history to the social historian.

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This thesis is an interdisciplinary examination of the place of the Virgin Mary in the English reformations of the sixteenth century. Situated at the crossroads of cultural and social history, it engages with the post-revisionist debate within Reformation studies. It seeks to move post-revisionism forward by suggesting that the versatility and vitality of late medieval Mariology enabled reformers, Catholic and Protestant, to select and reject from a basket of possibilities. Consequently it contends that the fissures that had opened up by the time of the Elizabethan settlement had essentially developed along pre-existing fault lines. The first chapter explores the place of the Virgin in the late medieval context. It examines her theological significance, the way ordinary people related to her and, consequently, how they represented her in English parishes. It argues that the Virgin occupied a position which supported both affective and effective piety. The second chapter considers specific ways in which existing Mariological tropes were unsettled by the critiques of Catholic evangelicals, Renaissance humanists and Lollards. It demonstrates that the Virgin was a fluid symbol and suggests some possible trajectories that may have been followed had it not been for the rupture of the Reformation. It contends that the key focus of those advocating reform was the spiritual integrity of devotees. The third chapter investigates developing evangelical Mariology and the subsequent attempts at magisterial reform under Henry VIII and Edward VI. It explores the impact of iconoclasm on parish piety and the transformation of the Virgin into an ordinary woman. It argues for important continuities in the Protestant re-imagination of the Virgin. The final chapter looks at the policies of Mary Tudor and considers how the Virgin was re-imagined in a restored Catholic context. It contributes to the debate on the nature of Mary’s religious programme and assesses the appropriation of Mariological tropes to endorse England’s first Queen regnant. It contends that the reign’s legacy enabled the Elizabethan settlement to reject aspects of the Virgin as foreign, reshaping English identity.

This thesis examines the complex links between morality and leadership, by using adultery as a window through which to reassess the position of the aristocracy in late Georgian England. It analyses the construction and performance of aristocratic roles, and illustrates how various literary representations played an active part in manipulating public attitudes and creating change. It charts ways in which narratives of adultery were exploited for commercial and political motives, undermining the traditional basis of hereditary power by questioning moral fitness to rule, and ultimately contributing to the fundamental re-imagining of social structure expressed in the 1832 Reform Act. The old ‘aristocratic political history’ is reassessed through the lens of new cultural history by re-integrating literary evidence, to contribute new perspectives on the social and cultural position of the aristocracy. A key argument is that aristocratic roles were constructed over time through the interaction of successive layers of performance in everyday life and literature. This theory is intended as a fresh contribution to wider current debates on how readers interpret and respond to texts, by exploring notions of representation, self-representation and the role of literature in shaping both. The two concepts underpinning this work are the notion of theatre as a metaphor for life in which people enact a variety of roles, and the belief that literature has an active influence on attitudes and behaviours. By focussing on adultery as a social act, it investigates the consequences of infidelity for public life, and its profound implications for the meaning of aristocracy sited within overlapping public and private spheres. It questions stereotypes of aristocratic vice popularised by commercial print culture, and compares these representations with personal narratives. This thesis argues that stories of adultery are significant cultural material artefacts which must be integrated with traditional social and political histories, to provide a full understanding of the performative nature of identity.