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This thesis examines the relationship between the commemorative strategies of English noblemen in the period 1485-1572 and their identity both as individuals and as a social group. In particular, it will look at the Howard dukes of Norfolk in the context of their peers. The five chapters each address a different aspect of noble identity. The first two chapters deal with the importance of kinship and of status. The importance of kinship is evident across commemorative strategies from burial locations to the heraldry displayed at funerals to the references to ancestry in elegies. Having achieved a particular status, noblemen were defensive of their rank and the dues accorded to it. Funerals were designed to reflect social status and the choice of burial location could also indicate a concern with status. However, there was not always a correlation between the scale of commemoration and status. The third chapter examines the role that service to the Crown played in noble identity. Late medieval ideals of military service and a chivalric culture survived well in to the sixteenth century and traditional commemorative forms remained popular, even amongst noblemen newly ennobled from the ranks of the Tudor administration. Chapter four addresses the importance of local power to the nobility of the period. Burial and commemoration acted as a visible reminder of the social order and were of benefit in maintaining local stability. Noblemen could also use their death as a means of demonstrating good lordship through charity and hospitality. The final chapter examines the importance of religion to a nobleman's identity during a century of turbulent religious change. Studying commemorative strategies allows us to trace noble responses to religious change, the constraints on their public show of belief, and the ways in which they could express individuality.

The 1944 Butler Act laid the legal foundations for a new secondary education system in England, one which would see all children entitled to free and compulsory schooling up to the age of 15. The Act therefore represented a bold step forward in the pursuit of a fairer society: expanding access to training and qualifications, while promoting a more equal distribution of educational opportunities. This thesis explores the process of constructing and delivering secondary education policy in England following the 1944 Butler Education Act. It offers a close examination of two Local Education Authorities- Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire- exploring how they interpreted and implemented 'secondary education for all' after the Second World War. The dissertation is composed of two parts: Part One looks at how selective secondary schooling was developed and operated in the respective areas between 1945 and 1962; Part Two explores the response of both authorities to the prospect of reforming secondary education after 1962. By exploring the process of policy implementation after 1944, Part One of this thesis highlights the problems of delivering secondary education for all in an era of resource constraint. It is demonstrated in this thesis that Local Authority capacity to build new schools was firmly tethered to Ministerial control. The relatively low priority accorded to education created a decade-long delay between the announcement of policy change and its eventual delivery. The implications of this delay at the Local Authority and school level are explored in chapters three and six. Chapters four and seven question how resources were distributed between selective and non-selective school sectors, while chapters five and eight evaluate the treatment of selective education within each authority, asking how policy makers conceived of, and operated, the grammar school and secondary modern sectors. Part Two of this thesis turns to the question of secondary organisation. Debates surrounding the question of comprehensive rather than selective systems of secondary schooling dominated discussions about secondary education policy in the later twentieth century. When it came to comprehensive re-organisation, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire opted for different paths: Oxfordshire adopted comprehensive schooling relatively early with a remarkable degree of county-wide consensus, while Buckinghamshire fiercely resisted external and internal pressure to reform. Chapter ten of this thesis is devoted to identifying the drivers of comprehensive reform in Oxfordshire. Chapters eleven and twelve explore the Buckinghamshire story establishing how and then why this county successfully held-out against wholesale policy change.

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