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The identification of metabolic diseases is a crucial aspect of osteoarchaeological analysis and of paleopathological studies. This study is specifically concerned with the study of scurvy and its bony manifestation. This investigation considers the recognition of the bony lesions of scurvy in adult skeletons that originate from English archaeological contexts dating to the Post Medieval period. In order to identify scorbutic bony lesions, assemblages were analysed that derived from the Georgian period Navy that were known to suffer from endemic scurvy, namely Haslar hospital near Portsmouth and Stonehouse hospital in Plymouth. These assemblages were complemented by two Non-Naval skeletal collections of a broadly contemporaneous time period, one of which was a prison assemblage from Oxford Castle in Oxford and the other was from Darwen, Lancashire and consisted of a Primitive Methodist cemetery. For the purpose of this study, an extensive literature review was carried out and a specially modified scurvy recording form was created. In total three hundred and fifty-eight skeletons were analysed using the scurvy recording form on which a total of twenty-one potential scorbutic indicators were scored. The data was then subject to statistical analysis and a set of primary and secondary scorbutic indicators was established. The primary scorbutic lesions were femur, sphenoid, posterior maxilla, scapula, endocranial and mandible. Nine secondary lesions were also established and these were lesions of the foot, humerus, ulna, radius, hand, clavicle, innominate, fibula and the ectocranial surface of the skull. In total, 66.7% of the Haslar assemblage was found to have suffered from scurvy, followed by Plymouth with 20.6%, Darwen with 16.4% and Oxford Castle with 7.9%. It was found that scurvy could be identified in adult skeletal material through the recognition of a number of lesions that could not be attributed to any other disease process. The results indicated that scurvy was present in all of the skeletal collections studied but was more common in the Naval assemblages. This is an important development in the detection of scurvy in the archaeological record and is crucial in the reconstruction of past diets and metabolic disease patterns.

Krusenstern et Lissiansky furent les premiers circumnavigateurs russes qui permirent à leur pays au XIXe siècle de concurrencer l’Angleterre dans le Pacifique Sud. Anciens cadets de la marine russe, ils avaient reçu une formation sur des vaisseaux de la Royal Navy selon des accords anglo-russes pour lutter contre la France révolutionnaire. Cette thèse porte sur le positionnement de la Russie dans le Pacifique Sud et sur ses capacités à égaler, sinon devancer sa rivale l’Angleterre, première puissance navale et commerciale. Les récits détaillés de Krusenstern et Lissiansky, d’autres circumnavigateurs russes qui surent profiter de leur savoir, ont été examinés.La Russie se positionnait timidement dans une région éloignée de ses frontières. Son Empire se construisit sur l’Eurasie, vaste bloc monolithique, avec une extension en Amérique constituée de l’Alaska et du territoire californien de Fort Ross. En tentant la colonisation dans les mers chaudes, la Russie craignait des tensions, voire des conflits avec les autres puissances, qui lui reprochaient déjà de trop s’agrandir au détriment de l’Empire ottoman, « l’homme malade de l’Europe »; l’équilibre des forces si cher à l’Angleterre n’était plus respecté. Pendant ce temps, l’Angleterre s’était lancée dans une colonisation intensive en Australie et en Nouvelle-Zélande; pour dissuader ses concurrents, elle annonçait officiellement l’annexion de ses nouvelles terres, et rapidement elle les peuplait, les explorait et les exploitait. Son but était de s’approprier de nouvelles matières premières pour alimenter sa puissante industrie et se p! réparer à d’éventuelles crises politiques et économiques venant d’Europe ou d’Amérique. Hawai’i était à cette époque un point central ouvert aux quatre principales puissances : l’Angleterre, la France, la Russie et les Etats-Unis; chacune essayait d’obtenir les faveurs du souverain local en attendant que l’une d’entre elles s’imposât.La Russie joua un rôle important dans le Pacifique Sud au niveau scientifique et technique. Ses circumnavigateurs avaient fait de très nombreuses découvertes géographiques, auxquelles ils avaient donné des noms glorifiant la Russie; ils améliorèrent les cartes de façon sensible. Ils surent bénéficier des meilleurs instruments de précision et des tout derniers ouvrages scientifiques pour obtenir des mesures et des résultats aussi conséquents que précis. La guerre de Crimée allait mettre en évidence les faiblesses d’une Russie qui s’était montrée jusqu’ici victorieuse et qui devait dorénavant se remettre en cause jusqu’à renoncer à certaines ambitions dans le Pacifique / Kruzenshtern and Lisianski were the first Russian circumnavigators who, in the nineteenth century, enabled their country to compete with England in the South Pacific. Former cadets in the Russian Navy, they had received training on Royal Navy ships in accordance with Anglo-Russian agreements to fight against revolutionary France. This thesis focuses on the position of Russia in the South Pacific and her ability to match, if not surpass her rival England, the first naval and commercial power. The detailed accounts of Kruzenshtern and Lisianski, other Russian circumnavigators who took advantage of their knowledge, were examined.Russia was positioning herself timidly in a region which was far from her borders. Her empire was built on Eurasia, a large monolithic block, with an expansion into America which consisted of Alaska and Fort Ross, a Californian territory. Attempting colonization in warm seas, Russia feared tensions or even conflicts with other powers, who accused her of seeking her expansion too much at the expense of the Ottoman Empire, the "sick man of Europe"; the balance of power so dear to England was no longer respected. England had begun an intensive colonization of Australia and New Zealand. In order to deter her competitors, she officially announced the annexation of her new lands, which she quickly populated, explored and exploited. Her goal was to obtain new raw materials to feed her powerful industry and to prepare herself for any possible political and economic crises from Europe or America. Hawai'i at this time was a focal point for the four major powers: England, France, Russi! a and the United States, each trying to curry favour whith the local monarch until one of them prevailed over the other three.Russia played an important role in the South Pacific in science and technology. Her circumnavigators had made many geographical discoveries, to which they had given names glorifying Russia; they also significantly improved maps. They were able to take advantage of the best precision instruments and the latest scientific literature to obtain consistent and accurate measures and results. The Crimean War was to highlight the weaknesses of Russia, who had so far been victorious, but now had to question and renounce certain of her ambitions in the Pacific Ocean

At the conclusion of the First World War, Great Britain ranked highest among the world's great maritime Powers, with a fleet materially enriched by the wartime construction of over fifteen hundred vessels and a naval establishment edified by its 1914-1918 experience in the use of the new Navy. Consequently, it was not apparent to other than the most astute observer that the Royal Navy had, in fact, reached the pinnacle of its ascendancy. [...]

This thesis applies the theoretical perspective of Bourdieu to investigate the development of a Royal Navy habitus. It is one of the first studies to uncover distinct social processes within the Royal Navy that otherwise would have largely remained unknown to a wider academic audience. An ethnographic methodology was used to investigate the attitudes of serving members of the Royal Navy using an approach that was informed by the Biographical Narrative Interview Method (Wengraf 2001). In my analysis, I constructed a complex picture of how individuals develop a particular habitus, showing how the interplay between the institutional and individual habitus influences the process and pattern of their choice making. Through the development of the institutional habitus and its internalisation by each person, the previously unthinkable becomes possible, the possible becomes routine and not doing the routine, unthinkable. This sets the pattern for subsequent behaviours which are passed on to the next generation. Although each reproduction is subtly different it falls within the broader outline of the institutional habitus as constituted at that time. The Royal Navy creates aspiration through division by developing competition between the different ranks of its personnel within the organisation. Strong familial relationships, kinship bonds and the development of an affective dimension through traineeship produce the Royal Navy habitus that becomes the structuring principle for agents’ future career development. Through the imposition of an institutionally defined cultural capital, agents engage in this process in order to realise their career ambitions.

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At the beginning of the twenty-first century a burgeoning global private military sector is increasingly involved in areas of defence and security that, up until recently, were popularly thought of as being within the monopolistic preserve of the nation state. Finding itself at the vanguard of profound political and economic change, today’s Royal Navy is increasingly reliant on relationships with the private sector that only thirty years ago would have seemed unimaginable to many commentators. As naval shipbuilding, dockyard refitting, logistics, training, and even warship ownership and manning, move from a unitary state to an increasingly self-organising private sector bounded by a differentiated and decentered polity, this thesis is concerned with boundaries of elite discourse on legitimacy in the political economy of Royal Navy and British naval sea power and their implications for New Public Management theory. At its core, the study presents original research into the attitudes of fifty elite opinion formers directly concerned with the discourse of Royal Navy modernisation and profiles their ideational boundaries concerning the political economy of force and violence. The thesis makes an original contribution to knowledge by presenting empirically and framing theoretically the ways in which elite naval attitudes to the political economy of legitimated force have changed and are evolving. The research is important because it challenges what many commentators have come to believe to be an a priori function of the nation state, namely, the monopoly use of force, with the actual views of those opinion formers who currently hold positions of power and influence in and around one of its core ‘ideal type’ institutions: the Royal Navy. The research is also significant because in attempting to clarify the conceptual boundaries of this elite discourse, it also presents a powerful critique of New Public Management with reference to the problematic dimensions of time, economic complexity and socio-political power.

The Great War was an enormous global cataclysm affecting the lives of all inhabitants of the combatant countries and many others. The effects were not uniform, however, and, by assessing the experience of the people of Shetland, this thesis shows how a local history can enhance understanding of the nuances of an international event. The Shetlanders’ experience was similar in many ways to that of other communities, but had aspects that were unusual or even unique. Both local and national sources are used to investigate how the Shetland experience fitted into historiographical discourses on the war. These include: contrasting depictions of the pre-war era as a ‘Golden Age’ or a period of upheaval and conflict; the extent of militarism in pre-war British society; the putative reasons for volunteering for armed service and the controversy about conscription; reactions to the outbreak of war and attitudes towards the enemy and the Government’s handling of the war; the situation of women; and the extent of change and continuity at the re-adaptation to peace. In addition, the thesis explores two related and recurring themes. One of the profound influences on Shetland was its geographical location, which is related here to theories about local and regional history and concepts of ‘islandness’, ‘peripherality’ and ‘place’. Assertions of a Shetland communal consciousness and identity related to a distinctive local experience are also scrutinised. The disparate effects of the war are studied through the experience of different sections of the population. Despite their perceived remoteness, Shetlanders were aware of prewar international antagonisms, especially as their islands became important for Britain’s defence and war strategy and their patriotism came under suspicion. This resulted in recruitment, deployment and casualties for the local armed forces being atypical in the UK. Servicemen’s contemporary writing showed both conformity to prevalent themes and affirmations of local identity. Shetland provided a base for naval operations important to Britain’s victory; relationships between the Navy and Shetlanders were sometimes difficult and visiting servicemen perceived Shetland as remote and different. Examination of the economic consequences of the war and the reactions of Shetland society illustrates how the community’s identity was expressed in the war effort and strengthened, even when national interests were paramount. Finally, commemoration is recognised as both a national movement and an expression of local identity and pride in Shetland’s contribution to victory.

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