Choosing to Run: A History of Athletics and Gender in Kenya, c. 1940s – 1980s explores the history of gender and athletics in Kenya, with focus on the Rift Valley Province, from the onset of late colonial rule in the 1940s through the professionalisation of the sport during the last decades of the twentieth century. The first two empirical chapters provide a history of athletics during the colonial period. The first highlights the continuity of ideas about sport and masculinity that were developed in nineteenth century Britain and were subsequently perpetuated by the men in charge of colonial sport in Kenya. The next chapter considers how pre-colonial divisions of labour and power within Rift Valley communities informed local peoples' cultures of running. The absence of women’s running was not only the result of sexism translated from the British metropole to its Kenyan colony but also of pre-existing divisions of responsibilities of indigenous Kenyan men and women into separate, gendered domains. The second half of the thesis considers the impact of social change within women’s athletics internationally and of marriage, childbirth and education locally on female runners in the Rift Valley during the post-colonial period. Most women abandoned athletics once they reached maturity. Those who sought to do otherwise, as the final chapter argues, found that they could only do so by replicating the prototype of masculine runners that had already been established. Later, after the professionalisation of running allowed women to become wealthy, female patrons took this a step further by providing resources to those in their community in need, setting themselves up as 'Big (Wo)men'. This thesis uses athletics to reveal how gender relations and gender norms have evolved and the benefits and challenges that the sport has brought both to individual Kenyan women and their communities.

The scale of the current global obesity epidemic and the implications of this for health, functionality and economics, dictates that assessing the origins of overnutrition must become a priority in all research fields. To date anthropometric historians have mainly utilised institutional sources providing height and occasionally weight data for a sample of the working class who experienced deprivation. Tailoring institutions offer new, innovative sources for the field; uniquely measuring body shape in its entirety and sampling the upper-middle classes and elites. Anthropometric data for waist circumference, hip circumference and leg length has been collected from Morris & Son tailoring establishment in Barmouth, North West Wales and from Henry Poole & Co. ‘Savile Row’ tailors in Mayfair, London. This data from the second half of the nineteenth century has been nominally linked to census and probate records and cross-referenced with contemporary medical tracts and modern epidemiological literature to highlight obesity related health risks within both populations. Results indicate that 'diseases of affluence' permeated many nineteenth century class groups. Both waist circumferences and hip circumferences increased over the life span. Furthermore, Barmouth’s economic transition from a port to a tourist destination appears to have placed individuals' health (when measured by early adult waist-hip ratio) at greater risk than the overall wealthier customers attending Savile Row. The Barker hypothesis may be relevant - an influx of wealth being of greater detriment to health in later life than consistent affluence. For Henry Poole & Co.’s customers an elite lifestyle enabled girths to expand, increasing the risk of chronic diseases but seemingly protecting them from infectious pathogens. In later life, during the second half of the nineteenth century, it would appear that optimal waist circumferences to reduce mortality were larger than current recommended levels.

This thesis reconstructs and interprets the evolution of legal culture in the Saxon city of Freiberg in the sixteenth century. It challenges the notion that early modern state institutions were punitive and disciplinary; and instead posits that in Saxony, they were flexible and sought to maintain social harmony. While previous scholarship has favoured a sociological approach, based on the concept of social control, this thesis employs a legal anthropological optic to study the interaction of state institutions and social life holistically. The focus is not just on how state institutions sought to regulate social life, but also on how ordinary people used institutions for their diverse purposes. The goal of this methodological approach, based on Lawrence Friedman’s concept of legal culture, is to assess the relative position and interaction of the people, the judiciary, and the law in early modern Germany. Probing the interactions of the court and the residents of Freiberg reveals that the court was primarily a record-keeper and a mediator. For the former, it logged and transcribed all manner of transactions: peace pacts, loans, and house purchases; and Freibergers readily turned to the court to get a formal record of an obligation. For the latter, the court was rarely a site of punishment, rather it was a place where conflicts were regulated, and bonds forged. At court, Freibergers fostered ties to one another. Neither of these roles, record-keeper or mediator, are ones traditionally ascribed to early modern courts. Only by considering by the culture of a court does either become apparent.

The present study offers an in-depth examination of the institutional framework within which money operated as an economic agent in the Roman empire. Analyses focus on Classical Roman Law as reflected in the writings of Roman jurists from the second and early-third centuries CE. The legal sources are augmented by documentary materials, which give independent, albeit sporadic, evidence for actual practice. The thesis follows current trends in economic history to adopt approaches advanced by New Institutional Economics (NIE), while generally accepting Keynesian claims for the endogenous nature of money. Its innovative contribution is in suggesting a complexity-oriented approach to modelling the behaviour of money in the Roman empire; seeing money as a complex economic phenomenon, i.e. as a diverse and manifold apparatus which allows for new patterns of activity to be created by individuals, who self-adjust their use of it to the continuously evolving system in which they operate. The thesis is divided into four parts. The first is introductory. The second concerns the legal institutional framework for economic interaction; with discussions generally organised according to Roman legal categorisation, and considers developments in the role allocated to money in legal definitions for exchange transaction. The third part examines two study-cases of money-related institutions, namely, the instrument of interest, and interest-bearing deposits, demonstrating how money stimulated the interconnected dynamics within and between legal traditions operating under Roman regime. The fourth and last part is dedicated to a more general analysis of the complex nature of Roman money, attempting to model the historical example of Roman money with the help of complexity-oriented visualisations.

This study investigates the ownership and leasing of plots of land by women in four regions of England throughout the nineteenth century including Oxfordshire and surrounding counties (agricultural); West Yorkshire (industrial); London (the metropolis); and Durham ( mining). Innovative research was linked to standard econometric analysis utilising a new source of information about land, namely the books of reference produced by the railway companies. These books had unique advantages, particularly as legal documents scrutinised by Parliament and the public. Information was compiled about 23,966 plots including their uses and details of ownership, leasing and occupation; with a minimum sample of 400 plots per region, per decade. The women were recorded when identified in the documents as owners, lessors or lessees. The study compares the uses of plots with a woman owner or lessee with plots owned by men or institutions. The influence of parish characteristics and the roles of common law and equity on women’s plot ownership are considered, especially the effects of the Married Women’s Property Acts of 1870 and 1882. On average women owned 12.4 per cent of the sampled plots and leased 3.8 per cent, with regional variations. Plot usage and location were important at regional and parish level with women adapting their ownership to local economic conditions. Differences were found between the uses of women-owned plots and those owned by men and institutions. The greatest percentage of women-owned plots everywhere were owned or leased by women with no male or institutional co-owners. There was a multi-regional, long-term time trend towards a greater involvement of women in plot ownership during the century, with a spike in women’s ownership in Yorkshire and London during the Railway Mania. The Married Women’s Property Act of 1870 reduced women’s ownership of plots in every region except London, whereas the 1882 Married Women’s Property Act had mixed effects across the regions. Overall, the research challenges the view that legal and social constraints confined women’s ownership of land to wealthy widows and spinsters and shows that ownership was far more widespread than has been supposed.

This thesis aims to improve historical knowledge of Australian refugee policy between 1976 and 1983, a unique and transitional moment in the nation’s history and in international refugee movements. The discussion will be based on original evidence drawn from archival records and oral history interviews, and informed by a broad literature which recognises that refugee policy is a product of varied political imperatives and historical context. First, Chapter Three reveals that because the Fraser government could not deport the Indochinese boatpeople who sailed to Australia, it sought to approve their refugee status in order to legitimate its announcements that only ‘genuine’ refugees were being admitted. In doing so, the Fraser government was required to defend the processing of boat arrivals to the public and within the bureaucracy. Chapter Four finds that historical and political considerations informed the Fraser government’s choice not to reject or detain boat arrivals but to instead introduce legislation against people smuggling. The chapter presents new evidence to disprove claims expressed in recent academic and media commentary that the government’s Immigration (Unauthorised Arrivals) Act 1980 (Cth) marked a particularly harsh stance and that passengers on the VT838 were deported without due process, and draws from ideas within the literature concerning the need for states to promote the integrity of the refugee concept. Chapter Five contributes to international literature on refugee status determination procedure by studying the Australian government’s assessment of non-Indochinese. Through a dataset created from UNHCR archives it is found that the quality of briefing material and political considerations could influence deliberations on individual cases. Chapter Six contributes to literature on in-country processing, revealing how Australia’s programme in Chile and El Salvador was a means of diversifying the refugee intake but caused tensions between the Department of Immigration and the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Since John Ruskin and William Morris's protestations against mass production in the nineteenth century, critics of mass consumption thought that it not only reduced the necessity, but also the desire, to make things for personal use and enjoyment. The history of leisure painting in art societies and adult education, and of the amateur artist’s consumption of art materials and self-help literature, shows that, on the contrary, affluence both inspired and facilitated a quest for self-actualisation amongst the rank and file. Creative activities such as drawing and painting served this quest at little financial cost to the individual. Following the Second World War, a significant increase in the take-up of leisure painting was encouraged by the state as part of the broader postwar settlement. The pursuit of personal wellbeing through creative activity was regarded as a public good, of benefit not only to individuals but also to the communities of which they were a part. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, state support for recreational pursuits such as leisure painting was pared back: in the shift from collectivist social democracy towards individualist market liberalism, personal enjoyment was recast as a private affair for which the consumer must pay. Painting continued to grow in popularity, supported by expanding consumer markets in self-help literature and affordable art materials. Yet while consumerism sustained the popularity of amateur art-making, the ways in which amateur artists participated in the arts changed. Personal creativity emerges here as an inherently social activity: the private experience of creativity is mediated and structured by society. Consumerism was not bad for personal creativity per se, but the replacement of a communitarian approach with a consumerist model restricted the breadth and reach of creative aspiration nurtured as part of the postwar settlement. By the end of the century, most amateurs were painting alone.

This dissertation contributes to the long-standing debate between those who argue that the enclosure of the commons was as a precondition to foster economic growth and those who defend common property regimes can be efficient and sustainable. Exploiting historical evidence from 19^th century and early 20^th century Spain, this research shows that the persistence of the commons in some Spanish regions was not detrimental to economic development, at least relative to the institutional arrangements they were replaced with. On the contrary, during the early stages of modern economic growth, the communal regime not only did not limit agricultural productivity growth, but indeed constituted a crucial part of the functioning of the rural economics in a number of ways. On the one hand, these collective resources complemented rural incomes and, subsequently, sustained households' consumption capacity. The reduction in life expectancy and heights in the provinces where privatisation was more intense, as well as the negative effect on literacy levels, strongly supports that the privatisation of the commons deteriorated the living standards of a relatively large part of the population. On the other hand, the communal regime also significantly contributed to financing the municipal budget. Deprived from this important source of revenue, local councils became unable to adequately fund local public goods and ended up increasing local taxes. Lastly, the social networks developed around the use and management of these collective resources facilitated the diffusion of information and the building of mutual knowledge and trust, thus constituting a vital ingredient of the social glue that hold these rural communities together. All things considered, the persistence of the commons in some regions provided peasants with cooperation mechanisms different from the market and made the transition to modern economic growth more socially sustainable.

A clash of generations occurred in the 1960s Probation Service when increasing numbers of university graduates entered the profession. They have been described as permissive by historians because they prioritised the welfare of the offender. This was in contrast to their older, and relatively untrained, colleagues for whom a reform project was premised on the disciplining of character. Due to a lack of sources, however, it remains unclear how these two generations differed in their attempts to persuade magistrates over sentencing outcomes. Fortuitously, a rare cache of over 2,000 Social Enquiry Reports (SERs) survives in the records of the City’s Justice Rooms. Written by probation officers from across the Metropolitan London area, the reports represent a cross section of the capital’s diverse population. Using a number of techniques including oral and secondary sources, this thesis identifies members of both generations and examines the way that they persuaded magistrates. Sorting the SERs into types of offender, the thesis shows that both generations ultimately persuaded magistrates by subtly indicating in reports whether or not the offender and their families conformed to conventional gender norms. The main reason why SERs by the permissive university graduates closely resembled those written by their older colleagues was due to their common perception of magistrates as being socially conservative. Regardless of how liberal or not Britain became in the sixties, the courtroom was not considered to be a place where a rethink of morality had occurred. The university graduates therefore invoked normative character ideals in SERs because they believed it was likely to be the best way to achieve the desired outcome in court. Finally, as responses to offending were shaped by gender ideologies rather than the nature of the offence or previous convictions, the concept of the probation officer as ‘the burglar’s mate’ is rendered problematic.

The aim of this thesis is to establish the political, economic, and military history of Samos over a millennium, from the first arrival of colonists in the Minoan and Mykenaian Ages to the submission of Samos to imperial Athens in 439 B.C. There is little evidence available for the earlier part of this period. And such later traditions about the Ionian Migration as there are have come under severe attack by modern writers, both in detail and on general grounds of chronology. But there are striking instances of the accurate preservation of information going back at least as far, notably in the case of Mopsos of Kolophon, now confirmed even as to date by Hittite records and by the bilingual inscription of Karatepe. Consequently, it is reasonable to take the traditional narrative as a basis, and see whether it receives confirmation from other sources, chiefly archaeological. Apart from the autochthonous Lelegian king Ankaios, we read in ancient writers of several different immigrant groups in the island: fugitives from Krete in the time of Minos, on their way to found Miletos; 'Aiolians' from Lesbos, sent to found a cleruchy some time before the Trojan War; 'Karians' under Tembrion; 'Ionians' from Epidauros under the leadership of Prokles. Prokles' son Leogoros became involved in war against Androklos, founder of Ephesos and one of the Neleid leaders of the general Ionian Migration. This fact enables us to fix the traditional date of Prokles' arrival in Samos to c. 1125, since the Migration took place four generations after the Sack of Troy, which should be dated, following Herodotos and with archaeological confirmation, to c. 1240. The archaeological remains in Samos agree with these traditions. At Tigani there is Minoan pottery contemporary with - or even slightly earlier than - that from the settlements at Miletos. Gradually this gave way to Mykenaian styles, until the Kretan element had quite disappeared. By the time of the Trojan War, however, the Greek element had left Tigani, no doubt replaced by Tembrion's 'Karians'. When the next Greek pottery appears it is LH III C and Sub-mykenaian, not at Tigani but at the Heraion. It may be, therefore, that of the two settlements under Tembrion and Prokles mentioned by the Etymologicon Magnum Tigani is Astypalaia, the Heraion Chesia. In the course of the Ionian Migration, the new Samians sided with the natives against the Neleids, and for a while the island was conquered and held by Androklos. The Samians went into exile for ten years, some traditionally to Anaia and others to Samothrake. There is evidence that a third group sailed further, and founded Kelenderis in Kilikia: the name of this Samian colony occurs in the Karatepe inscription, invoking Ba'al KRNTRS; and since Samian interest in the orient was not resumed until half a century after that inscription was set up, the Greek place-name would seem to have been given before the Dark Age. Names in -nd- of course are as commonly Anatolian as Greek. But there is only one other Kelenderis, and that near Epidauros, serving to confirm that the Samians did indeed come from the eastern Argolid. There is other evidence in support of this tradition (which can be traced as far back as Herodotos in an explicit form), notably the fact that the eponymous hero of the Samian colony Perinthos (602 B.C.) was an Epidaurian and companion of Orestes. For more than three hundred years, c. 1100-750, we are virtually without evidence for Samian history. We must infer from the names of tribes and months that the traditions of Neleid Ionia were assimilated during this period, and it is probable that Samos received Neleid kings. Otherwise there is only the small but steady sequence of pottery and primitive architecture at the Heraion to assure us of the continuity of the islands's habitation. Recorded history reopens in the second half of the eighth century, when we find the self-conscious Ionians destroying the Karian-infiltrated town of Melie. It seems that Samos and Priene made the attach, against the vain resistance of Miletos, itself part Karian, and Kolophon, Melie's metropolis. The victors parcelled out the territory between them, Priens taking Melie itself, Samos the coastal strip northwards from there to Ephesos. The precise border of the two parcels was to be a matter of recurrent dispute between Samos and Priene. It was about the same time that these Ionian alliances were swept into the wider struggle which grew from the agrarian dispute of Chalkis and Eretria over Lelanton. Samos fought on the side of Chalkis, and at the same time helped Sparta against Messenia and received help from Corinth, while Miletos sent aid to Eretria and may have opposed Sparta on behalf of Messenia. The literary tradition of the alliances has archaeological support. Samos shared in the Athenian disaster at Aigina c. 700, and, like Athens, spent much of the first half of the seventh century in reconstruction. This century was politically and economically the age of the Geomoroi, certain defined artistocratic families said to have held their lands ever since the original settlement. Their period of rule marked the avoidance of warfare in favour of commercial expansion overseas. In the first half of the century they had inaugurated large-scale trade with the Near-Eastern kingdoms and with Kypros. In the second half they were the first to find a new source of silver and tin at Tartessos, Cadiz (638 B.C.). Some time previously Samians had become active in Egypt: first mercenaries in the service of Psamatik I; later, after the establishment of Milesian Naukratis c. 650, merchants who secured a special place in the treaty-port. After a short interlude of tyranny, the Geomoroi founded a group of colonies in Propontis, of which the most notable was Perinthos (602. B.C.). Ensuing warfare with Megara, Lesbos, and Priene, weakened the oligarchy and led to the rise of a short-lived democracy, followed by tyranny under Syloson I c. 590. Five years later he was able to make an alliance with Miletos, now entering two generations of stasis and glad even of so unlikely an ally as Samos. Priene was defeated at last, and a new division made of the lands of the Mykale peninsula. Syloson was succeeded by a relative, perhaps a nephew, Polykrates I, whose existence, hitherto unsuspected by modern writers, is argued from literary and archaeological evidence. Under him Samos reached the peak of her prosperity basing megaloprepeia at home upon increased trade abroad. It was this tyrant who reformed the whole basis of Samian agriculture, fostered industry (notably the cosmetic trade), and embarked on the programme of public works which so thrilled Herodotos. He gained an empire among the coastal towns of Ionia and ruled the islands as far as Delos, enjoying the powerful alliance of Sparta and Lydia. Yet when Kyros conquered Lydia, Polykrates rejoiced; for Phokaia was destroyed, and she was Samos' strongest commercial rival, having seized the monopoly of the Tartessian trade. Polykrates was confident that the shipless Persians would leave him alone. In this he was mistaken, and after a raid in which the Heraion was burned down and a cemetery desecrated, the tyranny fell and was replaced by an oligarchy friendly to Persia c. 540. In 533 Polykrates II made himself tyrant and resumed his father's independent policies. For eight years he enforced a rigid military austerity to equal that of Sparta, and defied the Persians. But by 525 it had become clear that the Persians must in the end conquer, and Polykrates deserted his Egyptian allies, following the Kypriote example in going over to the Persian side. The significance of his famous thalassocracy was that his fleet held the balance between the navies of Egypt and Persian Phoinikia. It was probably this that persuaded the Spartans to attempt to unseat him after his defection.