No description available.

Often considered as an insignificant, sleepy, rural backwater, the county of Shropshire has attracted little academic interest, particularly concerning the period covering the civil war and Interregnum. Recent studies on the county have concentrated solely on the military aspect of the conflict and have not ventured into the Commonwealth and Protectorate years, nor looked at the administration and the internal politics of the shire. Yet in the first months of the war, the county was seen by Charles I as being vital to his success given its location on the Welsh border and with good transport links to the neighbouring Marcher counties. Shrewsbury was the main rallying point for the crown, and many of the local gentry flocked to the town with donations for the royal coffers. From then, up until 1645, most the county was held for the crown, until the fall of Shrewsbury in 1645 signalled an end to royalist dominance. This thesis is not an analysis of the causes of, or the actual events of, the war, as those matters are peripheral to this examination, being mentioned only briefly during the examination. It is, however, a full analysis of both county society and government, and will consider local issues, some of which had a wide-ranging effect, finances, justice and religion. But, most importantly, it will examine the personnel involved in both local and central government, how they changed over the period according to their allegiance and who was in power, and whether in the aftermath of war former royalists were welcomed back into the Commission of the Peace and other local committees to resume what they saw as being their rightful place in society. The academic study of the county is not a unique concept, having been promoted by Professor Alan Everitt in the 1960s in his study of Kent. In that research, Everitt proposed the concept of the county community, whereby the insular gentry were more interested in local affairs than national issues, and very much resented any interference from central government into what they considered was their domain. This thesis is not an attempt to try and slot Shropshire into that category, for Everitt’s argument has long been considered void. However, the basic framework of research into the county community that many academics have used in the past will be utilised to a certain extent, and the findings compared as much as possible with other neighbouring counties to try and ascertain whether there were any peculiarities within this Marcher society.

Addressing the military organisation of both Royalists and Parliamentarians, the subject of this thesis is an examination of war effort during the mid-seventeenth century English Civil Wars by taking the example of Shropshire. The county was contested during the First Civil War of 1642-6 and also saw armed conflict on a smaller scale during the Second Civil War of 1648. This detailed study provides a comprehensive bipartisan analysis of military endeavour, in terms of organisation and of the engagements fought. Drawing on numerous primary sources, it explores: leadership and administration; recruitment and the armed forces; military finance; supply and logistics; and the nature and conduct of the fighting. The extent of military activity in Shropshire is explained for the first time, informing the history of the conflict there while reflecting on the nature of warfare across Civil War England. It shows how local Royalist and Parliamentarian activists and 'outsider' leaders provided direction, while the populace widely was involved in the administrative and material tasks of war effort. The war in Shropshire was mainly fought between the opposing county-based forces, but with considerable external military support. Similarly, fiscal and military assets were obtained locally and from much further afield. Attritional war in Shropshire from 1643 to 1646 involved the occupying Royalists engaging Parliamentarian inroads, in fighting the garrison warfare characteristic of the period. Although the outcome of both wars in Shropshire was determined by wider national events, in 1646 and again in 1648 the defeat of the county Royalists was due largely to their local Parliamentarian adversaries. Broadening this study to 1648 has provided insight into Parliamentarian county administration during the short interwar period.

No description available.

Songs of Dusk and Renewal sets two poems from Alfred Edward Housman’s A Shropshire Lad (1896) for baritone voice and orchestra, with the intent to demonstrate the timeless significance of the text. Housman’s collection, largely explored by English composers in the first half of the twentieth century, remains a valid source for composers, yet the writings are seldom observed in recent music. In the present work, poems IV (“Reveille”) and XLVI (“Bring, in this timeless grave to throw”) are reconciled musically through deep constructs and surface attraction, while being informed by critical and historical perspectives. / text

This thesis surveys all the found British settings of A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad (1896) but concentrates on the period after 1940, which, the author believes, has not previously received critical attention. A new study is timely especially because of a renewed interest among composers in the poet's highly influential lyric collection. The author found about 110 British composers with about 340 settings of individual poems not listed in previous Shropshire Lad catalogues. This number adds more than fifty per cent to the known repertoire. The search was not restricted to art song; it found, in addition, multi-voice settings, settings in popular styles and non-vocal music. Largely because of the work of broadly trained musicians, there is now a much wider range of medium, style and compositional technique applied to A Shropshire Lad. There are also new ways in which words and music relate. Different catalogues in the thesis list settings according to period, genre, poem and composer. The author hopes to broaden the British canon of Shropshire Lad music, which, despite recent commissions and competitions, is still mostly limited to the major composers of the English musical renaissance (the early decades of the twentieth century). Accordingly, the catalogues let performers know how to obtain the settings. In preliminary chapters, the thesis attempts a literary examination of A Shropshire Lad and reviews the already-researched pre-Second World War settings. It then divides the post-1940 period into two parts–a Decline (to c.1980) and a Renewal (since c.1980)–and surveys them. The compositions of this period are placed in three tonal-stylistic streams of development: a mainstream tonal with ultraconservative and atonal tributaries. Then follow detailed literary-musical analyses of post-1940 songs, song cycles, collaborative sets, and multi-voice settings. A final summary draws together the conclusions of the individual chapters, summarizes and evaluates the achievement of the post-1940 composers, and suggests how further research might be carried out. / Art History, Visucal Arts & Music / D. Litt. et Phil. (Musicology)

This thesis surveys all the found British settings of A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad (1896) but concentrates on the period after 1940, which, the author believes, has not previously received critical attention. A new study is timely especially because of a renewed interest among composers in the poet's highly influential lyric collection. The author found about 110 British composers with about 340 settings of individual poems not listed in previous Shropshire Lad catalogues. This number adds more than fifty per cent to the known repertoire. The search was not restricted to art song; it found, in addition, multi-voice settings, settings in popular styles and non-vocal music. Largely because of the work of broadly trained musicians, there is now a much wider range of medium, style and compositional technique applied to A Shropshire Lad. There are also new ways in which words and music relate. Different catalogues in the thesis list settings according to period, genre, poem and composer. The author hopes to broaden the British canon of Shropshire Lad music, which, despite recent commissions and competitions, is still mostly limited to the major composers of the English musical renaissance (the early decades of the twentieth century). Accordingly, the catalogues let performers know how to obtain the settings. In preliminary chapters, the thesis attempts a literary examination of A Shropshire Lad and reviews the already-researched pre-Second World War settings. It then divides the post-1940 period into two parts–a Decline (to c.1980) and a Renewal (since c.1980)–and surveys them. The compositions of this period are placed in three tonal-stylistic streams of development: a mainstream tonal with ultraconservative and atonal tributaries. Then follow detailed literary-musical analyses of post-1940 songs, song cycles, collaborative sets, and multi-voice settings. A final summary draws together the conclusions of the individual chapters, summarizes and evaluates the achievement of the post-1940 composers, and suggests how further research might be carried out. / Art History, Visucal Arts and Music / D. Litt. et Phil. (Musicology)

This thesis examines female employment in the two ironworking districts of Merthyr Tydfil and the Shropshire Coalfield between 1841 and 1881. Historians have previously suggested that women were practically absent from the workforce in industrial areas. Examination of female employment in the study districts, however, demonstrates not only that women did work, but that they did so in strikingly diverse occupational settings. Evidence drawn from the census, newspapers, parliamentary papers and local manuscript sources will be used to show that their work was vital to the functioning of their local economies, and by consequence, the national prosperity of nineteenth-century Britain. The endemic gendered ideologies of the period undoubtedly influenced the employment opportunities open to these women, yet their work cannot be explained with reference to ideology alone. Analysis of employment patterns in the concentrated geographic settings of Merthyr Tydfil and the Shropshire Coalfield demonstrates that, in many cases, wider economic fluctuations and localised industrial, urban, and social developments had more of an impact on women's work than contemporary discourse.

Riverine physical habitats and habitat utilization by fish have often been studied independently. Varying flows modify habitat composition and connectivity within a stream but its influence on habitat use is not well understood. This study examined brown trout (Salmo trutta) and bullhead (Cottus gobio) utilization of physical habitats that vary with flow in terms of size and type, persistence or duration, and frequency of change from one state to another, by comparing groundwater-dominated sites on the River Tern (Shropshire) with surface runoff-dominated lowland, riffle-pool sites on the Dowles Brook (Worcestershire). Mesohabitat surveys carried out at two-month intervals on a groundwater-dominated stream and on a surface runoff-influenced stream showed differences in habitat composition and diversity between the two types of rivers. The temporal variability in mesohabitat composition was also shown to differ between the two flow regime types. In the groundwater-influenced stream, mesohabitat composition hardly varied between flows whereas in the flashy stream it varied to a great extent with discharge. Habitat suitability curves for brown trout and bullhead were constructed to predict the potential location of the fish according to flow. The resulting prediction maps were tested in the field during fish surveys using direct underwater observation (snorkelling). Under the groundwater-influenced flow regime brown trout displayed a constant pattern of mesohabitat use over flows. Mesohabitats with non-varying characteristics over flows and with permanent features such as large woody debris, macrophytes or any feature providing shelter and food were favoured. Biological processes, such as hierarchy, life cycle and life stage appeared to play a key role in determining fish habitat use and to a greater extent than physical processes in these streams. Bullhead observations in the flashy river showed that mesohabitat use varied with flow but that some mesohabitats were always favoured in the stream. Pools and glides were the most commonly used mesohabitat, due to their stability over flows and their role as shelter from harsh hydraulic conditions and as food retention zones. The presence of cobbles was also found to be determinant in bullhead choice of habitat. In this flashy environment, physical processes such as flow and depth and velocity conditions appeared to be a more decisive factor in bullhead strategy of habitat use than biological processes. This research shows that: 1. Though differences in habitat use strategies between the two flow regimes can in part be attributed to differing ecology between the species, flow variability affects fish behaviour. 2. A stable flow regime allows biological processes to be the main driving force in determining fishbehaviour and location. A highly variable environment requires fish to develop behaviour strategies in response to variations in hydraulic conditions, such as depth and velocity, which constitute the key factor in determining fish location.

A Shropshire Lad by English composer George Butterworth (1885-1916) is a song cycle composed by adopting six poems of the same title ¡§A Shropshire Lad¡¨ by Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936). These poems depict the life of a pure young man, which passes through love, separation, and death by symbolical and sarcastic writing skill, and the composer composed the songs exquisitely, creating these six songs with different styles, and presenting his ingenious conception within the music and lyrics. The study has five major components: an introduction to the composer, George Butterworth; the art songs of George Butterworth; an introduction to the poet Alfred Edward Housman; the composing background of A Shropshire Lad, and the analysis as well as interpretation of six-songs of A Shropshire Lad. It is hoped that through this study, singers can have a better understanding of the hidden meaning of the poems and of how composers use music to express the wonders of poetry. They can then in turn interpret this song cycle in the most apposite mood and with the most appropriate way of singing.