‘The whole of the proceedings were very orderly’: Gunpowder Plot celebrations, civic culture and identity in some smaller Kent towns, 1860–1890

Urban History ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 517-538 ◽  
Author(s):  
IAIN TAYLOR

ABSTRACT:This article looks at how and why Bonfire Night celebrations became more peaceful in the later nineteenth century in some smaller Kent towns and what this process reveals about local civic cultures and identities. The drive towards respectability is seen both in the changing business relationships between participants, spectators and local tradesmen and in the evolving role of satire within processions. The ‘social energy’ visible at these events was channelled such that earlier class and other vertical conflicts within these towns were superseded by horizontal rivalries without, as they competed against each other (an important local variant of civic boosterism) to build free public libraries, for example. Moreover, more peaceful ‘Fifths’ and better reading facilities were linked, since both formed part of the much-altered prevailing civic cultures in these towns – their comprehensive, continuous, identity-driven efforts to present themselves in the best possible light against their rivals.

2015 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 455-473 ◽  
Author(s):  
BILL JENKINS

AbstractTheConstitution of Manby George Combe (1828) was probably the most influential phrenological work of the nineteenth century. It not only offered an exposition of the phrenological theory of the mind, but also presented Combe's vision of universal human progress through the inheritance of acquired mental attributes. In the decades before the publication of Darwin'sOrigin of Species, theConstitutionwas probably the single most important vehicle for the dissemination of naturalistic progressivism in the English-speaking world. Although there is a significant literature on the social and cultural context of phrenology, the role of heredity in Combe's thought has been less thoroughly explored, although both John van Wyhe and Victor L. Hilts have linked Combe's views on heredity with the transformist theories of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. In this paper I examine the origin, nature and significance of his ideas and argue that Combe's hereditarianism was not directly related to Lamarckian transformism but formed part of a wider discourse on heredity in the early nineteenth century.


2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 184-196
Author(s):  
Maja Dorota Wojciechowska

PurposeSocial capital, understood as intangible community values available through a network of connections, is a factor in the development of societies and improving quality of life. It helps to remove economic inequalities and prevent poverty and social exclusion, stimulate social and regional development, civic attitudes and social engagement and build a civic society as well as local and regional identity. Many of these tasks may be implemented by libraries, which, apart from providing access to information, may also offer a number of services associated with social needs. The purpose of this paper is to present the roles and functions that libraries may serve in local communities in terms of assistance, integration and development based on classical social capital theories.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reviews the classical concepts of social capital in the context of libraries. It analyses the findings of Pierre-Félix Bourdieu, James Coleman, Francis Fukuyama, Robert Putnam, Nan Lin, Ronald Stuart Burt, Wayne Baker and Alejandro Portes. Based on their respective concepts, the paper analyses the role of the contemporary library in the social life of local communities. In particular, it focuses on the possible new functions that public libraries may serve.FindingsA critical review of the concept of social capital revealed certain dependencies between libraries and their neighbourhoods. With new services that respond to the actual social needs, libraries may serve as a keystone, namely they may integrate, animate and engage local communities. This, however, requires a certain approach to be adopted by the personnel and governing authorities as well as infrastructure and tangible resources.Originality/valueThe social engagement of libraries is usually described from the practical perspective (reports on the services provided) or in the context of research on the impact of respective projects on specific groups of users (research reports). A broader approach, based on original social theories, is rarely encountered. The paper draws on classical concepts of social capital and is a contribution to the discussion on possible uses of those concepts based on an analysis of the role of libraries in social life and in strengthening the social capital of local communities.


2018 ◽  
pp. 55-89
Author(s):  
Şevket Pamuk

This chapter looks at the role of institutions in economic development and the evolution of Ottoman institutions before the nineteenth century. It argues that while institutions are not the only things that matter, it is essential to examine their role in order to understand Turkey's experience with economic growth and human development during the last two centuries. The economics and economic history literature has been making a related and important distinction between the proximate and deeper sources of economic growth. The proximate causes refer to the contributions made by the increases in inputs, land, labor, and capital and the productivity increases. The deeper causes refer to the social, political, and economic environment as well as the historical causes that influence the rate at which inputs and productivity grow.


Author(s):  
Martin Brückner

The symbolic and social value of maps changed irreversibly at the turn of the nineteenth century when Mathew Carey and John Melish introduced the business model of the manufactured map. During the decades spanning the 1790s and 1810s respectively, Carey and Melish revised the artisanal approach to mapmaking by assuming the role of the full-time map publisher who not only collected data from land surveyors and government officials but managed the labor of engravers, printers, plate suppliers, paper makers, map painters, shopkeepers, and itinerant salesmen. As professional map publishers, they adapted a sophisticated business model familiar in Europe but untested in America. This chapter documents the process of economic centralization and business integration critical to the social life of preindustrial maps and responsible for jump-starting a domestic map industry that catered to a growing and increasingly diverse audience.


2019 ◽  
pp. 167-190
Author(s):  
Mary Wills

This chapter examines officers’ contributions to the metropolitan discourses about slavery and abolition taking place in Britain in the early to mid-nineteenth century. Furthering the theme of naval officers playing an important part in the social and cultural history of the West African campaign, it uncovers connections between the Royal Navy and domestic anti-slavery networks, and the extent to which abolitionist societies and interest groups operating in Britain during the first half of the nineteenth century forged relationships with naval officers in the field. Officers contributed to this ever-evolving anti-slavery culture: through support of societies and by providing key testimonies and evidence about the unrelenting transatlantic slave trade. Their representations of the slave trade were used to champion the abolitionist cause, as well as the role of the Royal Navy, in parliament, the press and other public arenas.


Author(s):  
Michelle McCann

This chapter examines the function, status and qualifications of the men that served in the role of county coroner in Ireland in the first half of the nineteenth century. This remains an under-researched area when compared to other local government figures of authority. The history of the office exposes tensions within a politically polarised society and the need for changes in legislation. A combination of factors initially undermined the social standing and reputation of coroners. An examination of the legislation on coroners that the administration subsequently introduced suggests that the authority of the office in early-nineteenth-century Ireland was not strictly jurisprudential, but political and confessional by nature. By analysing the personal background, work experience, social standing, political alliances and religious patronage of coroner William Charles Waddell (1798-1878), the paper charts the wider social and political narrative that allowed this eminently respectable Presbyterian figure to secure the role of coroner of County Monaghan.


Urban History ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roy Hartnell

This paper looks at Joseph Chamberlain's Birmingham and claims that George Dawson's famous ‘civic gospel’ which laid the ground for the municipal reforms was permeated by a consensus view of the moral and civic role of art. It suggests that it was this combination of philosophy in action through art which created the special Birmingham context for a vibrant civic culture which led to the political and artistic achievements of the 1870s and 1880s. For a few brief years, this combination enabled Birmingham to stand above other British cities and lay claim to the titles of ‘the best-governed city in the world’ and ‘perhaps the most artistic town in England’.


2015 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 41-51
Author(s):  
Elżbieta Koniusz

Co-existence of languages in the area of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the light of the works of Jan KarłowiczThe article discusses the issues of the co-existence of languages in the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the consequences of the phenomenon as documented in the works of Jan Karłowicz – the outstanding scholar of the second half of the nineteenth century, an expert and researcher of the “Lithuanian” version of Polish language. The article emphasizes the fact that the research on languages in the area of The Grand Duchy of Lithuania and results of their co-existence goes back to the second half of the nineteenth century and Jan Karłowicz was the pioneer of this research. He was the first to observe the following phenomena of their co-existence: interference; bilingualism and multilingualism; prioritization of co-existing languages with the unique role of the Polish language in focusing various functions in the history of The Grand Duchy of Lithuania; the diversity of Polish with sociolinguistic classification of its provincia­lisms and their division in the view of their origin; and the dangers to the Polish language in the period of Russification. Karłowicz struggled with the lack of terminology to describe the linguistic phenomena characteristic for the area. The article focuses on the classification of provincial qualities of the “Lithuanian” Polish language executed by Karłowicz in the social and ethnolinguistic area; and on the presentation of the phenomenon of linguistic interference visible in the provincial vocabulary in The Grand Duchy of Lithuania collected in “Dictionary of Polish dialects” by Karłowicz. Сосуществование языков на территории бывшего Великого княжества Литовского в свете произведений Яна КарловичаЦель данной статьи – показать сосуществование языков на землях бывшего Великого княжества Литовского (ВКЛ) и последствий этого явления, засвидетельствованных в работах Яна Карловича, видного ученого второй половины девятнадцатого века, знатока и исследователя „литовского” польского языка. Автор статьи указывает на то, что изучение языков в Великом княжестве Литовском, последствиям их сосуществования относятся ко второй половине девятнадцатого века, а их первым исследователем был Карлович. Им впервые были отмечены такие проявления этого сосуществования, как языковая интерференция, билингвизм и многоязычие, иерархия сосуществующих языков и диалектов. Выделена особая роль польского языка, объединившего целый ряд функций в истории ВКЛ, дифференциация внутри польского языка, социолингвистическая классификация его диалектизмов и их деление по происхождению, угрозы для польского языка в период сильной русификации. Особое внимание автор статьи сосредоточил на классификации провинциальных особенностей „литовского” польского языка, осуществлённой Карловичем в социальном и этнолингвистическом плане, а также на проявлениях интерференции в провинциальной лексике, ведущей своё происхождение из Великого княжества Литовского, собранной в „Словаре польских диалектов” Карловича.


1987 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith F. Champ

THE CONSEQUENCE of the Cisapline attempt to ‘grapple with the social and intellectual transformation of the modern world” and to bring about a ‘revision of the pyramidal structure of the Tridentine Church” was the greater assimilation of English Catholics into contemporary society. Encouraged by a new sense of freedom, clergy and laity participated more actively in English public life’ and dismantled much of the closed élite community of the recusant period. This led to a brief phase in which both clergy and laity exercised their new-found freedoms, but which was dogged by disputes. Arguments raged between liberalism and authority, and between sectarian ideals and non-denominational activities. They were eventually resolved in a restoration, by 1850, of the pyramidal structure of the Tridentine Church, in which the role of the laity was subject to the authority and guidance of the clergy.


Futures ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 51-68
Author(s):  
Sandra Kemp

This essay analyses the role of museums in the creation of futures imaginaries and the ways in which these are embedded in socio-political narratives over time (narratives of nation, empire, power, consumption, and home). The essay tests its hypotheses through charting the evolution of the nineteenth-century phenomenon of the soirée—exhibitions and events showcasing technological, scientific, and cultural innovations of the future—from their heyday in the mid nineteenth century to their demise in the early twentieth century. In particular, the essay explores the social, spatial, and temporal organization of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century soirée display spaces as carriers of future worlds. It argues that the creation of futures imaginaries depends on interrelationships between people and objects across space and time, and that the complex web of relations established between words, objects, spaces, and people in exhibitions provides catalysts for ideas, ideologies, and narratives of the future.


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