Montagu Lomax: The background and motivation of a ‘remarkable man’ who spearheaded lunacy reform

2021 ◽  
pp. 096777202110052
Author(s):  
Clare Groves ◽  
Claire Hilton
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Health Services ◽  
Health Services ◽  
First World War ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
World War ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The First World War ◽  
General Practioner ◽  
First World

Doctor Montagu Lomax was a retired General Practioner, whose service in English lunatic asylums during the First World War inspired him to write The experiences of an asylum doctor: with suggestions for asylum and lunacy law reform. Published in 1921, the book acted as a catalyst for lunacy reform and stimulated improvements in the mental health services in the United Kingdom. Lomax spent the remainder of his retirement campaigning for lunacy reform. He suffered financial and personal hardship following the publication of the book and was castigated by his own profession. On the centenary of the publication of Experiences, this article explores the background and motivation of a remarkable man.

Downton Abbey

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Byrne
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
The United States ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Family ◽  
Popular Television ◽  
First World

Certainly the most successful period drama, indeed perhaps the most popular television show, of the 21st century, British series Downton Abbey (2010–2015) has become a force to be reckoned with in popular culture. It borrows the format of popular 1970s series Upstairs Downstairs (ITV), following the lives of a fictional Edwardian family and the servants who look after them in the eponymous house. Season 1 opens in 1912 with the sinking of the Titanic, in which the heir to Downton is lost: the plot then follows the family coming to terms with the arrival of the next in line, a middle-class lawyer with a very different view of life from their own. The next five seasons—there are six in total—follow the inhabitants as they cope with the change the 20th century brings, including the First World War; the woman’s movement, which liberates some of the female characters; and the changes in taxation and society, which make the estate increasingly difficult to maintain and run. The last episode is set in 1925, and a film based on the show is due out in 2019. The series was loved by fans both in the United Kingdom and the United States, but received very mixed critical reception. Critics on the left criticized the show for its glossy and nostalgic view of the past, and of interclass relations, linking its ideology to the politics of its writer, Conservative peer Julian Fellowes. Others praised its positive view of human nature and escapist charm, at a time when austerity was making itself felt in the United Kingdom. Either way, it undoubtedly rekindled viewers’ appetite for period drama on a scale not seen since the 1970s, and has also stirred up debate about the part played by television in representing, accessing, and understanding the past.

scholarly journals Palestine and the Secret Treaties

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 109-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Kattan
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Middle East ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Spheres Of Influence ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Arab States ◽  
First World

The Sykes-Picot agreement is the foremost example of Western double-dealing in the Middle East since the discovery of oil. The agreement, formalized in an exchange of notes between the British Foreign Secretary and the French Ambassador to the United Kingdom in London, is named after its principal negotiators Sir Mark Sykes (1879-1919) and Georges-Picot (1870-1951). As one of several overlapping arrangements affecting the postwar settlement in West Asia secretly negotiated during the First World War, the agreement provided for the division of the region into spheres of influence comprised of nominally independent Arab states under the “tutelage” of British and French advisers.

International Science ‘Down Under’: The British Association Meeting in Australia, August 1914, with Special Reference to Related Activities in Adelaide

2002 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 166-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Twidale ◽  
Jennie Bourne
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
British Association ◽  
Australian Government ◽  
World War ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The People ◽  
Home Based ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Association Meeting ◽  
First World

From 8-12 August 1914, the British Association for the Advancement of Science, meeting in Australia, descended on Adelaide. The meeting included delegates from a dozen overseas countries, including many from the United Kingdom. Amongst the visiting geologists were Arthur Philemon Coleman (1852-1939) and William Morris Davis (1850-1934), Rollin Thomas Chamberlin (1881-1948) and John Walter Gregory (1864-1932), Albrecht Penck (1858-1945) and Johannes Walther (1860-1937), Alexander du Toit (1878-1948) and Hartley Travers Ferrar (1879-1932), George William Lamplugh (1859-1926) and Sydney Hugh Reynolds (1867-1949), as well as the home-based T. W. Edgeworth David (1858-1934) and Ernest Willington Skeats (1875-1953). The proceedings created immense public interest and brought science to the people in a way never before achieved in Australia. That the meeting proceeded at all is a tribute to the Australian Government, the Association, and the conference organisers, as well as the participants, for the First World War had been declared only a few days before the meeting. The interactions between the home population and the delegates, and between delegates, provide an enlightening commentary on the values and standards of our world almost a century ago.

The Contemporary Commonwealth: A General View

1959 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-218
Author(s):  
Zelman Cowen
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
First World War ◽  
The Self ◽  
General View ◽  
World War ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
First World

There is an old adage that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. It is certain that the beauty, the utility, and the significance of the Commonwealth association appear very differently to its various members. This was true of the pre-war Commonwealth: between the end of the first world war and the beginning of the second there were marked differences of attitude among the members. The central problem was seen as the definition of the relationship between the United Kingdom and what were then described as the self-governing dominions. To South Africa, the Irish Free State, and Canada—in varying degrees—it was important that the relationship should be spelled out in terms which assured, so far as was possible through the medium of statute and the articulation of conventional rules, a status of equality between the United Kingdom and the dominions. To Australia and New Zealand the attempt at such a definition appeared undesirable; quieta non movere seemed to them the counsel of wisdom.

‘Sticking to a Hateful Task’: Resilience, Humour, and British Understandings of Combatant Courage, 1914–1918

2013 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Madigan
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Home Front ◽  
Personal Agency ◽  
World War ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Junior Officers ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World ◽  
Shed Light

In the years that immediately preceded the outbreak of the First World War, a willingness to die, and die well, in pursuit of a noble objective was lauded as the ultimate act of courage by a diverse range of commentators across the United Kingdom. The story of the deaths of Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his companions on their return from the South Pole in 1911 inspired effusive references to medieval chivalry and Christian sacrifice, and seemed to offer welcome proof that an ancient form of British courage was still very much alive in the twentieth century. This article explores British conceptions of combatant courage during the First World War as understood by the civilian population on the home front and the junior officers and men who bore the brunt of the fighting on the Western Front. Drawing on often overlooked sources that shed light on troop culture, it argues that while neither group rejected the pre-war paradigm, each embraced a conception of courage that was informed by its own distinctive needs and experiences. Chivalry and dignified self-sacrifice resonated strongly with civilians who suffered unprecedented levels of bereavement and understood their nation’s role in the war as righteous and just. For the soldiers who served in the front lines of an attritional trench war in which personal agency was greatly reduced, a robust rejection of victimhood and an emphasis on perseverance, articulately expressed through humour, became the new ideal of courage.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document