John Lloyd Williams (1854–1945): profile of a Snowdonian botanist

2006 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Dewi Jones
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Plant Physiology ◽  
Marine Algae ◽  
Plant Distribution ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Major Study ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Late Nineteenth

John Lloyd Williams was an authority on the arctic-alpine flora of Snowdonia during the late nineteenth century when plant collecting was at its height, but unlike other botanists and plant collectors he did not fully pursue the fashionable trend of forming a complete herbarium. His diligent plant-hunting in a comparatively little explored part of Snowdonia led to his discovering a new site for the rare Killarney fern (Trichomanes speciosum), a feat which was considered a major achievement at the time. For most part of the nineteenth century plant distribution, classification and forming herbaria, had been paramount in the learning of botany in Britain resulting in little attention being made to other aspects of the subject. However, towards the end of the century many botanists turned their attention to studying plant physiology, a subject which had advanced significantly in German laboratories. Rivalry between botanists working on similar projects became inevitable in the race to be first in print as Lloyd Williams soon realized when undertaking his major study on the cytology of marine algae.

Conflicting obituaries: the Abyssinian ‘outlaw’ Debeb as treacherous bandit and romantic hero in late nineteenth-century Italian imagination

Modern Italy ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 405-419
Author(s):  
Stephen C. Bruner
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
National Character ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Romantic Hero ◽  
Public Persona ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Folk Hero ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Late Nineteenth

In 1886 the Abyssinian chief Debeb became a public figure in Italy as a rapacious colonial bandit. However, over the next five years he acquired additional public personas, even contradictory ones: as a condottiero ally, a ladies’ man, a traitor, a young Abyssinian aristocrat and pretender to an ancient throne, a chivalrous warrior, and a figure representing the frontier and an Africa mysterious and hidden to Europeans. Upon his 1891 death in combat, he was the subject of conflicting Italian press obituaries. For some commentators, Debeb exemplified treacherous and deceitful African character, an explanation for Italy's colonial disappointments and defeats. However, other commentators clothed him in a romanticised mystique and found in him martial and even chivalrous traits to admire and emulate. To this extent his persona blurred the line demarcating the African ‘other’. Although he first appeared to Italians as a bandit, the notion of the bandit as a folk hero (the ‘noble robber’ or ‘social bandit’, Hobsbawm) does not fit his case. A more fruitful approach is to consider his multi-faceted public persona as reflecting the ongoing Italian debate over ‘national character’ (Patriarca). In the figure of Debeb, public debates over colonialism and ‘national character’ merged, with each contributing to the other.

Chapter 8 The End of the Northern Fishery in the Late Nineteenth Century

2004 ◽  
pp. 129-140
Author(s):  
Gordon Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Capital Investment ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Technical Advance ◽  
Baffin Bay ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Marking Time ◽  
Modern Industry

With the run-down of both Northern and Southern fisheries, the second half of the nineteenth century experienced the same sort of marking-time as had occurred in the late seventeenth century. As a consequence the period is relatively unimportant compared with the great exertions before 1840 and the vast expansion after 1900, and it is only necessary here to outline the main lines of development. None of them led on to the modern industry, and important though British whaling may have been to individual persons and places, it had already departed from the mainstream of whaling and was sailing up a backwater as dangerous and ruinous as any in Baffin Bay. No amount of incentive, capital investment, technical advance or human bravery could save the Arctic trade, but it fought its painful death-struggle for three-quarters of a century, periodically encouraged by remissions that eased the pressure and sometimes brought a measure of prosperity....

Origins and assessment of snowball Earth hypotheses

2007 ◽  
Vol 144 (4) ◽  
pp. 633-642 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. BRIAN HARLAND
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Snowball Earth ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Personal View ◽  
Tropical Environments ◽  
Palaeomagnetic Data ◽  
Marine Facies ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Brian Harland was for many years an editor of this journal. He was also a seminal figure in the origins of the current ‘snowball Earth’ debate, having recognized in 1964 the significance of coupling emerging palaeomagnetic data on palaeolatitude with his interpretations of diamictites. Harland worked extensively in the Arctic and knew well many of the workers involved in the arguments surrounding the origin of diamictites. He thus had a unique perspective on the evidence and the disputes surrounding it. This was his last paper but he was not able to complete it before he died. However, with the help of Professor Ian Fairchild to whom we are indebted, the editors have lightly revised this work which is presented as the personal view of one of the key figures with a very broad stratigraphic appreciation of the problems of ‘snowball Earth’.Records of Precambrian glaciation onwards from the late nineteenth century led to the concept of one or more major ice ages. This concept was becoming well advanced by the mid 1930s, particularly through the compilation of Kulling in 1934. Even so tillite stratigraphy shows that glaciation was exceptional rather than typical of Earth history. Some Proterozoic tillites, sandwiched between warm marine facies, indicate low, even equatorial palaeolatitudes as determined magnetically, and more recently led to ideas of a snow- and ice-covered ‘snowball Earth’. However, interbedded non-glacial facies as well as thick tillite successions requiring abundant snowfall both militate against the hypothesis of extreme prolonged freezing temperatures referred to here as an ‘iceball Earth’ in which all oceans and seas were sealed in continuous ice cover. On the other hand tropical environments were interrupted by glaciation several times in the Proterozoic, something that did not recur in the Phanerozoic. The term ‘snowball Earth’ is consistent with the established view of extremely widespread Proterozoic glaciation, but the ‘iceball Earth’ version of this is not compatible with the geological record.

‘Heroism displayed’: revisiting the Franklin Gallery at the Royal Naval Exhibition, 1891

Polar Record ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 185-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huw W.G. Lewis-Jones
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Extensive Study ◽  
Entry Point ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Polar Regions ◽  
Juvenile Literature ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Victorian Period ◽  
Late Nineteenth

The Royal Naval Exhibition (RNE) of 1891 offers an important entry point for the study of naval mythmaking. Scrutinising one part of the RNE showcase, ‘The Franklin Gallery,’ highlights the imaginative potential of the polar regions as a resource for imperial visions. This paper provides a review of the RNE and, more closely, considers the ideology of polar exploration in the context of political debate and naval reforms. The utility of images of the Arctic presented at the RNE is discussed, in particular, its role in displaying the ‘heroic martyrdom’ of Sir John Franklin (1786–1847). The paper draws upon an extensive study of late nineteenth-century newspapers, illustrated weeklies, periodical reviews, popular adult and juvenile literature, art, poetry, pamphlets, exhibition catalogues and handbooks, and associated ephemera. It argues that the RNE played a central part in the construction and enshrining of narratives of naval and national achievement in the late-Victorian period and in reviving a British commitment to the exploration of the polar regions.

Henry Dresser and Victorian Ornithology

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry A. McGhie
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Museum Studies ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Bird Conservation ◽  
Conservation Movement ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Late Nineteenth

This book explores the life of Henry Dresser (1838–1915), one of the most productive British ornithologists of the mid-late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; it is also an exploration of ornithology during a period when the subject changed dramatically. The book is based on previously unpublished letters, diaries and photographs to provide the first detailed biography of any of the independent industrialist–naturalists who dominated nineteenth century British ornithology. Dresser travelled widely in Europe, New Brunswick and to Texas during the American Civil War before settling down to work in London in the timber and iron trades. He built enormous collections of skins and eggs of birds, many of which came from famous travellers and collectors. These collections formed the basis of over 100 publications on birds including some of the finest and some of the last of the great bird books of the late nineteenth century, combining cutting-edge scientific information with masterpieces of bird illustration. Dresser played a leading role in scientific society and in the early bird conservation movement. His correspondence and diaries reveal the inner workings, motivations, personal relationships and rivalries that existed among the leading ornithologists. This book is aimed at anyone interested in birds, history and natural history, and as a textbook for courses relating to history, history of science and museum studies.

Cubes

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Blacklock
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Detailed Account ◽  
Material Object ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Modernist Poetry ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Scientific Principles ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Chapter 4 focuses on the work of Charles Howard Hinton, author of the first Scientific Romances and the least well-known yet most influential theorist of higher space of the late nineteenth century. ‘Hinton was an important mediating figure,’ writes Steven Connor, ‘because, like some of the physical scientists who investigated Spiritualism, his grasp of scientific principles was extensive and subtle.’ Indeed, his work fed into the literature of occult groupings, avant-garde art, Modernist poetry and fiction, and also back into geometry and orthodox science. ‘Cubes’ give a detailed account of Hinton’s work, highlighting his acknowledged and implied sources, Kepler, Kant, and his father, before focusing on his invention of a system of cubes for training the subject in the visualization of higher space. This set of cubes are read as ‘quasi-objects’, things that make fluid the distinction between thinking thing and thing thought on, between mind and material object.

Torts

2019 ◽  
pp. 443-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence M. Friedman
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
English Language ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Tort Law ◽  
Growth Spurt ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Law ◽  
Private Wrongs

This chapter discusses the development of tort law in the second half of the nineteenth century. Tort law experienced its biggest growth spurt in the late nineteenth century. The legal world began to sit up and pay attention. The very first English-language treatise on torts appeared in 1859: Francis Hilliard’s book, The Law of Torts, Or Private Wrongs. Then came Charles G. Addison, Wrongs and Their Remedies in 1860, in England. By 1900, there was an immense literature on the law of torts; Joel Bishop and Thomas M. Cooley had written imposing treatises on the subject; the case law had swollen to heroic proportions. Tort law was a product of the industrial revolution; England here had a head start; problems emerged there first, and so did their tentative legal solutions.

The History of Sexuality and Historical Methodology

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-199
Author(s):  
Andrew E. Clark-Huckstep
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Knowledge Creation ◽  
Identity Theory ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Historical Inquiry ◽  
History Of Sexuality ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Historical Methodology ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Michel Foucault's The History of Sexuality has been the subject of debate among historians for decades. More specifically, his assertion, ‘the sodomite was a temporary aberration, the homosexual was now a species,’ has been used to support an ‘acts-to-identity’ theory that locates in the late-nineteenth century a shift in thinking about sexuality. The author argues that a re-reading of Foucault shifts the focus of historical inquiry from identities towards the process of knowledge creation, allowing for ambiguity that the concept ‘identity’ might foreclose. This essay examines the debate and offers a new reading of Foucault based on the work of Lynne Huffer. Finally, the author seeks to centre a source-driven approach in conjunction with The History of Sexuality, providing readings of patients and informants from the work of Richard von Krafft-Ebing and Havelock Ellis.

Consuming Anxieties

2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 115-141
Author(s):  
Etty Terem
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Legal Scholar ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Late Nineteenth

This article examines a fatwa written in the late nineteenth century by Jaʿfar b. Idrīs al-Kattānī, a distinguished Moroccan legal scholar. The issue that gave rise to the fatwa was the subject of heated debates among Moroccan Muslims at the time: the legality of using goods manufactured by non-Muslims. New historical conditions brought by Moroccan modernity eroded religious and communal boundaries between Muslims and non-Muslims and accentuated concerns about the integrity of Islam. Suspicion and anxiety of the population found expression in widespread rumors about impurities in products manufactured by non-Muslims. By analyzing al-Kattānī’s fatwa, this article aims to offer insights into the relationships between theʿulamāʾ, Islamic tradition, and modernity.

Business, Nationality and Dependency in Late Nineteenth Century Brazil

1982 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugene W. Ridings
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Big Business ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Late Nineteenth

‘No one is unaware,’ stated Brazil's Minister of Finance Ruj Barbosa in 1891, ‘that commerce, especially large-scale commerce, in our most important trade centers resides in greatest part, not to say in its near entirety, in the hands of foreigners.’ Rui was calling attention to a situation of increasing concern to Brazilian leaders: the preponderance of foreigners in big business. Another Brazilian Minister of Finance, Felisbello Freire, remarked on the subject in 1894, ‘to my mind this phenomenon is an indication of a subjugation which, dating from colonial times, threatens the annulment of native commerce.’.

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