Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Great britain, historical geography'

The thesis examines conceptions and experiences of space in later medieval and early modern England with specific reference to the Yorkshire Wolds, a region of low chalk hills in the historic East Riding of Yorkshire. Particular attention is paid to the spatial and symbolic relationships between manor houses, parish churches and rural settlements in the period before c. 1600, and to the ways power was articulated through such a landscape. Chapter IV examines evidence for early church foundations and argues that the geographical relationships between manor houses and churches evident in the Wolds and elsewhere in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were not simply an outcome of earlier pre-Conquest practices. The remainder of the thesis explores the continued meaning of these relationships in the later medieval and early modern period, arguing that while landowners might constitute or maintain their power through the architecture of their houses or patronage of nearby churches, these practices were at least partially dependent on the geographical relationships between manor, churches and settlements. Chapters V and VI examine the use and meaning of manorial and church space in the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in greater detail. Both chapters are attentive to the ways that manorial lords might articulate their gentility, status and power, as well as their piety, through these spaces. Conversely, the thesis also investigates evidence for public use of manorial and church space, and consideration is given to the ways manor houses and churches might be constituted and experienced as public, private, secular or religious spaces. The thesis also examines evidence for the meaning of private space and property within the wider landscape and in doing so, investigates a variety of sites at which individuals and groups other than the gentry might assert identity, status and power. The thesis concludes by suggesting that buildings and landscapes not only reflected the status, wealth and lineage of those who occupied and used them, but also provided sites through which social status and political power could be actively negotiated and maintained.

This thesis assesses seasonal hydrological prediction in Great Britain. Firstly, the study evaluates river flow prediction using climate model output to drive a rainfall-runoff model in the Dyfi basin, Wales. Results show that climate model precipitation can not skilfully simulate Dyfi discharge. When a downscaling process is employed to generate precipitation time series, river flow forecast skill improves, but historical river flows still provide superior forecasts. Secondly, large-scale climatic control on British precipitation/discharge and European precipitation is investigated by correlation analysis. Results show spatiotemporal hydroclimatological variation, with western regions generally having stronger empirical relationships. River flow has weaker associations because of basin controls and evapotranspiration. The dynamic nature of precipitation/discharge generating mechanisms is not captured by the North Atlantic Oscillation Index. Thirdly, seasonal climate model forecast skill is evaluated. Limited skill exists over land and over all extratropical regions for forecasts beyond month-1; precipitation has lower skill than 2-metre air temperature and mean sea level pressure. Seasonal climate models exhibit higher idealised predictive skill indicating potential for future increases in actual predictive skill. In conclusion, seasonal hydrological prediction using a climate-to-river modelling chain could be improved through consideration of the uncovered spatiotemporal hydroclimatological variability and through seasonal climate modelling improvements.

This dissertation examines the representation of England in the plays of the first tetralogy. Arguing that a large number of studies of Shakespearian drama have tended to gloss over the inherent differences within the English nation. I suggest that regionalism and regional identity play a pivotal role in Shakespeare's dramatisation of English history from the accession of Henry VI to the death of Richard Ill. In this thesis I propose that the first tetralogy is not only a representation of the past, but an expression of the political, cultural and geographical divisions within England during the period of the plays first production. While Shakespeare's first tetralogy forms part of an interconnecting discourse of nationhood -- contributing to what has been termed the discovery of England -- I explore how the plays also serve to highlight the extent to which regionalism and regional diversity remained powerful factors within English society. By drawing attention to the proliferation of geographical references in the tetralogy, I discuss how the localisation of scenes and the identification of characters with specific places represents an encounter with the kingdom beyond the confines of the theatre. In a series of plays that appear to be principally concerned with the struggle between rival dynasties for control of the realm, the various regional references can be read as the site of competing voices and sectional interests: an acknowledgment of not one England, but various other Englands. While the image of the regional world in these plays is largely informed by the chronicle sources, this study considers how Shakespeare's fashioning of regional identity was governed by the need for Elizabethan acting companies to secure and maintain the protection of powerful and influential patrons, by censorship, company rivalry, and the demands placed on theatre companies by touring. With this in mind, I argue that the manner in which certain characters and regions are presented in the tetralogy is an indication that these plays may have been performed throughout England. After a theoretical overview, chapter one presents an examination of regionalism as a social, cultural, political and economic phenomenon in early modem England. It is followed by a discussion of the various ways in which a sense of place was projected on the Elizabethan stage. Appropriating William Harrison's division of the late Tudor kingdom into four distinct provinces, this dissertation interrogates the role and representation in the first tetralogy of the area south of the Thames (chapter two), the midlands (chapter three), Wales and the English border counties (chapter four), and northern England (chapter five).

This thesis explores British-led efforts to observe and map the earth’s magnetic field between 1833 and 1857. In doing so, the thesis examines how magnetic instruments, magnetic observers and magnetic instructions were mobilised in and across multiple geographies, from the Canadian Arctic, to the island of St Helena, to Van Diemen’s Land in the southern hemisphere and at many sites in between. Interest in terrestrial magnetic research burgeoned and was crystallised during the early nineteenth century in Britain and abroad and resulted in the creation of systems of physical observatories and the organisation of magnetic surveys. This work addresses what it meant to coordinate such a network by scrutinising what is popularly known as “the magnetic crusade”, but which was more commonly referred to at the time as the British magnetic scheme. There were several individuals involved in the formation of this scheme but this thesis focuses on two in particular: Edward Sabine and Humphrey Lloyd. In the correspondence of these two figures, we can follow the process by which terrestrial magnetic research was disciplined, its participants educated, its observational data organised and its instruments developed, deployed and used at different stations across the globe. This work seeks to extend and at times complicate our understanding of what it meant to coordinate a big Victorian scientific pursuit and explores among other things the management of instruments in different geographic contexts; the experience of scientific servicemen in the observatory and during surveying efforts; the space in which magnetic data were handled and the processes employed in reducing these data. In all, this thesis aims to recover the several different practices of place that attended the organisation of what was considered in the first half of the nineteenth century to be the greatest scientific endeavour yet pursued.

This thesis will argue that the most effective way of understanding the physical development of medieval towns, particularly the larger, more complex, towns and those which lack extensive and detailed contemporary documentation is by a structured integration of the data derived from the archaeological investigation of individual sites with detailed town-plan analyses following the methodology introduced and developed by Conzen. This will be demonstrated by two case-studies, designed to explore the Interaction of the different sources of evidence at two different scales of investigation. The first case-study is a detailed analysis of the plan and development of the whole of a large medieval town,(Worcester), the second is a study of a single street (Pride Hill) in Shrewsbury. The analysis of Worcester illuminates, in particular, the boundaries and internal layout of the late 9th-century burh, suggesting that it was an extension to the pre-existing Roman earthwork circuit and incorporated an area subject to regular town planning, possibly following Wessex models, and an area of irregular settlement that included the bishop of Worcester's haga recorded in 904. The defences were, it is argued, partly dismantled for the extension of urban settlement. The Shrewsbury case-study examines an unusually concentrated building pattern of halls behind the street frontage, and sets this in its contemporary context by an analysis of the contemporary plot-pattern, identified in part by its association with surveyed medieval undercrofts. The earlier history of the area is explored through further analysis of the plot-pattern which predates and is cut by the town wall. It is suggested that the area in question was, like other sectors of the early medieval urban fringe, possibly subject to some type of regular land-allotment for grazing and access to the riverbank. Issues, illustrating the mutually-illuminating character of town plan analysis and urban archaeology, arising from the two case-studies, are discussed. These include the role of archaeology in reconstructing morphological change, the problems of the chronology of urban extensions, archaeology and the interpretation of cartographically-recorded features, and the role of plan-analysis in establishing a contemporary spatial context for individual and multiple archaeological investigations in early medieval towns.

The prologue studies the Tory publication of Milton's Character of the Long Parliament (1681). It argues that the provenance of this tract is best explained if Milton did in fact attempt to include the Digression in his History of Britain. Further ambiguities in Milton's early reputation are discussed in a review of the History's reception. Chapter I surveys Milton's response to the long­ standing demand for a national history and briefly reconsiders his ideas on history and historiography. Chapter II proposes that his political sympathies led Milton to look to the British legends for his historical subject. The strong Protestant and Tudor associations of such native myth have been largely overlooked, and yet they bear strongly on Milton's proposals for a British historical poem. His reappraisal of the myths in the History indicates his disillusionment with his original historical project: and reflects his changing opinion of the national character. Chapter III charts Milton's response to the legends surrounding Lucius, Constantine and the early British church, and traces conflicts between his need to deny church history and his desire to rewrite it. It then turns to his curiously muted views on the Saxon church. Chapter IV compares the use of Gildas's De Excidio in the History with Milton's relative silence on Arthur. Milton's regard for this ancient British jeremiad recalls that of the Reformers and suggests the instability of his commitment to purely classical styles of historiography in his time. Chapter V surveys the conflicting ideological and religious pressures on the history of the Saxons and the Conquest and compares Milton's shifting response to these in his political tracts with his views in the History. The Epilogue returns to Milton's view of the national character, with special reference to the Digression. Presenting his references to climate theory in a wider context, it argues that in moving from a loosely predestinarian position to a belief in free will, Milton first sought some determining natural force to explain England's conduct through the ages.

This thesis performs a review of both geographical and social literature to examine the uneven geographies of family migration in Great Britain (GB). Using 2001 GB Census data, the thesis explores the inter-connections between diverse patterns of migration, family structures, and other demographic characteristics via the construction of a Migrant family Index (MFI). Four types of ‘migrant-family locations’ are identified at the Local Authority District (LAD) level; ‘conventional’, ‘increasing onventionality’, ‘increasing non-conventionality’, and ‘non-conventional’. These ‘migrant-family locations’ are underpinned by specific processes of family migration, and the reproduction and/or transformation of dominant place-specific conventional and non-conventional family structures. This distinction is consolidated by empirical findings from a large-scale survey of 400 recent migrant households in four case study locations in South-east England; Wealden, Crawley, Lewes, and Brighton. Recent migrants were identified in a novel way using a web-based register of recent residential property transactions.

State violence, and policing in particular, continue to shape the black British experience, racialising geographical areas associated with African and African-Caribbean communities. The history of black struggles in the UK has often centred on spaces of racial violence and resistance to it. But black-led social movements of previous decades have, for the most part, seen a decline in both political mobilisations, and the militant anti-racist slogans and discourses that accompanied them. Neoliberalism, through securitisation, resource reallocation, privatisation of space and the de-racialising of language, has made radical black activism an increasingly difficult endeavour. But this does not mean that black struggle against policing has disappeared. What it does mean, however, is that there have been significant changes in how anti-racist activism against policing is articulated and carried out. Three high-profile black deaths at the hands of police in 2011 led to widespread protest and civil unrest. These movements of resistance were strengthened when the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States mobilised hundreds of young people in solidarity actions in England. In this thesis, I argue that, over time, racist metonyms used to describe places racialised as black (Handsworth, Brixton etc.) and people racialised as black (Stephen Lawrence, Mark Duggan etc.), have led to the rise of metonymic anti-racism. While metonymic anti-racism was used alongside more overt anti-racist language in the period between the 1950s and early 1990s, I argue that such overt anti-racist language is becoming rarer in the post-2011 period, particularly in radical black grassroots organisations that address policing. Intersecting with metonymic anti-racism are gender dynamics brought to the surface by female-led campaigns against police violence, and forms of resistance which target spaces of post-industrial consumer capitalism. Understanding how police racism, and resistance to it, are being reconceptualised through language, and reconfigured through different forms of activism, provides a fresh understanding of grassroots black struggle in Britain.

This thesis examines the way in which corruption discourses are embedded in processes of state formation. It builds on the theoretical premise of social constructionism, namely that ‘corruption’ is not an entity that exists in reality but that it is an agreed-upon classification of certain types of behaviours. These processes of social and political construction are foundational for corruption discourse, conceptualised as a political practice through which the legitimacy of power and authority, of either persons, behaviours or institutions, can be challenged. As a socially and politically constructed entity, corruption discourse is shaped by political processes and in turn also shapes political processes. The comparison of corruption discourses in Britain in the 19th century and in Germany in the late 19th to mid-20th centuries endeavours to demonstrate the different ways in which they were shaped, as well as in turn shaped, contextual state formation processes. The two countries represent two different pathways through which high levels of corruption control were achieved, one democratic, the other authoritarian. While anti-corruption measures in Britain were introduced alongside democratisation processes in the 19th century, various German states implemented measures top-down in their 18th century efforts to modernise state administration. This study looks at the times when corruption discourses became a matter of public interest, and traces their role vis-a-vis subsequent institutional developments. In Britain this starting point is located in the early 19th century, in Germany in the Kaiserreich of the 1870s. Three case studies each exemplify and illustrate the different sequences in which corruption discourse unfolded. In Britain, these are the 1809 Duke of York case, exemplifying a ‘discovery phase’, in which corruption discourse first showed signs of becoming weaponised for political discourse; the 1830 to 32 Electoral Reform discourse exemplifying a ‘contestation phase’ in which corruption allegations were strategically used to undermine the legitimacy of Parliament and the system through which it was elected; and the 1889 Corrupt Practices Act discourse, exemplifying a ‘consolidation phase’ in which anticorruption measures became normalised rather than being subject to contest. In Germany, the 1896/97 Tausch Affair represents a different kind of discovery phase, one that is restrained and corrupted by authoritarian intervention; the Erzberger-Helfferich case of 1919 represents a different kind of contestation phase, one that is characterised by the hyper-mobilisation of corruption discourse that contributed to the eventual failure of the Weimar Republic; and the Spiegel Affair of 1962, in the context of the Spiegel’s role in post-war Germany more broadly, represents a successful consolidation phase in the Bundesrepublik, in which authoritarian intervention failed to corrupt corruption discourse. The cases thus highlight different ways in which corruption discourse was shaped by, and in turn shaped, state formation processes. They showcase a range of different institutional and political framework conditions as well as a variety of institutional outcomes, of reform, consolidation and destruction. The thesis argues that corruption discourse was thus a central driver of state formation processes, and that concepts of corruption were integral to the idea of the modern state.

Introduction This dissertation traces the rise of the Landscape garden in England during the 1700s, and its gradual diffusion across France, Germany and Italy. The new style, in a certain degree, inspirited by Chinese classical garden which represented a return to nature and informality, marking a departure from the formal, geometrical gardens which had reigned supreme in Europe during the preceding centuries. The aim of this dissertation, however, is not primarily to add to the stock of facts about picturesque but to take a intelligibly framework to view of the picturesque garden collapsed the opposition between nature and cultural processes in which facts about picturesque garden influenced the Europe—the way, in particular, that the action of Chinese garden individuated in each country—that the nature, history, and semiotic or aesthetic character of picturesque garden is constructed in both its universality and particularity--from its place of origin the Britain to the Apennine peninsula. The role of the Chinese garden emergence of alternative formal solutions in France has different interpretations, the recognition of a parallel that has comforted and strengthened their lines of evolution of the English context. In Italy, this work is to offer a thorough account of Italy’s reaction to and interpretation of the English garden as it occurred largely between 1764 and 1817. This will primarily be achieved by examining and comparing the plans of picturesque garden of this period which addressed the topic, and placing them in the context of the European debate as whole. In order to do so it is necessary to reconstruct nearly a century of theoretical and aesthetic contributions leading up to the 1792 in Padua, an event which constituted the first concerted Italian response to the giardino paesaggistico. In the same period, Piedmont erected the first picturesque garden in the Park of Castle of Racconigi, influenced by its French Princess Giuseppina. Finally, through comparing the similarities and differences with French picturesque garden, so that it concludes distinctive characters of Piedmont of picturesque gardens and its influence on urban public garden in the nineteenth century. The first chapter explores the role of the Chinese taste in the making of English picturesque garden. The influence of Chinese traditions into the picturesque garden discourse is worth reconsidering further, for it raises fundamental question about its myths of origin. Without doubt, most of English scholars persist on their original invention. However, the French considered as the Chinese garden as firewood put into the fire of irregular garden. Admittedly, China encompassed integral art system with irregular garden, from the philosophy to art, which was much earlier than the other countries. However, those foundations of art, literature and philosophy to breed irregular garden could be trace in Britain between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Therefore, the representation of landscape is not only a matter of internal politics and national or class ideology but also an international phenomenon. Indeed, the Britain was not exactly going out on a limb to create a new order of garden and went through a complicated process of exchange, mutual transformation and ambivalence. Throughout the second half of eighteenth century picturesque gardens grew more extensive. Not only did they absorb the Holland and German commons within their neighbor, but occasionally whole the Continent stood in the way of a prospect or an improvement were destroyed and transformed elsewhere. The Britain assimilate features of Chinese garden to improve the picturesque garden in Great Britain--not only use Chinese architectures as a source of garden elements, but also share marrow of Chinese gardening composition. For instance, “contrast” is one of the crucial methods in Chinese classical gardening which was emphasized by Chambers both in his Designs of Chinese buildings […] (1757) and A dissertation on oriental gardening (1772); “multiple oblique views” is another main point of irregular garden that were meant to be experienced while walked through it which was employed frequently in English garden. The following offers authentic and impartial character of Chinese garden Sir William Chambers, argues that the architect’s firsthand exposure to Chinese design as a young man both complicated his relationship to the neoclassical tradition he famously promulgated and infused his rather fantastical writings on Chinese gardening with an emancipatory aesthetic vision modeled on the psychological response to cultural alienation. There was an inaccurate statement that the English garden was influenced by Chinese garden. However, the Chinese garden was divided into scholar garden (or private garden) and imperial garden. There was considerable distinction between them. In the first place, the latter tremendously surpassed the former in size. Yuan Ming Yuan was around forty hectares, but the largest garden in Suzhou, Humble Administrator’s Garden is only 5.1 hectares. In the second place, the latter much drew ideas from the former in general. In this scene, scholar garden was the quintessence of Chinese classical garden. According to the most influenced letters and reports of missionaries in Europe accounted the imperial garden near to Beijing, Old Summer Palace (Yuan Ming Yuan), such as Jean Denis Attiret who praised the Chinese Imperial Garden in his letter arrived in 1743: «However I must except out of this Rule, the palace of the Emperor of Peking, and his Pleasure-houses; for in them everything is truly great and beautiful, both as to the Design and the Execution», as well as «generally wind about and serpentize».Thus, the Chinese garden pushed forwards the English garden that should be exact expression that it was influenced by Chinese Imperial Garden. While the present dissertation has to say about Chinese Scholar garden, part of my purpose in framing central understanding on its essence to distinguish the Chinese garden and the English garden. Although both of them claimed to “imitate nature”, the consequences are tremendous difference. I hope to explain what the Chinese classical garden was and how to make a Chinese garden, so as to clarify the «making over of Chinese culture in the Western image» and misunderstanding of the Western during the transformations of the past hundred years. It is basic on the Chinese treatise on gardens, Yuan Ye, was completed in 1634, in which Ji Cheng accounted and concluded his gardening experience; he was also a painter and poet. The philosophy of Confucianism, Taoism and Zen Buddhism play an important role and help the Chinese forming the perception in the gardening. It could be easily traced the ideology of Zen Buddhism and Taoism in each garden, such as little pagoda in the lake. The perfect effect on Chinese landscape poets and painters brought those perceiving or thought into materialization. From this point, the origin of English landscape shares the identical features with Chinese. Since ancient time in China, it has been said that poetry and painting share the same origin, which is embodied in there is painting-in-poetry just as there is poetry-in-painting. Horace Walpole wrote that «Poetry, Painting and Gardening, or the science of Landscape, will forever by men of taste be deemed Three Sisters, or the Three New Graces who Dress and adorn nature». It must be pointed that, just as the name suggests, scholar garden was created by retired officers (the Humble Administrator's Garden, Zhuozheng Yuan) or literati (the Master of the Nets Garden). If the garden was fashioned by the man of taste, it reflects the epitome of his spiritual world. And in this way, depending on the knowledge of owner, the garden evokes delight or elegance, and stand as emblems of both highly cultivated tastes was equated with its owner. It is surprised that the same expression could be found in English landscape theory, «as is the gardener, so is the garden». The six basic components, hill, rock, water, plants, road and architecture also inspirit the picturesque garden. Especially, the rock was the first noticed and learned by the western, for instance, the grottos at the foot of hills (Pope recognized a grotto at his villa at Twickenham in 1719) and the rockery along the bank of river. However, different from picturesque garden in the countryside and unlimited by site, the Scholar garden was always close to the mansion and in the city center that the Chinese created several methods to enlarge its garden in the vision, “contrast”, “borrowing views”, “multi-views” etc., in order to create multiform space in a limited yard. In addition, changing is another subject: change of seasons, passing of time, or variations in climate such as rain, snow, sunshine, or clouds, all of which, to varying degrees, cast a different light on the artistic effect of the garden’s scenic imagery. So, the Chinese garden is an art of both spatial and temporal planning. Undeniably, the Chinese art of gardening is the driving force behind the English accomplishments. Whereas, the English did not copy Chinese garden, even not precisely estimated by the French to picturesque garden, in my view, the assistance of Chinese garden was one of the firewood in the fire of new style garden to support by the representational practice. French contribution on picturesque garden is discussed in Chapter III. A review of picturesque garden in the eighteenth century, it is no doubt that its vogue swept unhesitatingly over whole the European continent. But, the other countries, such as France, that involved Romantic revolution and made its own contribution to the development of picturesque garden. So it would be useful to identify French picturesque movements that brought about their own distinct feature of the picturesque garden. Cause picturesque was a product from the Britain was not a tradition of France. So when the new idea imported from across the English Channel, they were mingle the native concept of “nature” and “modern”, consequently, forming the different version from the English one. In general, the French picturesque garden is mixture of formal and naturalism garden that is the remarkable feature of French design that also influenced the appearance of Italian picturesque garden in a certain extent. The other feature of French is to stimulate its curiosity of visitors to encourage them quest the fresh sentimental pleasure in the garden, such as Désert de Retz. In addition, according to appendix II, the French erected more Chinese structures than English. Moreover, it is generally believed that the picturesque garden came into being France in the 1760s, and that it was a product of English influence, not of French tradition. Dora Wiebenson argues for instance that gardens on both sides of the Channel presented some supposed “English” features concurrently, rather than successively. Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s sentimental ideas of Nature and a free society had a profound influence on French Romantics and Enlightenment in the 1770s. His idea and novel La Nouvelle Héloïse profoundly influenced on French culture which became an original version of picturesque garden, including Claude-Henri Watelet and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Ermenonville of the Marquis de Girardin was poetic nature had benefited from Rousseau’s novel. As the Monceau (1773), le Petit Trianon (1774-1787), Betz (1780-1789), La Folie Saint-James de Neuilly (1784) and the Désert de Retz (1785) which are pastoral style. Claude-Henri Watelet Marquis de Girardin and J.M.Morel devoted to both theory and practice to picturesque garden. Le Rouge published Jardin’s Anglo-Chinois from 1775 to 1789, transferring the idea of new taste and their models to the French gardeners. At last, we will discuss the three types of French picturesque garden: The pastoral farm, Jardin Anglo-Chinois and Ferme Ornée. The sweeping vogue of picturesque gardening would seem hardly reach to Apennine peninsula, however, under the background of picturesque garden, Italy also attempt to naturalize her regular garden forms without first hand materials. The new style simultaneously provoked Italian enthusiasm and skepticism, curiosity and diffidence; and although it became a popular choice for many landowners, relatively few intellectuals chose to sanction it unconditionally in their writings. Protagonists of the debate in Padua such as Ippolito Pindemonte and Melchiorre Cesarotti elected to frame the topic within the context of Italian poetic tradition, and in doing so claimed that Italy deserved credit for conceiving of the naturalistic garden. This allegiance to classical and Renaissance precedent in turn helps explain a general reluctance to relinquish the formal model in favor of a modern, imported style. An Italian translation of Delille’s poem on picturesque gardens appeared in Venice in 1792, the year of Pindemonte’s promotion of the new style in nearby Padua. The Milanese Ercole Silva will emerge as the only true proponent of the English garden in Italy who issued his important and influential Dell’ arte de’ giardini inglesi in 1801, adding illustration for a second edition in 1813. From 1776, Park of Villa Reale of Monza began to reconstruct and settled the first picturesque garden in Italy in emulation of Wörlitz Park, although only transformation of small part in whole formal garden. The garden of villa Belgioioso designed by Pollack in Milan is also an excellent exemplary site in Lombardy. Also, Silva attempted to create a new style garden by terms of the principle of picturesque garden mentioned in his treatise. In 1787, Park of Palace of Caserta was erected. If the garden of Villa Monza was the first plan of English garden designed by Pierrmarini, the first real big English garden was the garden of Caserta is certainly the best known example in Italy, which represents a distinctive Italianness, a move that mixed well with growing aspirations to powerful nation and was supported by its beautiful natural scenery and literature, horticultural and architectural traditions of Italian garden art. The Chapter V focuses on the picturesque garden in region of Piedmont. With the different atmosphere of politics and culture, the diffusion of picturesque garden to Savoy Dynasty was more complicated. The first picturesque garden emerged in Piedmont is the Villa Morra di Lavriano in 1784. As the most of picturesque gardens in Italy, it included different characters: English, French and Chinese sectors. However, thanks to shortage of the materials of Anglo-Chinese garden, the picturesque garden part apparently traces of the formal garden. Only three years later, the year of 1787 marks a turning point--a famous project of Giacomo Pregliasco transfer the central park of Racconigi into picturesque garden. On the one hand, due to the theatrical scenery profession of Pregliasco, the picturesque garden resembles in magnifying scenery. He also designed a Chinese pavilion and rockery stands in the center of the lake which apparently resourced from the design of Park of Bonnelles, which illustrates opportunely the picturesque garden influenced by France. On the other hand, Promoted the picturesque garden in the garden of Racconigi also attributed to its hostess: Princess Giuseppina. Admittedly, the interest of the owner determines the appearance of the garden in a large extent, even did more influence than a designer, both in architecture and garden. Thus, when the attempt at researching the picturesque garden of Racconigi, it would be unreasonable to bypass the cultural background of the client, but only analyzed gardener. As the culture patron, the Princess made a great contribution to the English garden, owing to her writings when she arrived in Turin which is carefully kept in the Royal Library. And her Park of Racconigi, as a princeless heritage—both in material and nonmaterial, was inherited by Carlo Alberto. After 1820, the Park of Racconigi was appointed to Xavier Kurten aimed at seeking a simple nature, natural and softly irregular: a beautiful nature. Kurten gives over to the complete renovation of the park, erasing the formal structures inserted by Pregliasco in a broader context, toning down the characters. Purchases of land and intensive transformations that create the largest plants in the Piedmont landscape, still preserved. The implementation of the picturesque garden was following. Then, Leopoldo Pollack designed the Park of Palace of Riva presso Chieri in 1796 which was borrowed his idea of villa Pesenti, the agriculture, formal garden and picturesque garden blended together, an “idea confusa”. Villa Berroni locates in the Racconigi was a mixed style. Germany Xavier Kurten was the pioneer of modern urban park, because most of his works reflected the idea of city garden. The picturesque garden idea also influenced the later urban planning of Turin, such as the planning of Ferdinando Bonsignore, Ferdinand Boyer and Lawrence Lombardi, as well as Pregliasco’s a new green city in 1802. It is concluded that the picturesque garden in Piedmont has three features: mixed the nature garden with old Italian ones that is following the French habit, as was done at Monza and Racconigi; second, Germany Xavier Kurten abolished completely regular garden in order to create a pure landscape garden with a remarkable feature as vast water system, like the Park of Castle of Racconigi in 1835.

This thesis uses Historical Institutionalism (HI) to explain why social justice policy became an important focus for change in the 1997-2010 Conservative Party, how this policy changed, and why radical ideological change did not take place. Utilising interviews with mid- and elite-level Party actors, and analysis of policy publications, this thesis maps the restrictive and enabling effect of material and ideational institutional structures. It introduces new HI theoretical mechanisms of path tendency within path dependency, and confluence junctures, as key processes; neutral and mimicry invasion as key sources of new policy; and policy and institutional entrepreneurs as key types of actor. It couples these newly defined terms to present mechanisms in HI to offer an explanation that down-plays Cameron as a significant break from past ideological practice: rather there has been broad continuity throughout the opposition period, which, rather than being restrictive, has facilitated incremental policy change, largely emerging slowly from mid-level actors in the Party. The thesis contributes to debates in the study of British politics by offering a theoretical and institutionally focused explanation rather than prioritising more descriptive and personality focused work. It also develops HI and improves its explanation of incremental change in a non-crisis institutional environment.

Windspeed receives relatively little attention in the literature compared with other meteorological variables, despite affecting many industries. European extratropical cyclones create 70-75% of all European insured losses, with an annual average of £1.5-2bn. This project quantifies the impact of historic and future climate change on wind-related insured loss in the UK, using an observational windspeed dataset established here and RCM model data. A continuous 26-year (1980-2005) record of daily mean 10-metre windspeeds and daily maximum gust speeds (DMGS) at 43 UK Met Office stations is established. Statistically significant decreases in damaging windspeeds, of up to 20%, are found at stations in southern England during that period. Supplemented by dynamically downscaled reanalysis data, statistically significant increases of up to 8% are seen at locations in northern England and in Scotland in the period 1959-2001. An operational windstorm loss model for Great Britain is developed, incorporating socio-economic data to account for the exposure and vulnerability of domestic properties to the windstorm hazard. Damaging windspeeds are found to be those DMGSs exceeding the local 98th percentile. The model captures the variability in losses reasonably well, although losses are markedly underestimated. Impacts of individual storm events dating back to 1959 are quantified using Loss Potentials, which are indicative of insured losses. Annual Loss Potentials reveal no statistically significant temporal trends in the period 1959-2005, although a slight increase is suggested between 1959-1979. Three RCM simulations reveal increases of 15-34% in future (2071-2100) Loss Potentials relative to baseline values. Without adaptation of domestic properties to the future wind regime, these estimates rise to 38-533%. Greatest Loss Potential increases are projected in South East England with adaptation, and in North West England without adaptation. Increases in frequency and intensity of damaging windspeeds in winter, simulated by this three member ensemble, drive the increases in Loss Potentials.

This dissertation examines the intellectual and historical roots of the Anglo-American “Special Relationship,” most notably Anglo-Saxonism and social Darwinism, and their effect on the noted policy organs of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (or Chatham House) and the Council on Foreign Relations (or the Council). It first traces the origins of Anglo-Saxonism and considers its effect on important historical events such as the Spanish-American War and the Second Boer War. This thesis also presents a definition of Anglo-Saxonism which appreciates the complexity of the term and allows a better understanding of its effects. It then shows the memberships of both groups were strongly affected by these Victorian and Edwardian phenomena, a fact which augments our understanding of them. Furthermore, this relationship between Anglo-Saxonism and Chatham House and the Council is not fully appreciated by many modern academics. Ultimately, the language of Anglo-Saxonism developed during the Victorian and Edwardian eras became institutionalised during the formative years of these groups’ memberships, predisposing both to the importance of permanent Anglo-American cooperation.

This thesis investigates the minor and field-names of twenty-two parishes in Thurgarton Wapentake, a historic division of Nottinghamshire. It investigates the agricultural history of the region, and explores the usage of Old English and Old Norse-derived place-name elements in the late medieval period. The parishes studied are Averham, Bleasby (with Gibsmere and Goverton), Bulcote and Burton Joyce, Carlton on Trent, Colwick, Cromwell, Fiskerton and Morton, Fledborough, Gedling with Carlton and Stoke Bardolph, Gonalston, Grassthorpe, Lowdham with Caythorpe and Gunthorpe, Hoveringham, Kelham, Marnham, Normanton on Trent, North Muskham (with Bathley and Holme), Norwell (with Norwell Woodhouse and Willoughby), Rolleston, South Muskham (with Little Carlton), Staythorpe, Sutton on Trent and Ossington, and Thurgarton. The thesis presents a new collection of minor names for this area, collated from both unpublished and published documentary sources, supplementing the English Place-Name Society’s survey for Nottinghamshire. The collection is presented as a survey, and forms a significant part of the thesis. The data collected are selectively analysed in two case studies of place-name elements, and in an examination of the names from a single parish. It is shown that place-name elements have precise technical meanings, and that loan words form a significant part of the onomasticon, selected for a particular semantic purpose. The development and longevity of microtoponyms is also explored, and it is shown that field-names in Nottinghamshire frequently survive across a number of centuries. The thesis contributes significantly to the available corpus of English minor and field-names, and demonstrates the ability of this material to address questions of land use, language contact, and agricultural and economic change.

This thesis embodies the first systematic historical research of Black gospel music as a tradition in Britain, calling attention to the serious gap in knowledge so far concerning its growth amongst African Caribbean Pentecostals in Britain. Although it maintains that an underlying theme is the significance of Africa as the original birthplace of African descendants in Britain, the Caribbean and America; it opposes a one-size-fits-all universal historical account of Black gospel music, suggesting that historical knowledge so far is based on historical interpretations of the development of religious music amongst African ancestors in America. It makes the claim that African Caribbean Pentecostalism, in particular its worship practices, nurtured the musical talent of the youth in its congregations who were destined to advance Black gospel music as a tradition in Britain. Using first-hand accounts of African Caribbean Pentecostals of the post-war years in Britain, it identifies three main sources as retainers of “historical facts” representative of objects of the past that can help towards a new approach to history and heritage.

The idea that we can 'save energy' has become a commonplace homily. But with a moment's reflection it is clear there is nothing self-evident about saving energy. Do we save fuel or a system's ability to 'do work'? Do we conserve for perpetuity or to prolong use? Is the motivation resource economy, scarcity, productivity, or - more recently - climate change mitigation? And what stops the fruits of individual parsimony being consumed elsewhere? This thesis offers a history of the idea that we can conserve energy by using it more efficiently. In recounting this story, it is argued that conserved energy is a 'metrological resource' produced by practices of measurement, calculation, and computation. A second argument is that the history of ERC offers an under examined example of a 'resource ontology'; the social processes through which nature is imbued with utility and value. Accordingly, the study of, what is termed, energy resource conservation (ERC herein) involved a novel research method which focused upon the scientific and intellectual processes of resource making, as much as the material. This thesis begins in 1865 with the publication of William Jevons' The Coal Question (1865), in which the resource conservative principles of Classical political economy were overturned. Jevons argued that increased efficiency of coal use would serve only to increase the rate and scale with which coal was used. Proceeding from this anti-thesis, the following chapters outline how, irrespective of Jevons' claim, policies based on the principles of scientific management were applied to the conservation of fuel resources for conserving natural resources. In pre-war America, a complex system of 'pro-rationing' extraction licenses were introduced to conserve the productive capacity of petroleum wells. However, a significant shift occurred during the Cold War, as the conservation of fuel became increasingly conflated with the econometrician's notion of efficient resource allocation. But the most significant developments occurred in the nineteen-seventies, in response to a perceived crisis in energy supply. Fuel policy became a more systemic 'energy policy', which drew on scientific management, graph theory, systems theory, statistical mechanics, and computational econometrics in an attempt to quantify and demonstrate how society could act to conserve energy resources by increasing the efficiency of energy use. The resulting science, and its concomitant policies were an odd mix of cold war rational decision making theories, détente science, scientific radicalism, and liberal economic theory, all given a countercultural and environmentalist gloss in the latter half of the decade. On the basis of this conflation of ideas, a new approach to energy saving that emerged, which transformed the principles of energy resource governance, shifting the onus to conserve from producer to consumer, with distinct implications for post-war theories of political economy.

In this thesis I construct, implement and evaluate a Lefebvrian model of space and society suitable for archaeology, using the Neolithic Peak District as my case study. Archaeologists have largely overlooked the work of French Marxist philosopher and social theorist Henri Lefebvre or come to it second-hand, meaning that his dialectical model of the production of space has never been used to understand prehistoric society. My thesis demonstrates the value to archaeology of such an approach by applying Lefebvre’s three-part dialectical model of the production of space to the monuments and landscape of the Neolithic Peak. In doing so, it challenges simplistic binary readings of social space, replacing them with a Lefebvrian social geography approach to space. Not only does this reveal previously hidden facets of Neolithic society and architecture in the Peak, but my research also provides the first detailed study of this subject in some years. It highlights inter-regional connections between the Peak and other parts of the UK, and illustrates the sheer wealth and diversity of Neolithic monuments in the region, which until now have been sorely neglected. One of its central achievements is to introduce the ‘cross-fertilisation’ monument as a novel class of structure.

This study constructs a historical-geographical narrative of Poplar, Montana and explores residents' place-identity in the context of economic restructuring. Located on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in northeastern Montana, Poplar offers an ideal setting to better understand how economic restructuring affects the lives of residents in northern Plains reservation communities. Loss of businesses, consolidation of services, and general economic restructuring continue to challenge communities on the Great Plains. For Great Plains Indian reservations, however, these problems are compounded by additional variables such as persistently high poverty rates, a dynamic relationship with the federal government, and increasing populations. Archival research, landscape analysis, and interview data are all used to better understand the influence of economic restructuring in shaping Poplar. This study demonstrates the value of historical and cultural geographic approaches in understanding the past evolution as well as the contemporary challenges of reservation communities in the American West.

Urban infrastructure is the key physical asset for successful functioning of modern cities. Yet the building and maintaining infrastructure networks require robust institutions, either expressed explicitly in rules and regulations or implicitly in social norms and mutual expectations, which are crucial for governing the complex relationships among all stakeholders including governments, regulators, investors, utilities and consumers that underpin the production of infrastructure services. Although there are more and more studies focusing on infrastructure, the underlying institutions that sustain the 'sink' of long-term accumulation of finance, technology, organisational and geopolitical power for shaping urban landscape have often been neglected. In particular, few studies have investigated the uneven geographical phenomenon of urban infrastructure investment and governance. As such, this thesis compares and explores how and why political, institutional and governance frameworks in Beijing and London influence urban water infrastructure investment and service delivery differently. The findings from the comparative study of the thesis should assist better understanding of 'variegated capitalism', especially state capitalism versus liberal capitalism. Through case study and close dialogue methodology, this thesis compares and investigates the investment models, governance frameworks, pricing systems and infrastructure contracts for urban water infrastructure in Beijing and London from the perspective of economic geography. Based on the theories of institutional and relational economic geography, this thesis organizes the study into four substantive chapters: Chapter Three compares the investment models employed in Beijing and London for water infrastructure investment and the underlying institutions; Chapter Four explores the effects of different governance frameworks on urban water infrastructure investment and service delivery in Beijing and London; Chapter Five investigates the effects of different pricing systems in the two cities for coordinating the intrinsic, market and investment value of urban water infrastructure; Chapter Six analyses different infrastructure contracts for financing large-scale water infrastructure projects in the two cities. The thesis finds that institutions are embedded in time and space for harnessing the flows of capital and producing the configurations of infrastructure provision, thus shaping the heterogeneous landscape of the material, economic, social and geopolitical fabric of contemporary cities. Therefore, in contrast to the statement 'form follows function', this thesis argues that infrastructure functions are inherently geographical in nature. The thesis has made the following contributions: firstly, it has compared the various trajectories of urban water infrastructure investment and governance in different political economic contexts, especially the dialogue between Global North and South, making original contribution in the 'geography of infrastructure'; secondly, the thesis employs cases studies to compare and investigate institutions empirically - issues that have been neglected for much too long in mainstream economic geography, contributing to 'variegated capitalism'; finally, in practical terms this research provides information for governments, regulators, investors, infrastructure providers and other stakeholders on in-depth understanding of urban water infrastructure investment and governance in different institutional and relational contexts.

Entrepreneurship is increasingly recognised as an important component of the contemporary knowledge based economy and crucial to the attainment of economic growth and development. However, entrepreneurial activity varies significantly across space within countries. This thesis makes an original contribution by examining the determinants of spatial variations in entrepreneurship across sub-regions of Great Britain from 2008-2010. Through utilising newly available data on firm births and applying exploratory spatial data analysis and spatial econometric techniques, two prominent theories of entrepreneurship are examined. First, the Knowledge Spillover Theory of Entrepreneurship posits that underutilised knowledge by incumbent firms creates entrepreneurial opportunities. The appropriation of these opportunities through entrepreneurial activity, in the form of a new firm, leads to dynamic knowledge spillovers, which generate economic growth. The empirical analysis presented in this thesis concludes that more knowledge intensive regions exhibit significantly higher firm birth rates; however the composition of the regional knowledge stock is critical, as a diverse knowledge stock generates more entrepreneurial opportunities. Second, several theories emphasise the importance of idiosyncratic knowledge and human capital, in the form of entrepreneurial ability, on the discovery and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities. The results of this thesis suggest that human capital is vital to the entrepreneurial process, and that university education is a greater source of entrepreneurial ability than labour market experience. Furthermore, the results also suggest that the regulatory burden of the public sector, financial constraints, regional unemployment, and the absence of a local entrepreneurial culture can significantly detract from regional entrepreneurial activity. In light of these results, there are several implications for policy which include: emphasising the importance of effective policy towards intellectual property rights, targeting entrepreneurial education initiatives towards university students and graduates, and reducing unnecessary public sector regulation that can act as a ‘barrier’ to entrepreneurship.

This thesis examines the impact in mid- to later-seventeenth century England of the major contemporary religious controversy in France. The debates associated with this controversy, which revolved around the formal condemnation of a heresy popularly called Jansenism, involved fundamental questions about the doctrine of grace and moral theology, about the life of the Church and the conduct of individual Christians. In providing an analysis of the main themes of the controversy, and an account of instances of English interest, the thesis argues that English Protestant theologians in the process of working out their own views on basic theological questions recognised the relevance of the continental debates. It is further suggested that the theological arguments evolved by the French writers possess some value as a point of comparison for the developing views of English theologians. Where the Jansenists reasserted an Augustinian emphasis on the gratuity of salvation against Catholic theologians who over-valued the powers of human nature, the Anglican writers examined here, arguing against Protestant theologians who denied nature any moral potency, emphasised man's contribution to his own salvation. Both arguments have been seen to contain a corrosive individualism, the former through its preoccupation with the luminous experience of grace, the latter through its tendency to elide grace and moral virtue, and reduce Christianity to the voluntary ethical choices of individuals. These assessments, it is argued here, misrepresent the theologians in question. Nevertheless, their thought did encourage greater individualism and moral autonomy. For both groups, their opponents' theological premises were deficient to the extent that they vitiated morality; and in both cases their responses, centring on the transformation of the inner man by love, privileged the moral responsibility of the individual. Their moral 'rigorism', it is suggested, focusing on the affective experience of conversion, represented in both cases an attempt to provide a sound empirical basis for Christian faith and practice in the fragmented intellectual context of post-reformation Europe.

While many politicians gain national or international acclaim, domestic political activists are rarely remembered for their dedication and, similarly, their sufferings. More specifically, the acts of female political activists, and the harsh punishments they endure following government pushback, are not appreciated or acknowledged by popular histories. Across Great Britain, the United States, and Argentina, three women played crucial roles in advancing reform against unjust government policies. Josephine Butler (1828-1906) was a pivotal character in repealing laws allowing for the government regulation of prostitution, the Contagious Diseases Acts, in Great Britain. Similarly, Alice Paul (1885-1997) was essential in achieving the ratification of the Nineteenth Constitutional Amendment in the United States—granting universal suffrage. Lastly, Azucena Villaflor (1924-1977) was one of the first people, man or woman, to openly oppose the Junta dictatorship in Argentina and openly advocate for the release of information on desaparecidos. Despite advancing such important policy reform, all three women increasingly faced physical suffering, torture or death at the hands of their respective state governments. Amid a lack of media coverage or biased, partial media coverage paired with the direct confrontation of male government leaders, noncombatant activists were unjustly treated in violation of their fundamental human rights. Progressive, forceful voices for positive change are consistently dismissed as crazy, extreme or irrational, rather than praised for their efforts. In exploring the cycle of violence surrounding the treatment of political activists, it appears nationalist histories are often void of past government faults.

This study places the intended creation and implementation of an inter-professional education strategy at the intersection of three networks. The networks in question are cultural historical activity theory (CHAT), actor network theory (ANT), and a complex healthcare organisation (NHSX). CHAT and ANT, whilst both socio-material in origin, afford quite different readings of NHSX: therefore, the former has been used to identify, distil, and decompose the organisational activity systems, and the latter has been used to problematise them. The strategy was created in 2005 and had ceased to exist by 2010. This study therefore employs CHAT and ANT accounts to trace the lifespan of the strategy through the organisation, in particular through organisational working, learning, and boundary crossing, in an attempt to explain its untimely demise. It is envisaged that this study will provide an aid to framing how socio-material approaches can be combined to support inter-professional policy construction and implementation in a way that will allow flexibility for others to adapt to their own distinctive circumstances

The dyed cotton textiles called Turkey red are a significant part of Scotland’s cultural heritage and the legacy of its textile manufacturing industry, and were known for their exceptional colour and fastness to light and wash fading. This thesis is a multi-disciplinary investigation of the chemistry of these unique textiles in the context of 19th c. Scotland using historical material re-creations and modern analytical chemistry, situating the dyeing process in a historical context. This research is a significant contribution toward the continued preservation of historical Turkey red textiles. Through a detailed, chemistry-focused examination of Turkey red methods published in English and French between 1785-1911, the key ingredients and steps for the process from a chemical perspective are identified (Chapter 1). The significance, chemistry, and previous research on the role of the oil (Chapter 2) and dye sources used (Chapter 3) are discussed to form the basis of the material re-creations and analysis. The oil is fundamental to and characteristic of the process, which is also noteworthy for being the first to replace a natural dye source (madder or garancine) with a coal-tar derived analogue (synthetic alizarin). Re-creations of dyed Turkey red, Turkey red oil, oiled calico, and synthetic alizarin provide experiential data and reference materials to test analyses prior to application on historical objects (Chapter 4). The analysis of Turkey red oils by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and high-performance liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS) (Chapter 5) provides information used to characterise, for the first time, how the oil and cotton fibres bond to form the basis of the Turkey red complex. This is studied using conservation-based diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy (DRIFTS) and attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) and solid-state NMR (ssNMR) on replica and 19th c. pieces of Turkey red (Chapter 6). Dyes analysis of these samples by ultra high performance liquid chromatography with photodiode array (UHPLC-PDA) identifies chromatographic profiles of textiles dyed with natural or synthetic dye based on synthetic chemical markers. The presence of pigments on printed Turkey red is confirmed by infrared spectroscopy and scanning electron microscope with energy-dispersive X-ray (SEM-EDX) (Chapter 7).

Background A psychiatric disorder influences one’s affect, mind and behaviors and psychiatric symptoms, such as disorganized speech, bizarre behaviors, delusion that influence one’s motivation, social interest, independence and self-care. Therefore, society stereotypically labels the mentally ill patients as “weak” and “dangerous”, a special group to be taken care of, treated and controlled. As a result, asylums and institutions become necessary for the mentally ill patients. Reviewing the asylums and institution period, it was shown that the care and treatment was inhuman and very limited. Starting 1950s’, there was a voice criticizing that it violated the patients’ human right to keep them in hospital after they had recovered from the acute stage. Consequently, deinstitutionalization and the community care were developed in this period. These policies also led to the consumer movement in 1970s’. Over time, the mental health policy has changed continuously. However, the stigma from society and the consumer movement were still apparent as shown by various patterns. Aims This study explores the core factors of the mental health services through systematic historical review of the recovery movement and mental health policy, and intends to find out the important insight to improve the mental health services in Hong Kong. Methodology This study chooses England as an example since the earliest recovery movement started from England. Before 1997, Hong Kong was a Crown colony, so its mental health policy was influenced by England. This study sets out to review related records and documents, including the literature, journals, government documents, reports, newspapers, yearbooks, files and textbooks. After collecting the information and analyzing the contents, the themes will be integrated to find out the core influence factors of the mental health services. Results After reviewing the overall history of rehabilitation movement in mental health in England and Hong Kong, it is concluded that the development pathway should focus on “Treatment and Care” and “De-stigmatization”. Conclusions “Treatment and Care” and “De-stigmatization” are the key influence factors, judging from history of the recovery movement and mental health policy development. Thus, a good mental health service should solve these two problems.
published_or_final_version
Psychological Medicine
Master
Master of Psychological Medicine

Cultural geography draws attention to the diverse meanings and values of groups in society, however, despite a growing interest in the geographies of children and youth, there have been few recent empirical studies investigating young people’s experience of place. In particular, comparatively little is known about the multiple realities of young people living in contrasting social and environmental contexts. This study investigates the multiple geographies of young people growing up in inner and outer urban areas of an English Midlands town in the late 1990s. An investigation of this kind is especially apposite in that it provides geographical perspectives on the widening, and increasingly more complex, discourses surrounding young people, space and society. This thesis uses participatory and ethnographic methods to engage young people in evaluating their local environments and to explore in detail the meanings, values and experiences young people associate with different places and place uses. The theoretical framework for this study is based on an extensive cross-disciplinary review of literature and informed by recent theories of childhood and youth, social change, social action, children’s rights, participation and citizenship and contemporary cultural geography. It adopts an holistic approach to understanding the complex and multifaceted world of young people as a product of their reflexive relations with their social and environmental contexts. The study recognises the multiple realities that exist within and between different groups of young people and the variable factors which influence young people’s geographies. It utilises conventional social variables such as gender and age to differentiate between ‘cultures of childhood’, together with contingency factors concerning location and parental influence. The study reveals both commonalities and differences in young people’s experience of place, which cut across social and spatial divides to give rise to a heterogeneity of childhood experiences. A major conclusion is that ‘lifestyle’ or ‘microcultures’ offer a more suitable way forward for future children and youth research. The thesis contributes to discourses of childhood and youth by investigating how childhood is constructed, contested and reproduced in neighbourhood space. The marginal status of young people in urban neighbourhood space is exposed in terms of the neglected spaces of young people, marked by a dearth of appropriate environmental provision, environmental hazards and conflict with adult place users. However, the thesis also reveals young people’s keenness to be more involved in improving their communities, together with a range of different ‘modes’ of participation in local decision making and community development processes. The thesis concludes by highlighting key implications for policy and planning with and for young people with respect to social and environmental provision for young people, environmental quality, and the social integration of young people in everyday community life, local decision making and environmental planning

The study researches the origins and evolution of Herefordshire’s medieval landscape from the standpoint of its late Anglo-Saxon territorial organization, both secular and ecclesiastical. It contributes to the genre of topographical studies, adopting a methodology of regression mapping. It identifies and explores the chronology for the development of middle Anglo-Saxon land-units within the Mercian provincia of the Magonsaete, proposing a reassessment of the timescale by when the latter people became the dominant group within the provincia. It argues for the existence of fourteen early-to-mid Anglo-Saxon old minster territories, at least three of which reveal British Church origins, and proposes a model for the establishment of the Anglo-Saxon see at Hereford. It suggests a ninth-century chronology for the incorporation into Mercia of the northern and eastern districts of the kingdom of Ergyng and a tenth-century terminus ante quem for the shire’s creation. It argues that aspects of the shire’s infrastructure are British in origin. It concludes by positing the existence within Herefordshire of two relict British tribal districts which once belonged to a sixth-century kingdom of Powys of similar size to those found in Ergyng.

On 15 August 1947, the British government withdrew from India and partitioned the subcontinent to create two new nation-states: India and Pakistan. The Partition of India and Pakistan has been studied chiefly as a historical phenomenon with legacies that reach into the present. Questions of geography and space are crucial to this history, yet have hitherto received scant attention. This dissertation is a historical geography of Partition that probes the interplay of temporality and spatiality, and the historical and geographical layering, at work in the making of India and Pakistan. It treats Partition as both an event and a process, examining how the 1947 borders were rooted in a set of imaginative geographies and material geographical practices that were fashioned for and applied to the purpose of refashioning territory as part of a transfer of colonial power to independent postcolonial states and the making of new (national, religious) identities. The dissertation teases out the constitutive role of ideals and practices of territorial and cultural imagining, classification, mapping and boundary-making in this historical geography, but also highlights their contingent and contested qualities. It critically analyses and reframes Partition historiography using a range of theoretical literatures (especially critical geographical work on empire and strands of postcolonial and subaltern theory) that foster a sensitivity to the entanglements of power, knowledge, geography, expertise in the context of Partition, and draws on an eclectic range of primary sources, including the hitherto unused papers of the geographer Oskar Spate. Parts I and II trace strands of geographical and cartographic representations of ‘India' and ‘Pakistan' before 1947. Part III examines the geographies and spaces of the Punjab Boundary Commission of July 1947, in which Spate participated as an advisor to the Muslim League. Part IV points to the continued relevance of these geographies of Partition and their critical framing in this dissertation as lines of power.

This thesis argues that henges, stone circles and ring cairns form a 'spectrum' of monuments with origins in the earlier Neolithic. In that context it is suggested that some of the structures located beneath long cairns were originally free standing foci. How the monuments might reflect contemporary society is discussed and it is shown that some standing stones might have been the focus for gatherings of people as large as those suggested for henges and stone circles. Evidence is presented showing that there appears to have been a continuity of traditions and world view from the Early Neolithic into the Late Neolithic and beyond. Similarly the distribution of later monuments appears to relate to Early Neolithic core areas which continued to be important and linked to 'status'. The relationship of the monuments to particular aspects of the environment is explored and it is shown that wetland environments, including floodplains, are a major feature in the location of the early foci. It is concluded that these would have been important resource areas in the Mesolithic as well as Early Neolithic with implications for our understanding of the Mesolithic -Neolithic transition.

The starting point for this study was when as a specialist physical education teacher working in a school, I undertook a part-time inservice B. Ed degree and wrote a dissertation comparing the systems of physical education in the USSR and in England and Wales. I made one visit in 1979 to Moscow but, otherwise, had to rely heavily upon Western sources of material owing to my lack of knowledge of Russian and the difficulty in obtaining primary source material. I discovered that virtually no profound study in English had been made of children's physical education in one of the world's largest and most important countries. Yet since the early 1950s, the USSR has been one of the leading sporting nations in international competitions. For many years I have been interested in comparative physical education and, helped by my background of foreign languages' study at school, have visited schools in the USA, Canada, Germany, Austria and Israel, as well as the USSR. In 1981, I began work as a university lecturer with responsibilities for teacher training and started to gather information for this thesis for which I had to learn Russian, helped by staff at the Centre for Modern Languages at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. During several study visits to the USSR, I visited 1981 - Two weeks sports study tour to Moscowt Leningrad and Minsk. 1983 - Four weeks in Leningrad. 1985 - Six weeks in Moscow, Leningrad and Brest on a British Council Travel Scholarship. USSR Ministry of Education Offices, teacher training institutions, schools, sports schools and other sports institutions, interviewed officials, lecturers, teachers, students and pupils and observed lectures, lessons and training sessions. In addition, I gathered text books, syllabuses and journals and, after several years of research and study visits, set out to describe and examine all aspects of Soviet children's physical education from preschool to school-leaving age as well as the training of their teachers and coaches. It has been necessary to describe the whole physical education system since it is a more complex series of activities in and out of school than what we in England and Wales, understand as physical education, that is, lessons in school. Descriptions are fairly extensive since readers are unlikely to be able to read the sources in Russian for themselves or to make their own visits. Because the concept of physical education in the USSR is so different compared to our own, and because its structure is determined by the state of development and needs of Soviet society, a background description of the country and education system is given in Chapter I and an explanation of the development of Soviet sport and physical education in Chapter II. The concepts of Soviet physical culture, sport and physical education are different to our own and are explained. Soviet terminology in direct translation is used, for example, school physical education programmes, but physical culture lessons and teachers to emphasise the different concepts which are employed. The aims, methods and reasons behind the system of physical education for Soviet children are described and analysed and the theory and practice of its implementation have been investigated through primary sources - syllabuses, visits, observations. and interviews. The effectiveness of physical education for all Soviet children is discussed and some cross-cultural comparisons are made. Finally, suggestions are put to physical educators in England and Wales on how this study might be useful to them when considering changes in their own physical education system.