Victorian Britain

This MA Thesis analyses hundreds of Victorian newspapers, periodicals, pamphlets and other media to investigate how Victorian perceptions of Napoleon I affected perceptions of Napoleon III and vice versa. It is argued that Victorian Britons frequently viewed Napoleon III through the lens of Napoleon I with significant consequences for the legacies of both Emperors today. Through analysis of letters to the editor and newspapers which appealed to all classes of society, this thesis does not produce a history of ‘Great Men’ from the top-down but rather an analysis of how such men were perceived from the bottom up and how popular perceptions helped shape their legacies. Why is it that Napoleon I, once the most hated and feared enemy of Britain, has obtained an almost celebrity-like status in Britain today whilst Napoleon III, the friend of Queen Victoria and champion of the entente cordiale is largely forgotten by the general public? The answer, this thesis argues, can be found in Victorian perceptions of both Napoleons, and in the resulting perceptions of themselves.

This study focuses on the issue of social exclusion in British tennis. It commences with a critique of current LTA policy, presenting exclusion as static, ahistorical and underpinned by false dichotomies of age and social class. Aspects of Norbert Elias’s theoretical approach are employed throughout as an analytical framework. Initially, the roots of exclusion in British tennis are sought through historical analysis. Aspects of the Civilising Process help direct attention towards wider social processes to explain the prevalence of exclusion, particularly in tennis clubs. Cost was a crucial factor in determining early access, but as tennis became more accessible to lower classes, codes of behavioural etiquette helped demarcate members along status lines. Into the mid-20th century, the globalisation, professionalisation and commercialisation of tennis pushed the LTA to adopt a more performance-oriented outlook, but this has come to oppose the more relaxed culture of tennis clubs. Thus, a power struggle emerged between these two institutions, and, underpinned by thirty interviews with leading figures in British tennis as well as extensive documentary analysis, the third section documents these developments from the 1980s. Crucially, tennis clubs remain largely amateur and voluntary-run organisations, yet are important locations for the implementation of the LTA’s demanding talent development objectives. These recent developments are understood with the help of Elias’s Game Models theory. The fourth section presents findings from a ten-month ethnographic study of social exclusion in a tennis club; a micro-analysis of club member relations underpinned by Elias’s Established-Outsider Relations theory. Overall findings suggest that social exclusion in British tennis is far more complex, multi-faceted and historically-rooted than what current LTA discourse presents. Differences in age and class are less central, and instead preconceived notions of social status based on longevity of membership, adherence to behavioural norms and playing standard are powerful determinants of inclusion.

In the world of classical music, a composer’s body rarely figures in the reception of their compositions. The reception of one composer, however, seems unique in this regard; observations about Frédéric Chopin's physical identity, and perceptions about his masculinity, significantly impacted upon the appreciation and understanding of his music, ultimately colouring the ways in which his works have been viewed. This article considers how Chopin’s masculinity was constructed during his life and following his death. It surveys a selection of press reviews and testimonies, alongside early Chopin biographies, in order to establish how the image of Chopin developed relative to physical weaknesses and (an apparent lack of) masculinity. Taken as a whole, this image encapsulates a sense of masculinity itself, pronounced and projected within nineteenth century music criticism. Alongside this core theme, the article considers some of the other preoccupations that may have played a part in the construction of Chopin’s reception. In particular, the apparent divisions between the Classical and Romantic schools of music. That such sentiments may still be heard to this day makes one question whether a body of work may ever be separated from the body that produced it.

This dissertation uses recently declassified MI5 documents and other official files relating to British intelligence in order to shed new light on the British investigations into the death of Adolf Hitler. It argues that ongoing conspiracy theories relating to Hitler’s survival and the supposedly poor quality and ideologically driven nature of the British investigations are not supported by any credible evidence. Through a series of primary source driven thematic chapters, it analyses the relations between Great Britain, America and the Soviet Union during investigations into Hitler’s death in order to demonstrate that British conclusions regarding Hitler’s suicide were not tainted by Cold War ideological motivations. Through analysis of recently declassified files which contribute new evidence to the historiography, it demonstrates how British intelligence were able to confirm that Hitler had committed suicide on 30 April 1945 and how they thoroughly investigated and disproved survival rumours which have been reported as fact as recently as 2015. The thesis concludes by providing a plausible explanation for the 2009 DNA revelation that the skull once thought to be Hitler’s in Moscow archives was that of a woman by suggesting that this discovery tells us more about the poor quality of the Soviet investigations than Hitler’s suicide.

This article analyses one aspect of the early historiography of Eastern carpets: namely, how carpets from Persia were acquired, studied and presented in the context of late nineteenth-century British responses to the Orient and industrialization both in Europe and Persia. The discussion centres on the scholarly output and the collecting activities of the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum) – an institution that emerged within a landscape of orientalism, capitalist-imperialism, design reform and exhibitionary spectacle. By examining the works of key figures connected to the museum, such as Owen Jones, George Birdwood, Robert Murdoch Smith and William Morris, the present study discusses how the Victorian art establishment shaped discussions on taste, authenticity, taxonomy and commodification. It argues that such activities have helped to entrench a hierarchical and evolutionary understanding of ‘Oriental’ carpets that privileges imperial Safavid specimens over market-led Qajar and machine-made British examples.

This article reconsiders the sugar duties controversy in early Victorian Britain. Rather than representing the defeat of abolitionism by free trade zeal, the sugar question was a contest of two varieties of anti-slavery thought which had previously co-existed: one believing that slavery’s immorality was accompanied by its productive inferiority to free labour and the other asserting that slavery’s profits in this world were punished outside the marketplace. West Indian decline after the end of protection led to a revision of free labour superiority, with providential externalities replacing marketplace competitiveness. The episode demonstrates how little most Britons understood the welfare of black freedmen to be connected to anti-slavery after emancipation. A fuller appreciation of the slave sugar debate furthermore recovers an important abolitionist strand in the new ‘human history’ of free trade.

Historian and Tees Transporter Bridge Education, Learning and Events Officer Tosh Warwick takes a look back through nineteenth century newspapers to explore how the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605 was remembered in Victorian Middlesbrough.  Based upon a talk prepared for the Heritage Lottery Fund supported Tees Transporter Bridge Visitor Experience Lunchtime Lecture Series, he reveals tales of spectacular pyrotechnics, pennies for the Guy and mischief.

This paper argues that Oscar Wilde should not be labelled as a gay martyr. It does so on the grounds that the gay martyr narrative is a modern projection onto the past that is both reductive of Wilde's multifaceted character, and the broader socio-historical context of Victorian Britain. It also evaluates Wilde's actions in court and reads them as far from self-sacrificial, but self saving.

This article examines British responses to changes in Japanese dress during the Victorian period. The disapproval of the Japanese adoption of European clothing is shown to be linked to British anxieties regarding their political relationship and cultural engagement with Japan. The ways in which the kimono served as a touchstone for the British understanding of the country, representing an unchanging and romanticised view of the cultural identity of its Japanese wearer, is also explored. However, the kimono did not only signal 'Japaneseness', but was assimilated in British fashion as well. This article further explores how the kimono was related to issues of late nineteenth-century dress reform in Britain as well as to British unease about the cultural changes that they themselves had experienced in the wake of industrialisation.

Victoria’s Generals focuses on eight British generals of the late Victorian period: Garnet Wolseley, Evelyn Wood, Redvers Buller, George Colley, Lord Chelmsford, Charles Gordon, Frederick Roberts and Herbert Kitchener. Most of them were regarded as heroes by their contemporaries, and while the book manages to paint eight equally fascinating portraits, it does not achieve that at the cost of being uncritical. As the authors point out, this group of men was disparate and fractious – and each of these generals had his weaknesses and contradictions.

The Metaphysical Society was founded in 1869 at the instigation of James Knowles (editor of the Contemporary Review and then of the Nineteenth Century) with a view to "collect, arrange, and diffuse Knowledge (whether objective or subjective) of mental and moral phenomena " (first resolution of the Society in April 1869).
The Society was a private club which gathered together a latter-day clerisy. Building on the tradition of the Cambridge Apostles, they elected talented members from across the Victorian intellectual spectrum: Bishops, one Cardinal, philosophers, men of science, literary figures, and politicians. The Society included in its 62 members prominent figures such as T. H. Huxley, William Gladstone, Walter Bagehot, Henry Edward Manning, John Ruskin and Alfred Lord Tennyson.
The papers they produced are key primary sources which shed new light on the ideas of their authors on the burning subjects of the day, ranging from the existence and personality of God to the nature of conscience or the existence of the soul. They are a legacy of a period when intellectuals were wondering how, and what, to believe in a time of social change, spiritual crisis, and scientific progress.
The dissolution of the Society in 1880 did not diminish the value of the papers: they illustrate a tradition of private, open discussion among famous men of the most widely varying views; they offer detailed insight into the evolution of the relationships between different schools of Victorian scientific and religious thought; and they bring to light heretofore under-represented points of conflict and harmony. All 95 papers are included, accompanied by introductions and scholarly notes that set each paper into their proper context.

During the American Civil War, one city in the West Riding of Yorkshire defied regional and national trends by overwhelmingly providing its support to the slaveholding Confederacy. This paper examines both Confederate and Union activism in Sheffield during the period of the war. It highlights the unusual nature of Sheffield’s political development before the war, and the shifting alliances which characterised politics in the town during it. Taking advantage of digitally indexed sources, I examine activists’ involvement with other Victorian causes célèbres and assess to what extent this supports the traditional view in which attitudes towards the war are decided by support for or opposition to democracy. I also discuss the implications of my findings on the wider debates of the period, about the nature of mid-Victorian Liberalism and the changing role of the MP.

In the world of classical music, a composer’s body rarely figures in the reception of their compositions. The reception of one composer, however, seems unique in this regard; observations about Frédéric Chopin's physical identity, and perceptions about his masculinity, significantly impacted upon the appreciation and understanding of his music, ultimately colouring the ways in which his works have been viewed. This article considers how Chopin’s masculinity was constructed during his life and following his death. It surveys a selection of press reviews and testimonies, alongside early Chopin biographies, in order to establish how the image of Chopin developed relative to physical weaknesses and (an apparent lack of) masculinity. Taken as a whole, this image encapsulates a sense of masculinity itself, pronounced and projected within nineteenth century music criticism. Alongside this core theme, the article considers some of the other preoccupations that may have played a part in ...

This event will provide a showcase of research undertaken by undergraduate History students on the University of Huddersfield’s
‘Digital Victorians’ module. The wider theme of exploring Victorian
democracy using digital technologies will be discussed in a short talk by module leader Dr Tosh Warwick followed by a series of
presentations by students delving into a number of topics relating to local democracy at the heart of Huddersfield’s democracy through
time.

There will also be an opportunity for participants to view some documents from historic collections and digital resources relating to the themes explored as part of Local Democracy Week 2018.

A talk given at Hacettepe University, Department of English Language and Literature, on the contemporary impact of the Suffragettes in Victorian and Edwardian Britain, as well as today in the wake of the release of the film SUFFRAGETTE (2015).  The talk is on SLIDESHARE (with the link below)