Coping with Change: British Society, 1780-1914

JUST PUBLISHED

There are many parallels between Britain today and Britain during the ‘long’ nineteenth century.  Both societies were coping with substantial and sustained population growth and the tensions this creates between different ethnic groups.  Both had to cope with profound changes.  Our current fixation with the environment was paralleled by the Victorians who sought, and largely failed, to take remedial action necessary to counter the impact of industrial change and urban growth on society.  Education, crime and the nature of leisure are equally issues on which the attitudes of Victorians have much in common with our anxieties today over educational standards, knife-crime and binge-drinking.  We are still almost as psychotically fixated with our position in society as Victorian working men and women and those from the middle- and upper-classes.

 

Victorian preoccupations with how to manage the problems created by economic and demographic change were largely unresolved by 1914.  There may have been some improvements in people’s quality of life but these were small and unevenly distributed.  For most people, life remained a constant battle for survival to keep above the poverty line especially for the very young and the old.  The ‘arithmetic of woe’ was all-pervasive.  Only through hard work, self-help and a modicum of luck could most people maintain any semblance of quality in their lives.  The fear of poverty and yet the recognition that poverty was inevitable at some stage in the individual’s life was ever-present.  Today, in an increasingly digitalised society, it is not difficult to find similar circumstances.  Poverty has not been eliminated; in fact, if anything, in the last two decades it has worsened with growing concerns about a ‘benefit culture’, ‘fuel poverty’, the problems associated with an increasingly aging population and the economic crisis of ‘credit-crunch Britain’ and fear of austerity and recession.  The poor it appears are getting poorer and the rich richer, a return to something like the ‘two nations’ of Disraeli’s England.   In many respects, the social and political agenda thrust on to the Victorians remains unresolved.  Statements about a ‘broken society’ that periodically punctuate contemporary political debate would have been familiar to many Victorian social commentators. 

Coping with Change examines the changes that occurred in Britain during the late-eighteenth, nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. The economic revolutions that began in the mid-eighteenth century, especially an inexorable rise in population, marked the point when Britain began the often painful process of change from an early-modern to a modern society.  Many of the structures and ideas in which society was grounded were challenged by this process as society navigated its transition to ‘modernity’.  This book examines how that occurred as people, as individuals and groups, sought to make sense of the changes that occurred and what those changes meant to them in terms of challenges and opportunities.  This was something that lasted throughout the ‘long nineteenth century’ from the 1780s through to the outbreak of war in 1914.  This substantial volume is divided into twenty-four chapters that look at different aspects of those changes and takes account of recent thinking on the subject:

Preface

1. A contextual overview

2. An industrial revolution

3. Agriculture and industry

4. Communications

5. Birth, Marriage and Death

6. Regulating work

7. Urban growth and housing

8. The public’s health

9. Poverty and the Poor Laws

10. Voluntary action

11. Literacy and schooling, 1780-1870

12. A state system of education, 1870-1914

13. Crime

14. Punishment

15. Policing

16. Leisure

17. Government

18. Churches under pressure

19. Religion in decline?

20. Class

21. The working-classes

22. The middle-classes

23. The upper-classes

24. The end of the nineteenth century

Further reading

Index

Hitting the local papers

From Dunstable Gazette, 7 August 2013.

4000,000 and counting

PASSING 400,000

I started my Looking at History blog on Blogger on 30 July 2007 and it’s taken until 7 June 2013 to reach 400,000 ‘hits’: an average of around 66,000 per year.  I’ve published 823 blogs in that time, around 137 blogs a year.  Inevitably, take-up of the blogs was initially slow but once they began to appear in Google Search the number of hits began to rise significantly and in the past two years the blog has consistently been getting 20,000 hits a month.

Analysis of which blogs have been particularly popular shows that ‘Disease in the Victorian city: extended version’ has over 9,000 hits followed closely by ‘Suffrage since 1903: Arguments against  women’s suffrage’ with 8,300.  Generally the blogs on nineteenth century British society, women’s history and Canada have performed the best.  Given the nature of the blogs, their audiences is not surprising with the United Kingdom (150,000) and United States (121,000) being the most important.  There has also been a good take-up from Canada (23,000), Australia (13,000), France (11,000) and Germany (10,000) with a gap before Russia (2,000) and India (2,000). 

The bulk of the hits are accessed through Internet Explorer (41%), Firefox (21%) and Chrome(20%) using Windows (77%), Macintosh(10%) and Linux (5%).  Access using tablets or phones is currently more limited with iPad (2%), iPhone(2%) and Android (1%) but this represents a significant increase since the end of 2011 when these did not register at all. 

Comments on the site have been overwhelmingly positive and in several cases helpful in enabling me to correct errors and I have been both gratified by this as well as pleased that readers take the time to make comments (whether critical or not). 

‘A Peaceable Kingdom’: Essays on Nineteenth Century Canada

JUST PUBLISHED

The essays in this book seek to unpick the notion of the 'peaceable kingdom' in the light of the violence that permeated Canada between 1837 and 1885 and argue that, far from having little impact on the development of Canada from a colonial state to a continental dominion, violence played a seminal influence in stimulating constitutional development. The British government's response to the rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada in 1837 and 1838 was to establish a union of the two provinces in 1841 and rule by a 'responsible' government from 1848 that proved sufficiently resilient in facing down the Tory reactions to the Rebellion Losses legislation. The Fenian invasions in 1866 impacted on the Confederation debates, though to what extent is unclear, but the fear of further Fenian incursions reinforced the argument that domestic security could only be achieved through a closer constitutional federalism. The resistance in Manitoba in 1869 and 1870 reflected the hesitant nature of the new Confederation especially its failure to take account of minority interests while the North-West rebellion in 1885 demonstrated its unwillingness to negotiate for a second time and the growing confidence of its political and military position.

 

Contents

Preface

Prologue: A Peaceable Kingdom

1. Populism and Protest

2. Niagara, 1837

3. The Militia and French Canada 1760-1867

4. Defending the Crown

5. Provoking violence: Montreal and Longueuil

6. Patriotes and independence

7. Was Papineau to blame?

8. The Diary of the Rev. Henry Scadding, 1837-1838

9. Murder, Vengeance and Rebellion

10. Russia and rebellion in North America

11. Interpreting the rebellions

12. Canada’s ‘Wars of Religion’

13. The Offending Arch

14. Rebellion, remembering and trauma

Index

Resistance and Rebellion: a review

Resistance and Rebellion in the British Empire 1600-1980, Richard Brown, Clio Publishing, 2013, paperback, 626 pp., £27.95 ISBN 9780955698385

Susan England of Clio, in an unusual, but entirely appropriate, appreciation of the author by the publisher in a foreword to this final volume of Richard Brown’s remarkable trilogy of studies of resistance and rebellion in the British Empire, completed since his retirement from full-time teaching, observes that the recent recognition by the High Court in London in October 2012 of the case of three veteran survivors of the ‘systematic torture, incarceration and killing’ allegedly meted out by the British colonial powers in Kenya during the seven-year Mau-Mau rebellion in the 1950s, provides an ever-present reminder of the continuing resonance of the experience of empire in our world today. This third volume of Brown’s epic trilogy breaks the chronological mould of volumes 1 and 2, which focused predominantly on developments in Britain, Canada and Australia in the six decades extending from the 1830s to the 1880s. By contrast to its predecessors, it ‘explores a diverse range of anti-colonial rebellions within the British Empire from a broader chronological and geographical perspective’ utilising case studies from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries drawn from a gazetteer encompassing America, Australia, Cyprus, Kenya, Mauritius, New Zealand, Sierra Leone and South Africa, including some names more familiar to philatelists than to many students of history, all of which challenged at some point British imperial rule. The rebellions are crisply categorised as convict, migrant, fiscal, millenarian, nationalist and even a rum rebellion.

This latter, ‘very British rebellion’, occurring unusually within the colonial elite, and so-called because rum had become the substitute for currency in the barter-based economy of New South Wales, is particularly memorable since it challenged the authority of Captain William Bligh, the survivor of the mutiny of the Bounty in 1789 led by Fletcher Christian, the ship’s first mate. Bligh who in this later episode, lucidly and meticulously reconstructed by Brown, mainly from the contemporary evidence of Bligh’s correspondence and worthy perhaps of a cinematic sequel, was imprisoned from 1808 to 1810 by mutinous soldiers, but later exonerated of all blame and promoted admiral on his retirement in 1811. Brown’s characteristically trenchant analysis of Bligh’s conduct, however, reveals that even before his arrival as governor of the New South Wales penal colony, his style of governance had led to problems with his subordinates on the voyage, and that soon after his arrival he replaced many of the officials with military experience with his own appointments which ‘did not play well in a small community and did not endear him to the corps’. Indeed, he then proceeded to antagonise not only influential figures in the colony but also some of the less wealthy government leasehold tenants within Sydney, challenging their property rights and also gaining a reputation for ‘his abusing and confining’ the soldiers of the New South Wales Corps ‘without the smallest provocation’. This prompted John Harris, the corps’ surgeon who had been dismissed from his positions of naval officer and magistrate to compare his exercise of authority to that of Robespierre or the Terror or even the Roman emperor, Caligula, who ‘never reigned with more despotic sway than he does’. Meanwhile, in Sydney a verse was circulating, invoking the Bounty mutiny, appealing: ‘Is there no Christian in New South Wales to put a stop to the Tyranny of the Governor’.

Brown’s vivid analytical narrative, here as elsewhere, illuminates a relatively obscure episode of imperial history within a broader, carefully researched, wide-ranging study of anti-colonial resistance and rebellion. The publisher Clio and author Richard Brown are to be congratulated on producing such a wide-ranging concluding volume to a stimulating series in such an attractive format, which has the potential to engage with a wider student and general readership than might previously have been attracted to the study of British imperial history.

John A. Hargreaves

‘Peaceable Kingdom’: Essays on Nineteenth Century Canada

I’m not sure when this book will finally be published but I’m hoping to complete it by August or possibly September.  While researching the Rebellions Trilogy and the two volumes of Rebellion in Canada, 1837-1885 I drafted a series of papers on Canadian history that contributed to the published work. This was part of the process of honing drafts of the books into a form that combined a narrative of the key events, their causation and consequences with a critique of that narrative by examining linkage and remembrance. This collection of essays brings together some of those jottings and has given me the opportunity to rewrite them in the light of further research.

‘Canada is an unmilitary community,’ wrote C. P. Stacey, Canada’s pre-eminent military historian. ‘Warlike her people have often been forced to be, military they have never been.’ [1] There is a view that, unlike almost every other democracy, Canadians have not had to fight for their freedom. The rebellions in Lower and Upper Canada in 1837 and 1838 and Louis Riel's Red River ‘Resistance’ of 1869-1870 and the North-West Rebellion of 1885 are portrayed as little more than military skirmishes while describing the four-day action at Batoche as a ‘battle’ is seen as a serious over-dramatisation.

I’ve just completed an essay that explores the question of Russia and rebellion in Canada considering this less from the point of view of ‘rumour’, as previous historians have done but placing the Patriotes and Fenians and their calls for Russian support in the context of Russian foreign and diplomatic policy between 1837 and 1885.  What is now evident is that, although efforts to obtain Russian support ultimately failed, those efforts appear far less eccentric than previously thought and that Russian support, in part to destabilise Britain’s empire, was not as ridiculous as it often appears.

Other essays will examine populism and protest in 1837 and the deaths of Lieutenant Weir and Armand Chartrand and ask whether Papineau was to blame for the failure of rebellion in Lower Canada and whether Canada experienced ‘wars of religion’ in the nineteenth century.

---

[1] Stacey, C. P., Six Years of War: The Army in Canada, Britain and the Pacific, (Queen’s Printer), 1953, p. 3. Several years before Prime Minister W. L. Mackenzie King had stated: ‘We are fighting to defend democratic and Christian ideals [and] we have transformed one of the least military people on earth into a nation organised for modern war’, Hutchinson’s Pictorial History of the War, no. 1, Series 13, July-December, 1941, p. 199.

Settler Australia, 1780-1880, Volume 2: Eureka and Democracy

JUST PUBLISHED

The second volume, Eureka and Democracy, is also divided into two parts. The constitutional separation of New South Wales and the Port Phillip District in 1851 and the establishment of Victoria as a separate colony coincided with the discovery of large deposits of gold. Although the established colonial administration in New South Wales coped relatively well with the ensuing influx of immigrants in search of success on the gold diggings, developments in Victoria were less auspicious. Coping with setting up the new colony and the rapid growth in population proved difficult for Charles La Trobe, the colony’s Lieutenant-Governor leading to growing protest from diggers who, not without justification, felt oppressed by colonial taxation and the colonial police. With widespread protest in 1851 and 1853, matters came to a head in Ballarat in the final months of 1854 when a combination of colonial mismanagement, locally and in Melbourne, and a burgeoning sense of in justice and tyranny led to the formation of a rebel stockade on the Eureka gold field and its brutal repression by British troops and colonial police. It proved a pyrrhic victory for the authorities that was damned for the heavy-handed nature of its actions during and after the attack on the Stockade and was unable to convict any of those brought to trial for high treason the following year. How far Eureka was responsible for political change in Victoria in the mid-1850s is debatable. The process of establishing responsible government in the colony took place parallel to the increasing intensity of protest on the goldfields and would have occurred whether there were protests or not. Nonetheless, the ‘spirit’ of Eureka played an important role in establishing a new system of colonial government that was aware of and responsive to populist demands and Eureka was and still is regarded as the midwife of democracy in Australia. It became, though initially its memory was ‘whispered’, one of the defining events in the formation of Australian nationalism.

The second section of the book contains five papers linked broadly to the theme of democracy. They explore the different ways in which working people struggled to define their rights within the framework of changing notions of the colonial state and maintain those rights against assault from those who favoured an anti-democratic state and from immigrant labour. Paradoxically, the Australian state that emerged from the 1870s was both inclusively democratic in character and also exclusively racist and ‘white’ in its cultural attitudes leading to the espousal of a ‘White Australia’ policy after Federation in 1901. For most of the nineteenth century, according to Richard White, there was no strong evidence of a distinctively Australian identity: ‘Australians saw themselves, and were seen by others, as part of a group of new, transplanted, predominantly Anglo-Saxon emigrant societies’. It is significant that a sense of national distinctiveness only grew stronger towards the end of the century and that this was accompanied by ‘a more explicitly racial element’, based on being Anglo-Saxon or, as confidence in the new society grew, ‘on being the most vigorous branch of Anglo-Saxondom’. White settlers may have been deeply attached to freedom for themselves but they opposed freedom for others. The result was that to be free, individuals needed to be of British or at least European origins. However, these colonial freedoms were not freely given to settlers who had to extract recognition of their rights by persuasion, resistance and even rebellion from metropolitan and colonial authorities that wished to maintain centralised control over colonial activities. The book ends with an examination of the nature of the colonial settler state.

Richard Oastler and factory reform

John A. Hargreaves and E. A. Hilary Haigh, (eds.)

Slavery in Yorkshire: Richard Oastler and the campaign against child labour in the Industrial Revolution

(University of Huddersfield), 2012

238pp., rrp £24 paper , ISBN 978-1-86218-107-6. The book is also available at £20 from www.store.hud.ac.uk.

In Kirkheaton churchyard near Huddersfield there is a fifteen-foot stone obelisk topped by a flame that commemorates ‘The dreadful fate of 17 children who fell unhappy victims to a raging fire at Mr Atkinson’s factory at Colne Bridge, February 14^th 1818.’ All the dead were girls; the youngest nine, the oldest eighteen. The fire started when at about 5 am a boy aged ten was sent downstairs to the ground floor card room to collect some cotton rovings. Instead of taking a lamp, he took a candle that ignited the cotton waste and fire spread quickly through the factory turning it into a raging inferno. The children were trapped on the top floor when the staircase collapsed. The entire factory was destroyed in less than thirty minutes and the boy who had inadvertently started the fire was the last person to leave the building alive. It is not surprising that child labour and the need to regulate it became a national issue in the early 1830s. There had been factory acts in 1802 and 1819 and further agitation between 1825 and 1831 but the legislation was too limited in scope and its enforcement proved difficult. There were, for instance, only two convictions while the 1819 Act operated. It was at this stage that Richard Oastler, a Tory land steward from Huddersfield, burst upon the scene when his celebrated letter on ‘Yorkshire Slavery’ was published in the Leeds Mercury on 16 October 1830.

It is over sixty years since Cecil Driver published his study of Richard Oastler and fifty years since Ward’s study of the factory movement in the twenty years after 1830 appeared. This excellent volume, a fitting conclusion to the University of Huddersfield Archives’ Heritage Lottery-funded Your Heritage project, re-examines Oastler’s impact and draws parallels between the campaign to abolish transatlantic slavery and the campaign to restrict the use of child labour in Britain. Written by some of Yorkshire’s leading historians, the collection of essays provides a rounded assessment of the contribution of Richard Oastler to both the emancipation of children from the horrors of factory labour and the broader emancipation of society from the evils of slavery whether in Britain or in its Empire. The book is introduced by University of Huddersfield historian and Pro-Vice Chancellor Professor Tim Thornton and the foreword is from the Methodist minister Revd Dr Inderjit Bhogal OBE, who chaired the initiative Set All Free that marked the bi-centenary of the act to abolish the transatlantic slave trade. The volume begins with an elegantly written introduction by John A. Hargreaves who positions Oastler and the subsequent chapters within the context of the four decades from the abolition of the slave trade in 1807 and the passage of the Ten Hours Act for factory workers in 1847. This is followed by James Walvin, the doyen of the abolition movement, on William Wilberforce, Yorkshire and the campaign to end transatlantic slavery from its inception in 1787 to the end of the apprenticeship system in 1838. It is a succinct, synoptic analysis not only on what happened and why but also an acute critique of the prevailing historiography especially in its discussion of the impact of the abolition movement on reforming movements from factory reform to Chartism. It was Oastler who maintained that the cause of anti-slavery and Chartism were ‘one and the same’.

The remaining chapters focus on Oastler and provide important reappraisals of different aspects of his life. D. Colin Dews examines Oastler’s Methodist background between 1789 and 1820 demonstrating that his association with evangelicalism stimulated and sustained his commitment to the ten-hour movement while John Halstead explores the Huddersfield Short Time Committee and its radical associations between c1820 and 1876, a particularly valuable discussion of generational differences with Huddersfield radicalism. Edward Royle considers the Yorkshire Slavery campaign between 1830 and 1832 through a close consideration of coverage in the regional press. Janette Martin examines Oastler’s triumphant return to Huddersfield in 1844 after he had served more than three years in jail for debt relating this to Oastler’s skills as an orator and the importance of processions to nineteenth century radicalism; for instance, John Frost’s equally triumphant return to Newport in 1856 after over a decade as a transported felon. The volume ends with a chapter reassessing Oastler and his impact on the factory movement and on radical politics more generally.

Oastler and other reformers may have been successful in their campaign for the ending of child labour but coerced labour remains an important problem in a global economy where labour costs need to be kept low to meet consumer demands for affordable products. The ‘Yorkshire Slavery’ that Oastler so eloquently exposed can still be seen not just in the developing world but, as recent cases of ‘slavery’ brought before the courts demonstrate, in Britain as well. This excellent volume, beautifully illustrated and presented by the University of Huddersfield Press shows not simply the contribution Oastler made to achieving a sense of childhood largely devoid of economic exploitation but that the campaign he initiated in late 1830 remains a campaign that has yet to be concluded. After nearly two centuries as a global community we have yet to eradicate economic inhumanity and exploitation for profit.

Nineteenth century social history

Those of you who follow my blogs on nineteenth century British social history might like to know that modified and more recent versions of the blogs are available as a series of Kindle books.  They have been published in two formats . As five single volumes:

• Economy, Population and Transport
• Work, Health and Poverty
• Education, Crime and Leisure
• Class
• Religion and Government

Or as a single volume: Society under Pressure: Britain 1830-1914.  In addition, a supplementary volume Sex, Work and Politics: Women in Britain 1830-1918 has also been published in both print and Kindle versions.

All of these volumes are available at the click of a mouse from Amazon sites in the UK, Europe and North America and are now also available in India. 

Rebellion in Canada, 1837-1885, Volume 2: The Irish, the Fenians and the Metis

JUST PUBLISHED

In less than fifty years Canada experienced six major rebellions: in Lower and Upper Canada in late 1837 and 1838, the Fenian rebellions of 1866 and 1870 and the Pembina affair in 1871 and Louis Riel's resistance at Red River in 1869-1870 and his rebellion fifteen years later in Saskatchewan. Each failed to achieve its aims and, in one sense, the two books in the Canadian Rebellion series are studies of political disappointment. The second volume, The Irish, the Fenians and the Metis, considers the impact of the Irish diaspora on the United States and Canada and the rebellions led largely by Irish-American Fenians in the 1860s and 1870s and also the rebellions, led by Louis Riel in 1869-1870 and 1885, by the Metis.

Chapter 1 examines the Irish diaspora to North America during the nineteenth century and focuses especially on the impact of the Famine in the 1840s and 1850s. Chapter 2 considers at the ways in which Irish nationalism maintained a strong political presence in the United States and Canada from the beginning of the nineteenth century and the emergence of the Fenian Brotherhood in New York in 1858. The political impact of this movement was both enhanced and restricted by the American Civil War between 1861 and 1865 yet the Fenians emerged in April 1865 as a powerful, if increasingly divided, force with concrete plans for the liberation of Ireland. Chapter 3 explores in detail at the three Irish-American Fenian incursions into Canada in 1866, 1870 and briefly and debatably in 1871, the impact that they had on Canadian and American politics and how this led to changes in Irish nationalism in the 1870s. Chapters 4 and 5 extend the story geographically beyond Quebec and Ontario across the continent to the unchartered and largely unsettled prairies of the North-West. The importance of rebellion in state-building in Canada is considered in the final chapter.

Contents

Series Preface

1 Famine and Diaspora

2 Irish Nationalism in North America to 1865

3 Rebellions in Canada, 1866, 1870 and 1871

4 Riel and Resistance, 1869-1870

5 Riel and Rebellion, 1885

6 A Contested Consensus

Appendix: Who ran colonial government?

Further Reading

Index

Features

Comprehensive narrative and analysis of the context causes, course and results of the rebellions including analysis of constitutional, political, social, economic and cultural influences

Discusses the effects of the Irish Famine and the resulting emigration to the United States and Canada

Examines the influence of nationalism on political developments in the United States and Canada

Considers the role played by individuals such as John Mahony, Louis Riel and John A. Macdonald on the development of competing political agendas

Examines the rebellions in their historiographical context

Rebellion in Canada, 1837-1885 Volume 1: Autocracy, Rebellion and Liberty

JUST PUBLISHED

In less than fifty years Canada experienced six major rebellions: in Lower and Upper Canada in late 1837 and 1838, the Fenian rebellions of 1866 and 1870 and the Pembina affair in 1871 and Louis Riel's resistance at Red River in 1869-1870 and his rebellion fifteen years later in Saskatchewan. Each failed to achieve its aims and, in one sense, the two books in the Canadian Rebellion series are studies of political disappointment. The rebellions revealed the draconian ways in which the state responded to threats to public order and legitimate authority. Yet it is the losers in 1837-1838 and 1885, though this is less the case for those in 1866 and 1870 who are now better and more positively remembered than the victors. These events each represented the beginnings of political change and especially the move towards 'responsive', 'responsible' and 'representative' government as British Government, at least in its imperial manifestation recognised the necessity of rule with the consent of colonists.

 

Autocracy, Rebellion and Liberty examines the way in which the Canadas developed from the 1760s through to Confederation a century later. The opening chapters consider the context for the rebellions in 1837 and 1838. Chapter 1 examines the development of the two Canadas between the end of French Canada in 1760 and the turn of the century. Chapter 2 considers the economic, social, political, ideological and cultural tensions that evolved from the 1790s and the largely unsuccessful attempts by the colonial state and politicians in London to find acceptable and sustainable solutions to populist demands for greater autonomy. Chapter 3 looks in detail at the rebellions in 1837 and 1838 and at their immediate aftermath. Chapter 4 examines the ways in which Canadian politics developed in the newly united Province of Canada in the years between 1841 and the creation of Confederation in 1867.

Contents:

Series Preface
Prologue: Conflicting Liberties
1 Forming the Canadas
2 From discord to rebellion
3 Rebellions and Retribution, 1837-1839
4 From Union to Confederation
Appendices
Further reading
Index

Features:

Comprehensive narrative of the context, causes, course and consequences of the rebellions combining analysis of the constitutional, political, social, economic and cultural features.
Examines the critical role played by Louis-Joseph Papineau, William Mackenzie, Louis LaFontaine and Robert Baldwin in the move from an autocratic to responsive and responsible system of government.
Considers the rebellions in their historiographical context.

Rebellion in Canada

My decision to publish Rebellion in Canada as two print volumes as well as a combined Kindle edition has given me the opportunity to produce the covers for the two books.

Autocracy, Rebellion and Liberty examines the way in which the Canadas developed from the 1760s through to Confederation a century later. The opening chapters consider the context for the rebellions in 1837 and 1838. Chapter 1 examines the development of the two Canadas between the end of French Canada in 1760 and the turn of the century. Chapter 2 considers the economic, social, political, ideological and cultural tensions that evolved from the 1790s and the largely unsuccessful attempts by the colonial state and politicians in London to find acceptable and sustainable solutions to populist demands for greater autonomy. Chapter 3 looks in detail at the rebellions in 1837 and 1838 and at their immediate aftermath. Chapter 4 examines the ways in which Canadian politics developed in the newly united Province of Canada in the years between 1841 and the creation of Confederation in 1867.

The second volume, The Irish, the Fenians and the Metis, considers the impact of the Irish diaspora on the United States and Canada and the rebellions led largely by Irish-American Fenians in the 1860s and 1870s and also the rebellions, led by Louis Riel in 1869-1870 and 1885, by the Metis. Chapter 1 examines the Irish diaspora to North America during the nineteenth century and focuses especially on the impact of the Famine in the 1840s and 1850s. Chapter 2 considers at the ways in which Irish nationalism maintained a strong political presence in the United States and Canada from the beginning of the nineteenth century and the emergence of the Fenian Brotherhood in New York in 1858. The political impact of this movement was both enhanced and restricted by the American Civil War between 1861 and 1865 yet the Fenians emerged in April 1865 as a powerful, if increasingly divided, force with concrete plans for the liberation of Ireland. Chapter 3 explores in detail at the three Irish-American Fenian incursions into Canada in 1866, 1870 and briefly and debatably in 1871, the impact that they had on Canadian and American politics and how this led to changes in Irish nationalism in the 1870s. Chapters 4 and 5 extend the story geographically beyond Quebec and Ontario across the continent to the unchartered and largely unsettled prairies of the North-West. The importance of rebellion in state-building in Canada is considered in the final chapter.

Sleepwalking to disaster

In the blurb for Christopher Clark’s forthcoming book, The Sleepwalkers: How Europe went to war in 1914, (Allen Lane), he suggests

‘Europe was racked by chronic problems: a multipolar, fractured, multicultural world of clashing ideals, terrorism, militancy and instability, which was, fatefully, saddled with a conspicuously ineffectual set of political leaders. He shows how the rulers of Europe, who prided themselves on their modernity and rationalism, behaved like sleepwalkers, stumbling through crisis after crisis…’

Now doesn’t that sound familiar!

Publications: revised version

Those publications with an asterisk (*) were co-written with C.W. Daniels. This list does not include editorials for Teaching History, book reviews or unpublished papers. Neither does it include the two series of books for which I have been joint-editor: Cambridge Topics in History and Cambridge Perspectives in History. Including these books would increase the length of this appendix by 52 books.

Computer-based data and social and economic history (for the Local History Classroom Project), (1974)
Social and Economic History and the Computer (for LHCP), (1975)
‘Local and National History -- an interrelated response’, in Suffolk History Forum, 1977
‘Our Future Local Historians’, in The Local Historian, volume xiii, 1978 *
‘Sixth Form History’, in Teaching History, May 1976 *
‘Sixth Form History’, in The Times Educational Supplement, 3^rd June 1977 *
‘The new history -- an essential reappraisal’, in ibid, 2^nd December 1977 *
‘Interrelated Issues’, in ibid, 1^st December 1978 *
‘The Myth Exposed’, in ibid, 30^th November 1979 * also reprinted in John Fines (ed.) see below
Nineteenth Century Britain, (Macmillan), 1980 *
‘The Local History Classroom Project’, in Developments in History Teaching, (University of Exeter), 1980 *
‘A Chronic Hysteresis’, in The Times Educational Supplement, 5^th December 1980 *
Twentieth Century Europe, (Macmillan), 1981 *
‘Is there still room for History in the secondary curriculum?’, in The Times Educational Supplement, 5^th December 1981 *
‘Content considered’, in ibid, 9^th April 1982 *
Twentieth Century Britain, (Macmillan), 1982 *
‘A Level History’, in The Times Educational Supplement, 8^th April 1983 *
‘History in danger revisited’, in ibid, 9^th December 1983 *
‘History and study skills’, in John Fines (ed.), Teaching History, (Holmes McDougall), 1983 
‘History and study skills’, reprinted in School and College, iv (4), 1983
Four scripts for Sussex Tapes, 1983
People, Land and Trade 1830-1914
Pre-eminence and Competition 1830-1914
The Social Impact of the Industrial Revolution
Lloyd George to Beveridge 1906-1950
Four computer programs for Sussex Tapes, 1984
The Industrial Revolution
Population, Medicine and Agriculture
Transport: road, canal and railway
Social Impact of Change
‘It’s time History Teachers were offensive’, in The Times Educational Supplement, 28^th November 1984 *
The Chartists, (Macmillan), 1984 *
‘Using documents with sixth formers’, in The Times Educational Supplement, 29^th November 1985 *
Learning History: A Guide to Advanced Study, (Macmillan), 1986 *
GCSE History, (The Historical Association), 1986, revised edition, 1987, as editor and contributor
‘Training or Survival?’ with M. Booth and G. Shawyer in The Times Educational Supplement, 10^th April 1987
Change and Continuity in British Society 1800-1850, (Cambridge Topics in History, Cambridge University Press), 1987
‘There are always alternatives: Britain during the Depression’ for BBC Radio, 14^th September 1987
‘Cultural imperialism’, in The Times Educational Supplement, 4^th December, 1987
‘The Training of History Teachers Project’, in Teaching History, 50, January 1988
‘History’ in Your Choice of A-Levels, (CRAC,) 1988 
‘The Development of Children’s Historical Thinking’ with G. Shawyer and M. Booth, Cambridge Journal of Education, volume 18(2), 1988.
‘The New Demonology’, Teaching History, 53, October 1988
The Future of the Past: History in the Curriculum 5-16: A Personal Overview, (The Historical Association), 1988 
‘History Study Skills: Working with Sources’, History Sixth, 3, October 1988 *
‘A Critique of GCSE History: the results of The Historical Association Survey’, Teaching History, March 1989.
‘History Textbook Round-up’, Teachers’ Weekly, September 1990.
‘Partnership and the Training of Student History Teachers’, with M. Booth and G. Shawyer, in M. Booth, J. Furlong and M. Wilkin (eds.), Partnership in Initial Teacher Training, (Cassell), 1990
Economy and Society in Modern Britain 1700-1850 (Routledge), 1991 
Church and State in Modern Britain 1700-1850 (Routledge), 1991 
‘History’ in Your Choice of A-Levels, (CRAC), 1991 
‘Lies, damn lies and statistics’, Teaching History, 63, April 1991
‘BTEC and History’, in John Fines (ed.), History 16-19, (The Historical Association), 1991 
‘What about the author?’, Hindsight: GCSE Modern History Review, volume 2(1), September 1991
‘Appeasement: A matter of opinion?’, Hindsight: GCSE Modern History Review, volume 2(2), January 1992
Economic Revolutions 1750-1850 (Cambridge Topics in History, CUP), 1992 
‘Suez: a question of causation’, Hindsight: GCSE Modern History Review, volume 4(1), September 1993
‘History’ in Your Choice of A-Levels, (CRAC,) 1993 
History and post-16 vocational courses’, in H. Bourdillon (ed.), Teaching History, (Routledge), 1993
‘Learning effectively at Advanced Level’, pamphlet for PGCE ITT course, (Open University), 1994
Preparing for Inspection, (The Historical Association), 1994
Managing the Learning of History, (David Fulton), 1995 
Chartism: People, Events and Ideas (Perspectives in History, Cambridge University Press), 1998
BBC History File: consultant on five Key Stage 3 programmes on Britain 1750-1900
Revolution, Radicalism and Reform: England 1780-1846, (Perspectives in History, Cambridge University Press), 2001 
‘The state in the 1840s’, Modern History Review, September 2003
‘Chartism and the state’, Modern History Review, November 2003
‘Chadwick and Simon: the problem of public health reform’, Modern History Review, April 2005
Three Rebellions: Canada 1837-1838, South Wales 1839, Eureka 1854, (Clio Publishing), 2010
Three Rebellions: Canada 1837-1838, South Wales 1839, Eureka 1854, (Clio Publishing), 2011 Kindle edition
Famine, Fenians and Freedom, 1840-1882, (Clio Publishing), 2011
Economy, Population and Transport (Nineteenth Century British Society), 2011 Kindle edition
Work, Health and Poverty, (Nineteenth Century British Society), 2011 Kindle edition
Education, Crime and Leisure, (Nineteenth Century British Society), 2011 Kindle edition
Class, (Nineteenth Century British Society), 2012 Kindle edition
Religion and Government, (Nineteenth Century British Society), 2012 Kindle edition
Society under Pressure: Britain 1830-1914, (Nineteenth Century British Society), 2012 Kindle edition
Sex, Work and Politics: Women in Britain, 1830-1918, (Authoring History), 2012
Famine, Fenians and Freedom, 1840-1882, (Clio Publishing), 2012 Kindle edition
Sex, Work and Politics: Women in Britain 1830-1918, 2012,  Kindle edition
Rebellion in Canada, 1837-1885 Volume 1: Autocracy, Rebellion and Liberty, (Authoring History), 2012
Rebellion in Canada, 1837-1885, Volume 2: The Irish, the Fenians and the Metis, (Authoring History), 2012
Resistance and Rebellion in the British Empire, 1600-1980, Clio Publishing, 2013
Settler Australia, 1780-1880, Volume 1: Settlement, Protest and Control, (Authoring History), 2013
Settler Australia, 1780-1880, Volume 2: Eureka and Democracy, (Authoring History), 2013
Rebellion in Canada, 1837-1885, 2013, Kindle edition
'A Peaceable Kingdom': Essays on Nineteenth Century Canada, (Authoring History), 2013
Resistance and Rebellion in the British Empire, 1600-1980, 2013, Kindle edition
Settler Australia, 1780-1880, 2013, Kindle Edition
Coping with Change: British Society, 1780-1914, (Authoring History), 2013
Before Chartism: Exclusion and Resistance, (Authoring History), 2014
Suger: The Life of Louis VI 'the Fat', (Authoring History), 2014, Kindle edition
Chartism: Rise and Demise, (Authoring History), 2014
Sex, Work and Politics: Women in Britain, 1780-1945, (Authoring History), 2014.
Before Chartism: Exclusion and Resistance, (Authoring History), 2014, Kindle edition
Chartism: Rise and Demise, (Authoring History), 2015, Kindle edition
'Development of the Professions', in Ross, Alastair, Innovating Professional Services: Transforming Value and Efficiency, (Ashgate), 2015, pp. 271-274
Chartism: Localities, Spaces and Places, The Midlands and the South, (Authoring History), 2015
Chartism: Localities, Spaces and Places, The North, Scotland Wales and Ireland, (Authoring History), 2015
Chartism, Regions and Economies, (Authoring History), 2016
Breaking the Habit: A Life of History, (Authoring History), 2016
Chartism: Localities, Spaces and Places, The Midlands and the South, (Authoring History), 2016, Kindle edition
Chartism: Localities, Spaces and Places, The North, Scotland Wales and Ireland, .(Authoring History), 2016. Kindle edition
Chartism, Regions and Economies, (Authoring History), 2016. Kindle edition.
Suger: The Life of Louis VI 'the Fat', revised edition, (Authoring History), 2016 Robert Guiscard: Portrait of a Warlord, (Authoring History), 2016
Chartism: A Global History and other essays, (Authoring History), 2016

Chartism: A Global History and other essays, (Authoring History), 2016, Kindle edition.

Roger of Sicily: Portrait of a Ruler, (Authoring History), 2016.

Three Rebellions: Canada, South Wales and Australia, (Authoring History), 2016.

Famine, Fenians and Freedom, 1830-1882, (Authoring History), 2017.

Disrupting the British World, 1600-1980, (Authoring History), 2017.
Britain 1780-1850: A Simple Guide, (Authoring History), 2017.
People and Places: Britain 1780-1950, (Authoring History), 2017.
Britain 1780-1945: Society under Pressure, (Authoring History), 2018.
Britain 1780-1945: Reforming Society, (Authoring History), 2018.

Three Rebellions: Canada, South Wales and Australia, (Authoring History), 2018, Kindle edition.Famine, Fenians and Freedom, 1830-1882, (Authoring History), 2018. Kindle edition.
Disrupting the British World, 1600-1980, (Authoring History), 2018, Kindle edition.
Britain 1780-1945: Society under Pressure, (Authoring History), 2018, Kindle edition.
Britain 1780-1945: Reforming Society, (Authoring History), 2018, Kindle edition.
Guiscard: Portrait of a Warlord, (Authoring History), 2016, 2018, Kindle edition.
Roger of Sicily: Portrait of a Ruler, (Authoring History), 2016, 2018, Kindle edition.





 



    

 

Famine, Fenians and Freedom, 1840-1882

JUST PUBLISHED IN KINDLE

 

Famine, Fenians and Freedom, 1840-1882 is the second volume of a trilogy on resistance and rebellion in the British Empire. It is a detailed and nuanced study of the exodus of the impoverished and persecuted from Ireland before and after the Great Famine of the 1840s as they emigrated, or in some cases were transported to, America, Canada and Australia as well as to the British mainland. The critical question for many Irish men and women was whether Ireland should remain part of the United Kingdom, or whether they should seek greater freedom through devolved power or separation. Young Ireland and Fenian movements sought Ireland's independence through rebellion while the populist and parliamentarian constitutionalist Repeal Association and campaign for Home Rule sought devolved government. This was a transnational struggle that carried across the Atlantic to the United States and Canada, to South Africa and Australasia where it was absorbed by existing Irish communities and reinforced by recent immigrants. In these disparate communities, the notion of an independent Ireland was sustained though what it meant in practice within those communities differed. This was an Ireland dominated by personalities such as Daniel O'Connell, James Stephens, Isaac Butt, and Charles Stewart Parnell and by rebellions against British domination in 1848 and 1867. It examines how those who saw themselves as exiled sought to restore Irish independence from what they regarded as British tyranny. This led to unsuccessful Fenian invasions of Canada by Irish-Americans in 1866, 1870 and 1871, the attempted assassination of a member of the British Royal family, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, in Australia in 1868, and the murder of two British politicians in Phoenix Park, Dublin in 1882. It is a story replete with dramatic events; the monster meetings of the Repeal Association, the battle of Ridgeway in 1866, the voyages of the Erin's Hope and the Catalpa, the Manchester 'outrages', and the Clerkenwell bombing, and considers developments in Ireland in their global colonial context and setting.

Contents

Preface
1: A diaspora
2: Repeal, famine and rebellion
3: Fenians and rebellion in Britain, 1850-1882
4: Irish nationalism in North America to 1865
5: Rebellion in Canada
6: Rebellion in Australia
7: Linking Rebellion
Bibliography
Index

Features

The nature and impact of the Famine in its global Irish context in Britain, the United States, Canada and Australia Why, how and where Irish emigrated and how they settled into their new communities How different approaches to Irish nationalism evolved in Ireland, British colonies in Canada and Australia and in the United States and why it failed to achieve its objectives between 1840 and 1882 The nature and differences in the character of Irish rebellion in Ireland, mainland Britain, Canada and Australia in 1848 and during the 1860s looking especially at its military character and failure The role played by individuals such as Daniel O'Connell, Thomas Davis, John Mitchel, John O'Mahony, James Stephens, John O'Neill, John Devoy, Michael Davitt, Isaac Butt and Charles Stewart Parnell.

The First Fleet

The First Fleet consisted of six convict ships (Alexander, Charlotte, Lady Penrhyn, Friendship, Prince of Wales and Scarborough), three food and supply transports (Fishburn, Borrowdale and Golden Grove) and two Royal Navy escorts (HMS Sirius and HMS Supply).[1] It left England on 13 May 1787 stopping at Tenerife on 3 June[2], Rio de Janeiro between 5 August and 3 September[3] before running before the westerly winds to Cape Town, where it arrived in mid-October.[4] Food supplies were replenished and the Fleet was stocked up on plants, seeds and livestock for its arrival in Australia. Assisted by the gales of the latitudes below the fortieth parallel, the heavily-laden transports surged through the violent seas. A freak storm struck as they began to head north around VDL, damaging the sails and masts of some of the ships. In November, Phillip transferred to Supply. With Alexander, Friendship and Scarborough, the fastest ships in the Fleet and carrying most of the male convicts, Supply hastened ahead to prepare for the arrival of the rest. Phillip intended to select a suitable location, find good water, clear the ground and perhaps to build some huts and other structures before the other ships arrived.[5] However, the Supply reached Botany Bay on 18 January 1788 only hours before the rest of the Fleet, so no preparatory work was possible. The three fastest transports in the advance group arrived on 19 January; slower ships, including the Sirius arrived the following day. Eleven vessels carrying about 1,400 people and stores had travelled more than 15,000 miles in 252 days without losing a ship. Forty-eight people had died on the journey, a death rate of just over three per cent. Given the rigours of the voyage, the navigational problems, the poor condition and sea-faring inexperience of the convicts, the primitive medical knowledge, the lack of precautions against scurvy, the crammed and foul conditions of the ships, poor planning and inadequate equipment, this was a remarkable achievement.

The Founding of Australia, 26 January 1788, by Capt. Arthur Phillip R.N. Sydney Cove
Original oil sketch [1937] by Algernon Talmadge R.A. ML 1222

During the voyage there were seven births, while 69 people either died or were discharged or deserted (61 males and 8 females). As no complete crew musters have survived for the six convict transports and three supply ships, there may have been as many as 110 more seamen. The number of people directly associated with the First Fleet will probably never be exactly established and all accounts of the event vary slightly. Mollie Gillen gives the following statistics.[6]

	Embarked at Portsmouth	Landed at Port Jackson
Officials and passengers	15	14
Ships’ crews	324	269
Marines	247	245
Marines’ wives and children	46	54
Convicts (men)	579	543
Convicts (women)	193	189
Convicts’ children	14	18
Total	1403	1332

It was soon realised that Botany Bay did not live up to the glowing account that Captain James Cook had given it in 1770. The bay was open and unprotected, fresh water was scarce and Phillip considered the soil around Botany Bay was poor for growing crop. The area was studded with enormously strong trees. When the convicts tried to cut them down, their tools broke and the tree trunks had to be blasted out of the ground with gunpowder.[7] The primitive huts built for the officers and officials quickly collapsed in rainstorms. The marines had a habit of getting drunk and not guarding the convicts properly and their commander, Major Robert Ross was arrogant and lazy and this caused some difficulties for Phillip.[8] Crucially, Phillip worried that his fledgling colony was exposed to attack from the local indigenous people, the Eora, who seemed curious but suspicious of the newcomers or foreign powers. On 21 January, Phillip and a party that included John Hunter left Botany Bay in three small boats to explore other bays to the North. Phillip discovered that Port Jackson, immediately to the North, was an excellent site for a colony with sheltered anchorages, fresh water and fertile soil. Cook had seen and named the harbour, but had not entered. Phillip’s impressions of the harbour were recorded in a letter he sent to England later; ‘the finest harbour in the world, in which a thousand sail of the line may ride in the most perfect security...’[9] The party returned on 23 January and was startled when two French ships, a scientific expedition led by Jean-François de La Pérouse came into sight and entered Botany Bay.[10] The French remained until 10 March and had expected to find a thriving colony where they could repair ships and restock supplies, not a newly arrived fleet of convicts worse off than themselves.

On 26 January 1788, the fleet weighed anchor and by evening had entered Port Jackson. The site selected for the anchorage had deep water close to the shore, was sheltered and had a small stream flowing into it. Phillip named it Sydney Cove, after Lord Sydney the Home Secretary. It was to be almost two and a half years before other ships arrived with their cargo of new convicts and provisions. From the start the settlement was overwhelmed with problems. Very few convicts knew how to farm and the soil around Sydney Cove was poor. Instead of Cook’s lush pastures, well watered and fertile ground, suitable for growing all types of foods and providing grazing for cattle, they found a hot, dry, unfertile land unsuitable for the small farming necessary to make the settlement self-sufficient. Everyone, from the convicts to Captain Phillip, was on rationed food. Shelter was also a problem. They had very little building material and the government had provided only a very limited supply of poor quality tools.[11] Extra clothing had been forgotten and, by the time the Second Fleet arrived, convicts and marines alike were dressed in patched and threadbare clothing.[12] By July 1788, all the ships except the Sirius and Supply had left and the settlement was isolated.

The Sirius

On 2 October, the Sirius was despatched to Cape Town to purchase provisions.[13] Until her return on 2 May 1789, rations were cut back and this reduced work on farming and building. In early 1788, the Supply had taken a small contingent of convicts and marines led by Second Lieutenant Philip Gidley King, Phillip’s protégé, to Norfolk Island to set up another penal colony. The land proved more fertile than Sydney Cove and the timber of better quality, but the rocky cliffs surrounding the island meant that it could not be loaded on the ship for transport to Sydney Cove. The Supply brought a few green turtles back on its voyages from Norfolk Island that helped to supplement the food in the colony.[14] Exploration of the country to the west of Sydney Cove resulted in the location of better land on the Parramatta River. A settlement was to develop there, called Rose Hill and agriculture, although on a small scale at first, was eventually successful.[15] In an attempt to deal with the food crisis, Phillip in 1789 granted James Ruse, a convict the land of Experiment Farm at Parramatta on the condition that he developed a viable agriculture and became the first person to grow grain successfully in Australia.[16] However, lack of transport meant that crops, when harvested, would not be readily available for Sydney.[17]

In February 1790, the Sirius was ordered to proceed to China to purchase further supplies. This was delayed as she and the Supply were needed to take more convicts to Norfolk Island, in an attempt to reduce pressure on the dwindling supplies in Sydney. On 19 February the Sirius ran aground and was wrecked off Norfolk Island leaving the colony with just one ship.[18] The Supply returned in April and on 17 April left to sail to Batavia to get supplies as the situation was becoming desperate with only three months’ supply left of some foods.[19] On 3 June, the Lady Juliana,[20] a transport with 222 female convicts arrived at Sydney Cove followed on 20 June by the Justinian with provisions for the colony. Rations were immediately increased and, with the arrival of further ships carrying convicts, the old labour hours were restored. New buildings were planned and large areas of land near Rose Hill were cleared for cultivation. In October 1790, the Supply returned safely from its voyage to Batavia, and eight weeks later, a Dutch ship, the Waaksamheyd, which Lieutenant Ball had hired, arrived with a full cargo of rice flour and salted meat. It turned out though, that much of the food was of such poor quality, as to be inedible, and after only a few months, the colony was once again on the verge of starvation.

---

[1] On the First Fleet, see ibid, Gillen, Mollie, The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet and ibid, Bateson, Charles, The Convict Ships 1787-1868, pp. 94-119. Among the more important accounts published by officers of the First Fleet are Phillip, Arthur, The voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay: with an account of the establishment of the colonies of Port Jackson & Norfolk Island, (John Stockdale), 1790, White, John, Journal of a voyage to New South Wales with sixty-five plates of nondescript animals, birds, lizards, serpents, curious cones of trees and other natural productions, (J. Debrett), 1790, Tench, Watkin, A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay: With an Account of New South Wales, Its Productions, Inhabitants, &c. To which is Subjoined, a List of the Civil and Military Establishments at Port Jackson, (printed for Messrs. H. Chamberlaine, W. Wilson, L. White, P. Byrne, A. Gruebier, Jones, and B. Dornin), 1789, ibid, Hunter, John, An historical journal of events at Sydney and at sea, 1787-1792 and Collins, David, An account of the English colony in New South Wales from its first settlement in January 1788, to August 1801: with remarks on the dispositions, customs, manners, &c., of the native inhabitants of that country, (T. Cadell and W. Davies), 1798. See also, Irvine, Nance, (ed.), The Sirius Letters: The Complete Letters of Newton Fowell, midshipman and Lieutenant aboard the Sirius, Flagship of the First Fleet on its voyage to New South Wales, (Fairfax Library), 1988.

[2] Phillip to Lord Sydney, 5 June 1787, Phillip to Under Secretary Nepean, 5 June 1787, HRNSW, Vol. 1, (2), pp. 106-108.

[3] Phillip to Lord Sydney, 2 September 1787, Phillip to Under Secretary Nepean, 2 September 1787, HRNSW, Vol. 1, (2), pp. 109-117.

[4] Phillip to Lord Sydney, 10 November 1787, HRNSW, Vol. 1, (2), pp. 118-119.

[5] Phillip to Lord Sydney, 15 May 1788, HRNSW, Vol. 1, (2), pp. 121-136 considers the first three months at Sydney Cove.

[6] Ibid, Gillen, Mollie, The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet, p. 445.

[7] HRNSW, Vol. 1, (2), pp. 121-122, 348 gives Phillip’s assessment of Botany Bay and his reasons for choosing Sydney Cove.

[8] Moore, John, The First Fleet marines, 1788-1792, (University of Queensland Press), 1987. See also, Macmillan, David S., ‘Ross, Robert (1740?-1794)’, ADB, Vol. 2, pp. 397-398. Tensions between Phillip and Ross were evident from the founding of the settlement.

[9] HRNSW, Vol. 1, (2), pp. 67-70.

[10] Dyer, Colin, The French Explorers and Sydney, (University of Queensland Press), 2009 draws on French observations of the British convict settlement at Sydney Cove.

[11] HRNSW, Vol. 2, p. 388 lists the articles sent with the First Fleet

[12] Phillip to Nepean, 5 July 1788, Phillip to Lord Sydney, 5 July 1788, HRNSW, Vol. 1, (2), pp. 142-144, 145-151.

[13] Phillip to Lord Sydney, 30 October 1788, HRNSW, Vol. 1, (2), pp. 207-209.

[14] Phillip to Lord Sydney, 28 September 1788, HRNSW, Vol. 1, (2), pp. 185-193.

[15] On the early development of Rose Hill see, HRNSW, Vol. 1, (2), pp. 198, 209-217.

[16] An account of Ruse’s methods is given in Tench, Watkin, A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson, (Nicol and Sewell), 1793, pp. 80-81. See also, Fitzhardinge, L.F., ‘Tench, Watkin (1758?-1833)’, ADB, Vol. 2, pp. 506-507 and Wood, G.A., ‘Lieutenant William Dawes and Captain Watkin Tench’, Journal and Proceedings, (Royal Australian Historical Society), Vol. 10, (1), (1924), pp. 1-24.

[17] The problem of the lack of artisans and farmers identified by Phillip was quickly acknowledged in London and ‘it is advisable that twenty-five of those confined in the hulks...who are likely to be the most useful should be sent out in the ship [Lady Juliana] intended to convey provisions and stores’: see Lord Sydney to the Lords of the Admiralty, 29 April 1789, HRNSW, Vol. 1, (2), pp. 230-231.

[18] Captain John Hunter had expressed concerns over the soundness of the ship the previous year especially ‘that the copper has not been taken off her bottom...between eight and nine years’: Hunter to Secretary Stephens, 18 February 1789, HRNSW, Vol. 1, (2), p. 227. See also, Ross to Phillip, 22 March 1790 and Phillip to Lord Sydney, 11 April 1790, HRNSW, Vol. 1, (2), pp. 319-321, 326-327, Harris to Clayton, HRNSW, Vol. 1, (2), pp. 340-342 on the loss of the ship and Lieutenant Fowell to his father, HRNSW, Vol. 1, (2), 31 July 1790, pp. 373-386.

[19] Phillip to Nepean, 15 April 1790, 16 April 1790, HRNSW, Vol. 1, (2), pp. 330-331.

[20] Phillip to Nepean, 17 June 1790, HRNSW, Vol. 1, (2), pp. 346-351.

Sex, Work and Politics: Women in Britain, 1830-1918

JUST PUBLISHED

 

In 1830, women of all classes were repressed in a male-dominated society. By 1918, largely through their own struggles, they had seized control over most areas of their lives. Some of these sought access to the public sphere in education, the professions and central and local government. Others aimed to improve women’s legal and economic status within marriage. Married women’s property rights, divorce, custody of children, domestic violence as well as prostitution were all significant areas in which feminists campaigned for changes in the male-oriented status of the law and the differing moral standards to which wives and husbands were expected to conform. The long campaign for women's suffrage by suffragists and after 1903 suffragettes and the effects of World War 1 culminated in some women getting the vote in 1918 and a decade later women achieved the vote on the same terms as men. Yet, despite these advances for many largely working-class women, the tyranny of multiple pregnancies, poorly paid work and limited access to the means of personal improvement remained. This book explores the ways in which women's status in society developed and changed during the nineteenth and early-twentieth century by looking at the nature of and challenges to women's place in a masculine world, the character of work and how women achieved political and legal rights.

This innovative study is available from: http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Work-Politics-Britain-1830-1918/dp/146644908X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1336837483&sr=1-2