I would like to consider the migration in the medieval Britain from the 'nation address'. It is my coinage for the names of the 'nations' at the end of the 'inscriptio', that is the address part, of the acta. I have studied for years the nation addresses of the acta of kings, bishops, abbeys, and nobilities of Britain . I would like to present the synthesis of my research. This kind of address first appeared soon after the Norman Conquest in the acta of William the Conqueror and spread soon after in Britain. Gradually it disappeared in the second half of the twelfth century. So apparently it has something to do with the migrations of the Normans, and the at first sharpened, then later blurred, sense on the nations. On the other hand it had local variations in its style, its appearance and disappearance. One outstanding case is seen in the acta of the bishops of Durham, where nation addresses are seen much more and much later than in other bishoprics'. But early in the thirteenth century they suddenly disappeared. Here not only the migration but also the spread and acceptance of the new wording of the acta itself seem to be the significant point. I think this will involve the broader problem of the style of the government, and the acculturation, too, and I hope to make clear this situation as far as possible in my presentation. Lastly I would like to consider the 'nation address' phenomenon with the 'nations' seen in the narrative sources, and consider the medieval British nations in the broader sphere.
This lecture aims at demonstrating how services of the stranger churches ― the French Churches and the Dutch Churches in early modern England ― played an important role in making immigrants the members of the stranger churches and their communities. A great number of immigrants had left their homeland; the Netherlands, Germany and France came to England from the middle of the sixteenth century to the beginning of the eighteenth century in order to avoid religious prosecution and other reasons. Most of them settled in London.
Scholars like R.Gwynn, A.Pettegree and O.P.Grell so on have already published on important works of the stranger churches and their communities. Many of immigrants studies, however, have treated immigrants as 'the Dutch'or 'the French'in spite of their coming from different local regions. They became conscious of 'the Dutch (member)' or 'the French (member)', when they settled in England and enjoyed their services, especially in poor relief by the consistory of the stranger churches which exercised discipline and watched over the morals of members. It is possible that, for the leaders of the churches, the services of churches ― along with Protestantism ― were the key factor of process of integration.
To explain that, first, I show the outline of several services by the stranger churches. Second, I scrutinize the system of poor relief and the profiles of the relieved immigrants by analyzing the some documents about the French Churches in late seventeenth century London. This lecture points to the complex problems between the consolidation of immigrant's communities and the assimilation of them in English society. It is suggested that the existence of the integrated immigrant's communities within English/British society stimulated to develop the sense of Englishness/Britishness.
This paper will shed light on two important historical matters. One is the 'Scottish dimension' of the abortive peerage bill (1719), and the other is the well-organised campaign, from 1719 to 1722, of the 'Scottish opposition' against the reintroduction of the bill. Certainly, several historians have considered the bill of great constitutional significance; but they have tended to pay most attention to the 'English dimension' of the bill, which provided that the King could create only six more British peerages (excluding royal princes), and then any further peers only on the extinction of titles. Not surprisingly, ambitious Whig MPs were shocked at the government's proposal, which would have shattered their dreams of being raised to the peerage. Robert Walpole, then a fallen Whig leader, took advantage of the discontent of the Whigs, and they finally defeated the bill.
However, the bill also provided that the 16 Scottish elected representative peers were to be replaced by 25 hereditary ones. It is certain that many of the Scottish nobility had expressed opposition to these representative peers: "a disgrace on the Scottish nobility", long before the peerage bill was introduced. In 1707, not merely the anti-Unionists, but also some Unionists, had preferred to be spoken for by hereditary rather than representative peers. Moreover, such crises as the Malt Tax Bill (1713) convinced many Scots (both in the Lords and in the Commons) that the English ministry did more harm than good. After the Hanoverian succession, even the ministerial Scots were distrustful of the English Court. After 1715 they repeatedly demanded that the ministry should abolish the representative system and nominate hereditary peers who would advance Scottish national interests. Nevertheless, except for a number of Scottish courtiers, the Scots (especially most of the Highlanders) generally disliked the 1719 bill, under which the nominated hereditary peers would have been obedient puppets of the government.
After the government withdrew the bill, the 'English dimension' of the bill seems to have gradually faded away. However, the 'Scottish dimension' was a different story; there was talk of the reintroduction of the bill to abolish the representative system; thus, from 1719 to 1722, there was a well-organised Scottish opposition against the Court. Although the opposition did have staunch Jacobites, they temporarily cooperated with some of the Whigs, and offered keen competition to the ministry at the election of the representative peers in 1722. Making extensive use of MS sources (including several division lists of the Scottish nobility), I will analyse the ideas and the organisation of the Scottish opposition; although they obtained no representative peers, their spirit was sustained. In the early 1730s, the Scottish opposition again levelled criticism against the ministry, during the crisis of the excise scheme.
Philanthropy has recently been discussed as a key to understand the social and political situations of women in late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth-century Britain. It certainly increased the possibility of their active participation in local, even national politics, and thus in the so-called 'public sphere'; they vigorously carried out charitable schemes and articulated their concerns on various social issues, such as the relief and education of the poor, the reformation of manners and the abolition of the slave trade. All this, however, does not explicate the anxiety they suffered over their uncertain identity. Their active presence was markedly politicized, gendered and disorientated not just by their male contenders, but also within themselves in the deeply ramified ideological context of the revolutionary period. A subtle, yet tangible denominational tension prevailed among female philanthropists, especially between Evangelicals and radical dissenters, even though both sides remained zealously cooperative in their missions for Sunday schools and poor relief. The identity problem became even more acute in the case of female dissenters, who faced the dilemma of 'double dissent'; they were well aware of the fact that they dissented not merely from the Anglican Church, but more significantly from male dissenters. Their troubled consciousness manifests itself recurrently in their writings, whether political or literary. In this paper, I should like to focus on the philanthropic activities and discourses of Unitarian women, and seek to clarify their anxiety over their own socio-political orientation as it was shaped and complicated through their mutual communication and their charitable alignments with Evangelicals and Dissenting males. Unitarian women, like their male counterparts, maintained strong and close networks among themselves all over the country. Mrs. Barbauld in Warrington, Mrs. Opie and Susannah Taylor in Norwich, Catherine Cappe in York, and Elizabeth Fletcher in Edinburgh were all linked with each other in one way or another. Their philanthropic alignment, correspondence and expedition configure their unsettled state of identity at the turn of the eighteenth century.
The Victorians re-discovered the middle ages. They also invented them. The ideals of the middle ages became a critique to the contemporary society as well as a prescription to the future society Britain might pursue. The reasonings that the Victorians held for the resurrection of the middle ages varied according to the politics and religions that they believed. Some were merely nostalgic to the lost order of social hierarchy but some felt it more urgent to countercheck what they believed the contemporaneous degradation and disorder. They were both political and religious dissents to the current orthodoxies, yet they became in a way quite an influential and dominant force to change the view of the urban landscape. The conspicuous mass of the Gothic style buildings that dominate the townscape of major British towns is today a so accustomed sight to everyone. How did this medievalist movement become such a leading principle of public as well as private buildings? This paper tries to answer to the question by looking at some of the most influential architects of the nineteenth century such as A W N Pugin, Gilbert Scott and William Burges, and also by locating their beliefs in the politics and religions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In this paper the civic humanist debates are re-examined in the context of the ideals of the middle ages; the idea of national heritage and the appraisals of the unique polity and architecture in the Gothic England are discussed; and the rise of historicism and the controversies concerning the preservations and renovations of ancient monuments, Gothic buildings in particular, are discussed. It is also hoped that the relationships between the religious discourses of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and architectural assertions by historians and architects are examined: the Oxford Movement, the Cambridge Camden Society and Gothic revivalists, for instance, are interrelated and analysed.
The migration from Ireland was the most important immigration in nineteenth-century Britain. Historians have analysed its significance from economic, political and cultural viewpoints. Culturally, the otherness of the poor Catholic Irish is often stressed. It might be argued that the British identity was rebuilt in the nineteenth century, to be distinguished from the Irishness, which resulted in the failure of the construction of a UK identity.
Yet, circumstances surrounding the Militia Interchange Act of 1811 present a different picture. The act authorised the removal from Ireland of about 10,000 militiamen to serve in Britain and their replacements with British militia regiments.
The militia interchange was a political, as well as a military, measure. Historians argue that it had a 'Protestant' motive. Because Catholic military service, particularly of defending their own country, could enhance the cause of Catholic Emancipation, those against Emancipation, including Dublin Castle officials, desired to see the departure of a sizeable proportion of the predominantly Catholic and not always reliable militia.
I intend to argue that the militia interchange had a different political motive. An Irish lord lieutenant urged the measure on the ground that 'such an intercourse by bringing the inhabitants of different parts of the United Kingdom into closer acquaintance ... would go further than any other measure towards cementing the connection of both countries'. It seems that the militia interchange was a measure of constructive unionism, motivated by the sense of necessity, at the outset of the United Kingdom, of assimilating the two societies and peoples of Great Britain and Ireland.
Furthermore, British local societies accepted Irish militiamen with 'the spirit of fraternization'. Hence, it might be further possible to argue that not only an intention but a possibility of constructing a new UK identity lay in the militia interchange.
The Jacobite riots at 'disaffected' Manchester in May and June 1715 are now well-known. However, a letter of 25 June on the disturbances from John Wyvill at Manchester to Lord Townshend, secretary of state, translated into French and now in TNA (PRO): SP35/3, has not attracted due attention of historians. Based on my researches in London, Manchester and Hanover, my paper will place the letter in historical context of Europe in 1715 and discuss the meaning of the translation and the French language in the London and Hanoverian administration of King George I. It will lead to the re-evaluation of the European king, his administration, the language and cosmopolitanism of the period. Also a 'national' bias of English historiography may be commented.
The purpose of this paper is to provide a new explanation of the development of London-based banks for India and other Asian regions within the debates of the "gentlemanly capitalism thesis" of Cain and Hopkins. This paper focuses on business networks between the City of London, the provincial cities and the colonial commercial communities.
In 1851, the Oriental Banking Corporation was granted the Royal Charter for a British registered stock bank, which managed branches and agencies in Indian presidencies and other Asian places. It engaged in the international trading finance for Asian regional markets. The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China in 1853, the Chartered Bank of Asia in 1853 and the Chartered Mercantile Bank of India, London and China in 1857, all were founded on the similar schemes to the Oriental Bank. These foundations were related to many of British merchants and bankers based on the City, provincial cities or colonial trading ports.
When the Chartered Bank of India and the Chartered Bank of Asia were newly planed in London between 1852 and 1853, the East India Company opposed these schemes from the very outset. Both some of East India houses in London and the Manchester Chamber of Commerce agreed on the Company's financial policy. The Liverpool East India Association was also fiercely against two schemes of London-based banks. More interestingly, after the demise of the East India Company in 1858, the Oriental Bank and the Chartered Mercantile Bank succeeded in making the further expansion of banking business toward the Straits Settlements, in contrast with their failures in Indian presidencies. Indeed, the Singapore Chamber of Commerce saw the business of London-based banks very essential to the rapid growth of international trade in Asia at that time.
Drawing attentions to the debates of the London-based bank schemes, this paper will explore the similarities or differences of perceptions, identities and strategies between British commercial groups in Britain and its colonies,. For this purpose, it will analyze the business networks, competitions and antagonism between their groups in 1813-67.
In the paper, I would like to look at women immigrants who came to Britain just after Second World War and the policies towards them. Instead of concentrating upon a particular ethnic group, I will focus on a particular sector of women's work, which was suffering severe labour shortages, that is, domestic staff in hospital. By doing so, I hope, I could show the process shows that the labour market was structured and re-structured along with the gender and ethnicity line and the Government's strong mindset on gender and ethnicity behind the policy.
Although domestic staffs were indispensable for hospitals, the work had been regarded as low status and low paid job. The war-time labour shortages drained hospitals of possible sources of women workers in Britain. While the Ministry of Health tried to recruit and retain women by improving working conditions, they turned their eyes to Irish women. After failing to gain enough workers, they focused on the displaced European persons, especially Baltic women. The advantages of recruiting displaced person was that they could be retained where they were needed most by using possibility of expulsion as a threat. After Baltic women dried up the Government turn to the Ukrainians and the Polish and then Germans and Austrians. With their male counterpart they were called the European Voluntary Workers (EVWs).
On the other hand, the West Indian people were discontented the EVW scheme. Being the British subject they thought that they should have given priorities in entering British labour market. Under the cumulating pressure from the colonies, Ministry of Health tentatively carried out similar scheme to recruit women from Barbados. By early 1950s, West Indian immigrants started to arrive in Britain and the Ministry of Labour and its regional offices were anxious to locate West Indian immigrants into jobs and in due course West Indian women were places as the domestic staff in the hospital.
The Uganda Asian crisis (1972) is one of the critical affairs in British immigration politics. The 'crisis', triggered by the Ugandan General Idi Amin's announcement of the expulsion of Asians, which included about 50,000 British passport-holders, caused 'national' concerns but terminated in reluctant acceptance of some 27,000 of them into Britain. The then Conservative government, led by Edward Heath, finally honoured their moral obligation to receive them as British citizens.
The 'crisis'and its aftermath were covered with a keen interest by the press media ― international, national and local ― for over 3 months. The British national media's response ranged from the tabloids'vociferous opposition to'another flood of immigrants'to the qualities' more subtly expressed concerns about social and economic confusion caused by the influx. While the media tried to legitimate the 'national' fears, it reluctantly recognised the acceptance of Ugandan Asians as a British 'post-imperial' responsibility and also tried to mitigate the fears by portraying them as refugees oppressed and hounded on ethnic or 'racial' grounds by a savage and cruel dictator, and as well-educated professionals.
In this paper, I would like to explore the process of discursive formation surrounding nation/ ethnicity/race through an analysis of political and media discourse concerning the Uganda Asian Crisis, and clarify the relationship between these two types of 'elite' discourses in a controversy about immigration. This will also help us to understand how British society negotiated a new sense of 'Britishness' in 1970s post-imperial Britain.