Coal, correspondence, and nineteenth century poetry : Joseph Skipsey and the problems of social class

This thesis explores the life and work of the poet and coal miner Joseph Skipsey (1832-1903) by examining his correspondence with some of the most notable cultural figures of the late-Victorian period. This work is, as far as I am aware, the first modern single-author study of a working-class writer who was a coal miner, the first full modern examination of a nineteenth-century working-class poet from North-East England, and one of the first detailed analyses of a working-class writer’s correspondence. Through archival discovery, close readings, and examinations of the reception of Skipsey’s poetry, this thesis argues that the writing of working-class individuals is shaped by their social class, and what Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) describes as cultural and social capital. These forms of capital determine the reception working-class writers receive within literary culture and, in turn, reinforce the authority of middle-class writings about working-class lives that allows them to become unchallenged orthodoxies. This thesis reveals previously unknown areas of Skipsey’s life and work, challenging and destabilising previously held beliefs, questioning assumptions regarding patronage, and, ultimately, revealing Skipsey a more active agent in the construction of his career than previously supposed. The thesis examines Skipsey as not just a representative of his class and industry, but as an individual writing poetry from personal, instead of communal, experience

John Henry Lorimer, Scottish artist, 1856-1936, a critical biography.

John Henry Lorimer (1856-1936) was a Scottish artist of sane distinction in his day, whose work has been obscured by the lack of interest - until recently - in paintings of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. This thesis seeks to redress the neglect of time, to record biographical details, and give critical consideration to his work. Lorimer's life fell, broadly, into five main sections, which serve as Chapters for this work: his early life and training in Edinburgh; his 'London period', with travel abroad and study in Paris at the atelier of Carolus-Duran; his 'Paris period' with submissions to Salons and his successes there; his return to Edinburgh in 1901 after election to the RSA, and his artistic activities in the new century; and his later years, still active artistically but less successfully. The final chapter discusses his aims and ambitions and the influences inherent in his work. The thesis considers his artistic development, and brings out his great diversity as a flower painter, portraitist, genre painter and landscapist, and his life long interest in watercolour. His work is set against the background of contemporary artistic development, with particular attention being paid to the French scene where he gained most praise. This research includes the compilation - for the first time - of a Catalogue of the artist's works

The life and work of Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm

Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm (1834-90) was, in his own time, the most popular, prolific and honoured sculptor of nineteenth-century England. This thesis aims to salvage Boehm's life and work from oblivion and to assess his achievements by complementing art history with art criticism.Boehm was Hungarian by parentage and Austrian by birth but English by adoption. His father, J. D. Bohm, was director of the Imperial Mint at Vienna and a noted art collector. The younger Boehm visited London, Italy and Paris before settling permanently in England in 1862. Chapter 1 outlines Boehm's background, summarises his career and examines his character. Chapter 2 examines his theories on portraiture - his main artistic field - and matches examples of his busts and statuettes with these theories. Chapter 3 examines Boehm's status as the favourite sculptor of the Royal Family, his works commissioned by Queen Victoria and his portrait statues of her and other royalty. Chapter 4 examines Boehm's other portrait statues, with emphasis on his best documented works such as the monuments to Sir Francis Drake and the Duke of Wellington. Chapter 5 does the same for his church monuments. Chapter 6 examines Boehm's friendship with Thomas Carlyle and his portrait statue of the latter, commonly regarded as being his greatest work. Chapter 7 examines Boehm's effigies for the Jubilee coinage and medals of 1887 and explains the artistic failure of the coinage. Chapter 8 examines Boehm's ideal and animal sculptures and explains why he was not more prolific in these areas. The appendices include a catalogue of Boehm's recorded works and transcripts both of his Royal Academy lectures of 1882 and of the article in the Magazine of Art discussing his theories on portraiture

Pacific Weekly, February 28, 1947

https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/pacifican/2619/thumbnail.jp

A religious history of Cumbria : 1780-1920.

I. his thesis is divided into three s-3ctions. Section one examinas the Church of En--land in Cumbria and concentrates on the work and patronage of the bishops ond of the dean and chapter, the archdeacons, canons and chancellors of the diocese, the issue of ritualistic innovation and the work of the parochial cleroy. Particular emphasis is given to the episcopate of Samuel 7ialdegrave. Section two provides an account of the history of the Nonconformists of Cumbria with a chapter devoted to each of the following: the Roman Catholics, the Mlethodists of the eighteenth century, the Sandemanians together with the Inoh=-ites and the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion, the Congregationalistsv the Presbyteriansv the Unitarians, the Baptists and the Churches of Christ, the Quakers, the Brethren and finally the several M-ethodist connexions of the nineteenth century. The link between sections one and t,, -io is a study of the influence of the Lake District and religion. Section three deals with the general , importance of relir7 ion in Cumbria with chaDters devoted to the theme of temperance, the Lawson family and 'Carlisle, to education, and to each of the folloring: Barrow in Furness, Ravenstonedale, Popular Reliý,, ion, Religious Architecture, and to Politics and Relil7ion. The theme of the off-comer in Cumbrian reli-ious history is central to all three sections. There is a 'Linzd chapter on the twentieth century followed by the conclusions, bibliography and index

Women, health and hospitals in Birmingham : the Birmingham and Midland Hospital for Women, 1871-1948

This study considers the social history of the Birmingham and Midland Hospitals for Women Incorporated between 1871 and 1948. The hospitals were an integral part of the voluntary hospital system in Birmingham, where two general infirmaries and a range of smaller specialist institutions had been set up to deal with the health care needs of a growing population during the period of industrialization. Two underlying historiographical themes are discussed throughout the thesis; the motivation of those that founded and supported such institutions and the feminist critique of the developments in the practice of gynaecology. Much of the current literature on women's health in this period concentrates on the underlying ideology rather than health care. Here the emphasis is reversed; it is to the medical care and treatment of diseases associated with women's sexual and reproductive organs that this thesis is directed. I have adopted a broadly chronological approach, with Chapters 1 to 4 exploring the founding of the hospital in 1871 and the important early years during which it became established. Chapters 5 to 7 consider developments during the Edwardian period and the inter-war years. In the organization of the individual chapters I have adopted a thematic approach considering the association that different group of people had with the hospital; the governors, medical staff and patients, both within the context of their health care and the lives and circumstances of working-class women in the wider sense. To provide an analytical framework for this study, the dominant historiographical paradigms in the field of women's health are discussed in the introduction to this thesis

Geographies of botanical knowledge: the work of John Hutton Balfour 1845-1879

This thesis forms a contribution to the historical geography of botanical knowledge. It examines the writings, teaching and public engagement in botany of John Hutton Balfour (1808-1884), Regius Professor of Botany and Medicine at the University of Edinburgh and Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) between 1845 and 1879. The thesis explores the methods and approaches used by Balfour to promote botany. It pays specific attention to his scientific correspondence, publications, teaching and pedagogical practices (including fieldwork) and to his role in promoting the Botanical Society of Edinburgh. The curriculum Balfour constructed covered the major aspects of nineteenth-century botanical knowledge: plant structure, morphology and classification as well as aspects then ‘on the fringes’ of becoming popular – plant physiology. In order to teach this curriculum, Balfour meticulously shaped scientific, pedagogic and social spaces into places of scientific production and discovery. Study of his published work, classroom, field sites and involvement with the public sphere together form the principal elements of this thesis. These are the central places and productive sites in which his botany was made. Balfour’s published work allowed him to develop theoretical aspects in his view of botany. For Balfour, writing was an occupation about which he cared deeply both in terms of its role in knowledge circulation but also from a personal perspective. His publication of texts suitable for several distinct audiences (while financially rewarding,) was also an excellent method of circulating botanical and religious knowledge, two topics he was passionate to promote. The classroom provided the setting for Balfour to teach through practical instruction. He employed sensory stimulating objects in order to encourage students to learn the skill of botanical identification and observation. The ‘field’, like the classroom, was also a site of practical instruction. Balfour’s construction of ‘the field’ was careful and deliberate. It was based on familiarity of location, experience of working in the field, and an extensive knowledge of the geographical distribution of plants in Scotland. Balfour’s engagement with the public was evident in his involvement with the Botanical Society of Edinburgh (BSE), and by lectures delivered to groups with the object of moral improvement through botany. The thesis situates Balfour’s work within recent literature on the historical geography of scientific knowledge, with particular attention to the importance of place and the sites of science’s making. In this way, Balfour’s work is illustrative of wider elements of the situated production, and variable dissemination, of scientific (botanical) knowledge