MS-101: Miscellaneous 18th and 19th Century British Letter Collection

This artificial collection consists of 40 letters between various parties, written between 1771 and 1887. The letters share no single origin or destination, and are therefore divided chronologically rather than by subject or author/recipient. Included in the collection is a group of newspaper clippings from the early 20th century pertaining to the Portland Vase, as well as biographical information on the 3rd Duke of Portland.https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/findingaidsall/1148/thumbnail.jp

Weather instruments all at sea: meteorology and the Royal Navy in the nineteenth century

No abstract available

Vol. 20 no. 2 Semester 2 (2009)

https://researchonline.nd.edu.au/in_principio2000s/1003/thumbnail.jp

The civil and family law needs of Indigenous people in Victoria

This report identifies the most pressing legal needs of Indigenous Victorians, which involve housing, discrimination and debt.The report presents key findings and recommendations of research conducted in 2012- 2013 by the Indigenous Legal Needs Project (ILNP) in Victoria. The ILNP is a national project. Its aims are to:identify and analyse the legal needs of Indigenous communities in non-criminal areas of law (including discrimination, housing and tenancy, child protection, employment, credit and debt, wills and estates, and consumer-related matters); and provide an understanding of how legal service delivery might work more effectively to address identified civil and family law needs of Indigenous communities. ILNP research is intended to benefit Indigenous people by improving access to civil and family law justice

Shipwreck and salvage in the tropics: the case of HMS Thetis, 1830–1854

In 1830, the British frigate HMS Thetis was wrecked at Cabo Frio, on the Brazilian coast. A British naval force was subsequently despatched to undertake a major salvage operation which lasted for well over a year. The substantial textual and visual archive associated with the case of the Thetis raises wider questions about the entanglement of naval, scientific, artistic, financial and legal concerns in an age of British maritime expansion. If the loss of such a ship brought into question the capacity of the British to act at a distance, it also provided an opportunity to mend and strengthen the networks of power and knowledge. The sources of error exposed by the disaster were to be subject to investigation by numerous authorities, including hydrographers keen to refine their charts and sailing directions and Fellows of the Royal Society seeking to advance the claims of science, as well as the Admiralty itself, in the judicial setting of a court martial. We focus here especially on narratives of the wreck and the salvage of the Thetis, and the significance of their repeated tellings of the story after the event; and on the evidential and representational status of the visual images of the scene in sketches, maps, charts, diagrams, engravings and paintings

"Settling Some Very Important Principles of Colonial Law": Three "Forgotten" Cases of the 1840's

This article reintroduces the "forgotten" cases of R v Taylor, Attorney-General v Whitaker and Scott v Grace and considers their specific historical contexts. They raise controversial questions about the extent of the New Zealand governor's ability to grant lands outside of the provisions of local ordinances and imperial statutes by using the prerogative. The article notes the flow-on effects of the policy lacuna created by these judgments. The judgments of Justice Chapman and Chief Justice Martin caused considerable unease on the part of the colonial government and policy-makers in London as well as some New Zealand Company operatives. This in turn led to the subsequent legislative and policy efforts to qualify the reach of prerogative powers in colonies. The text of the cases is appended to this article

The history of the British Meteorological Office to 1905

This thesis covers the first half century of the British Metorological Office and events leading to its foundation. After an introductory chapter the narrative describes how growth of marine transportation led to awareness of possible benefits from knowledge of wind patterns. Moves to collect marine weather statistics worldwide were supported with reluctance by Britain, but eventually resulted in the foundation of a new Department of the Board of Trade devoted to collection of marine observations. Robert FitzRoy, its first head, later transformed this work into provision of the world's first operational weather forecasting system. After FitzRoy's death an investigation into the Department was followed by a complete re-organization that replaced it by a Meteorological Office under the control of an unpaid supervisory Committee (later a paid Council) financed by an annual grant. The subsequent evolution of the Office is described. Its relationships with other bodies were not always smooth, nor was its development rapid, but it laid a foundation for what was to follow. The Office's story impinges upon many aspects of the contemporary scene and is set within their context. The reaction of Treasury to its financing is dealt with at some length. The gradual growth of' public services is recounted and it is noted that, at a time of' supposed laissez-faire, there was no attempt to turn the Office into a revenue raising organization, the primacy of public service always being evident. A characteristic of science has been the division arising from the dichotomy between "pure" and "applied" approaches to problems, and this is highlighted within the narrative. Despite its disappointing role at the turn of the century, the Meteorological Office is seen as a prime force in the emergence of meteorology as a science within this country. The thesis closes with a glance to the future

A Flight to Domesticity? Making a Home in the Gentlemen’s Clubs of London, 1880–1914

In 1888 The Society Herald described the typical day of a young bachelor: “He breakfasts, lunches, dines, and sups at the club. He is always at billiards, which he doesn’t understand, he writes innumerable letters, shakes hands a dozen times a day, drinks coffee by the gallon, and has a nod for everybody. He lives, moves, and has his being within his club. As the clock strikes 1 a.m. his little body descends the stairs and goes out through the big front door like a ray of moonlight, and until the same morning at ten of the o’clock no human being has the slightest knowledge of his existence or his whereabouts.”1 For this man, as for hundreds of other upper-class men in London, clubland constituted an entire world.2 For thousands more, clubs formed the backdrop of their lives; in the middle of the city, clubs afforded private spaces dedicated to relaxation and camaraderie. Both married and single men regarded their club as the central part of their lvies, functioning as a surrogate home. According to contemporary ideals, the family was supposed to act as the space of refuge from the chaos of the hectic modern world, and yet in the late nineteenth century clubs were taking over this essential role. John Ruskin’s classic definition of the home centered on its role as a shelter from the physical and emotional toils of the world.3 John Tosh notes that in everyday life, the domestic ideal was so populat it addressed the needs of men who were suffering from the rapidly industrializing urban landscape.4 Family life and the home were perceived as integral to men’s identifies in the nineteenth century to a degree never before realized, as the home was both a man’s possession and where his emotional needs were satisfied.5 Yet this largely middle-class ideal was not without challenges. The homes of even the most respectable middle classes could never live up to the walled gardens of the poetic imagination. As Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall demonstrate, the separation of public and private spheres was an ideal that did not change the fact that the family and the home took on many public functions.6 The gentlemen’s clubs, seemingly in the heart of the public sphere, actually provided their members the friendly intimacy and privacy ideally located in the home