A Social History of Midshipmen and Quarterdeck Boys in the Royal Navy, 1761-1831.

Please note the following correction to the text of this thesis: With reference to Appendix G4 JO 1791, Charles Bennett (Barfleur) died in Redruth, Cornwall not Hastings, Sussex as stated in the thesis.Many senior officers in the Royal Navy of late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries saw the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars as a time of dramatic social change within the officer corps. Naval and civilian commentators alike expressed concern that the virtue of birth had replaced the virtue of merit when it came to the selection of officer recruits, and that the change adversely affected discipline and subordination. This thesis seeks to test the accuracy of these observations, and modern interpretations of them, by determining when and why changes in the social make-up of the corps of “young gentlemen” took place, and the effects of those changes on naval professionalism. This study asserts that social developments in the navy’s officer corps are most transparent at the entry level. Data on the social backgrounds of more than 4500 midshipmen and quarterdeck boys, from 1761 to 1831, shows that the presence of the social elites among officer aspirants was directly affected by states of war and peace and the popularity of a naval career for well-born sons. While contemporaries saw a growing elitism among officer recruits between 1793 and 1815, the data suggests that the scions of peers and the landed gentry were more prevalent in the peacetime service of 1771 and again after 1815, when the weight of social and political connections again became determining factors in the selection of officer trainees. The cultural changes that influenced the popularity of a naval career for young “honorables” between the Seven Years’ War and Parliamentary Reform highlight the social and political pressures that were exerted on recruiting captains and the Admiralty. Together they help to explain developments in the social make-up of the navy’s future-officer corps and the relationship between the naval microcosm and British society at large.Exeter Research Scholarshi

Lady Lucy Barry and Evangelical Reading on the First Franklin Expedition

This article examines the relationship between Lady Lucy Barry and John Franklin. Barry has been dismissed by other writers as a fanatic who had only a passing influence on the explorer’s religious beliefs. Though their friendship ended after Franklin’s marriage to Eleanor Porden in August 1823, Barry’s Evangelical faith, as expressed through the books she presented to the members of the first Franklin expedition, had already shaped both Franklin’s own understanding of his Arctic experiences and the literary representation of them in his Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea in the Years 1819, 20, 21, and 22. In the narrative, both Franklin and his companion John Richardson affirmed the great value of religious books and practices in helping them to endure the sufferings of the journey. As a result, the public came to revere Arctic explorers as Christian heroes. Without Lady Lucy Barry and her books, Arctic exploration might never have come to hold such an important place in 19th-century British culture.Cet article porte sur la relation qui a existé entre Lady Lucy Barry et John Franklin. Barry était considérée par les autres écrivains comme une fanatique qui n’a eu qu’une influence passagère sur les croyances religieuses de l’explorateur. Bien que leur amitié ait pris fin lorsque Franklin a épousé Eleanor Porden en août 1823, la foi évangélique de Barry, telle qu’exprimée dans les livres qu’elle a présentés aux membres de la première expédition de Franklin, avait déjà façonné la façon dont Franklin vivait son expérience dans l’Arctique et sa représentation littéraire de celle-ci dans son récit intitulé Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea in the Years 1819, 20, 21, and 22. Dans ce récit, Franklin et son compagnon John Richardson affirmaient la grande valeur des pratiques et livres religieux en ce sens que ces derniers les avaient aidés à endurer les souffrances découlant de leur expédition. Par conséquent, la société en général en était venue à révérer les explorateurs de l’Arctique à titre de héros chrétiens. Sans Lady Lucy Barry et ses livres, l’exploration de l’Arctique n’aurait peut-être jamais occupé une place aussi importante dans la culture britannique du XIXe siècle

Speechsong

"Speechsong is a work of imaginative musicology that addresses the engimas of Schoenberg and Gould, of singing and speaking, of Moses und Aron, of technology and being. Its point of departure is Gould’s last public performance, given at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles, where a number of Schoenberg’s works were performed during his California exile. It is here, after that last performance, that Gould encounters a spectral Schoenberg in a staged conversation that explores Schoenberg’s travails in rethinking the fundamentals of Western music. This first part of Speechsong recalls Schoenberg’s operatic masterpiece, Moses und Aron, in which the divinely inspired Moses seeks the help of his brother to relate his vision: Moses speaks and Aron sings. Written as a twelve-tone composition, the opera produces an involution of harmonics that was Schoenberg’s response to Richard Wagner’s diatribes about synagogue noise. For Gould, Schoenberg’s is a formalist revolution; Schoenberg’s life, however, suggests that it was a search for personal and political freedom. The second half of Speechsong is a critical essay in twelve “moments” that re-articulates the staged conversation as an inquiry into the intersections of music and mediation. Gould’s turn to the recording studio emerges as a post-humanist inquiry into recorded music as a repudiation of the virtuoso tradition and a liberation from unitary notions of selfhood. Schoenberg’s exodus from musical tradition likewise takes his twelve-tone invention beyond musical performance, where it emerges, along with Gould’s soundscapes, as a prototype of acoustic installations by artists such as Stephen Prina and Cory Arcangel. In these works, music abandons the concert hall and the exigencies of harmony for an acoustic space that embraces at once the recordings of Gould and the performances of Schoenberg that have found their home on the internet.

Who Discovered the Northwest Passage?

 In 1855 a parliamentary committee concluded that Robert McClure deserved to be rewarded as the discoverer of a Northwest Passage. Since then, various writers have put forward rival claims on behalf of Sir John Franklin, John Rae, and Roald Amundsen. This article examines the process of 19th-century European exploration in the Arctic Archipelago, the definition of discovering a passage that prevailed at the time, and the arguments for and against the various contenders. It concludes that while no one explorer was “the” discoverer, McClure’s achievement deserves reconsideration.En 1855, un comité parlementaire a conclu que Robert McClure méritait de recevoir le titre de découvreur d’un passage du Nord-Ouest. Depuis lors, diverses personnes ont avancé des prétentions rivales à l’endroit de Sir John Franklin, de John Rae et de Roald Amundsen. Cet article se penche sur l’exploration européenne de l’archipel Arctique au XIXe siècle, sur la définition de la découverte d’un passage en vigueur à l’époque, de même que sur les arguments pour et contre les divers prétendants au titre. Nous concluons en affirmant que même si aucun des explorateurs n’a été « le » découvreur, les réalisations de Robert McClure méritent d’être considérées de nouveau

The Sea of Ice and the Icy Sea: The Arctic Frame of Frankenstein

It has become common for scholars to understand the Arctic framing narrative of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a commentary on the northern expeditions sent out by the British Admiralty after the Napoleonic Wars. According to this view, the character Robert Walton is a surrogate for John Barrow, the principal organizer of the Admiralty expeditions. This article demonstrates that chronological factors make such an interpretation untenable. Yet the process through which the far North became the setting for Frankenstein’s opening and closing scenes is of great importance for understanding the evolution of the novel into its final complex form and with regard to broader considerations about the Arctic’s place in Romantic literary culture. The article suggests other sources for the Arctic frame, most notably the 1815 plan by whaler William Scoresby for a sledge expedition toward the North Pole. Although Scoresby’s lecture was not published until 1818, reports appeared in newspapers and periodicals soon after the lecture was given. There is strong circumstantial evidence to suggest that Mary Shelley read these reports. By tracing the likely influence of Scoresby and other Arctic writers on Frankenstein, the article both sheds new light on the novel itself and demonstrates the extent of the Arctic’s presence in European culture even before the famous Admiralty expeditions.Pour bien des érudits, la description narrative du cadre de l’Arctique faite par Mary Shelley dans son ouvrage Frankenstein fait figure de commentaire sur les expéditions nordiques organisées par l’Amirauté britannique après les guerres de Napoléon. D’après cette perspective, le personnage, Robert Walton, se veut le substitut de John Barrow, principal organisateur des expéditions de l’Amirauté. Le présent article montre que les facteurs chronologiques ne permettent pas de soutenir cette interprétation. Pourtant, la manière dont le Grand Nord est devenu la scène d’ouverture et de clôture de Frankenstein revêt une grande importance pour nous aider à comprendre l’évolution du roman dans sa forme complexe finale, à l’égard des considérations plus vastes quant à la place qu’occupe l’Arctique dans la culture littéraire romantique. Cet article suggère l’existence d’autres sources pour le cadre de l’Arctique, notamment le plan conçu par le baleinier William Scoresby en 1815 pour une expédition en traîneau vers le pôle Nord. Bien que l’exposé de William Scoresby n’ait été publié qu’en 1818, des reportages ont paru dans les journaux et les périodiques peu après la tenue de l’exposé. Il existe de fortes preuves circonstancielles suggérant que Mary Shelley avait lu ces reportages. En faisant le lien entre l’influence vraisemblable exercée sur Frankenstein par William Scoresby et d’autres auteurs sur l’Arctique, cet article jette une nouvelle lumière sur le roman même et montre l’étendue de la présence de l’Arctique dans la culture européenne avant l’avènement des célèbres expéditions de l’Amirauté