The Isles of Scilly and the Channel Islands: "bench-mark" hydrographic and geodetic surveys 1689-1980

PhDThe English Channel has been both a major maritime artery and a navigator's nightmare for many centuries. Two archipelagoes, the Isles of Scilly to the north and the Channel Islands to the south, have been and remain major hazards. The two archipelagos have long cartographic histories which have yet to be fully documented. The present study is, with two limited exceptions, confined to British official hydrographic surveys and more specifically to those that may be regarded as 'bench-mark' surveys , i. e. surveys that made significant advances in 44& charting the two archipelagoes. The study is further restricted to describing and assessing the progressive attempts to fix accurately the latitudes and longitudes of the two archipelagos and their relationships to west Cornwall on the one hand and the Cotentin peninsula on the other. The emphasis is upon the MS charts, Remark Books and notes etc. of the surveyors. The earliest survey discussed here is that of the Isles of Scilly by Capt Collins in 1689, published in 1693 in his Great Britain's Coasting Pilot, followed by Tovey and Ginver (1731), Robert Heath (1744/1750), Graeme Spence (1792-c1812) Joseph Huddart (1795); Ordnance Survey (Mudge: 1796; Clarke 1858; 1959). The first Channel Islands official hydrographic survey was initiated by Capt Martin White, as late as 1803, but not officially recognised until 1812 and not published until 1824/6; other surveys mentioned are Carte de France (1818-45; ) Begat (1829); Beck (1942-3); Service Hydrographique (1948); Ordnance Survey (1980)

Cumbria's encounter with the East Indies c.1680-1829:gentry and middling provincial families seeking success

In both the historiographies of Cumbria and empire respectively, there are numerous allusions to Cumbrians in the East Indies. However, the importance and implications of that encounter have never been systematically explored. This thesis enumerates well over four hundred middling and gentry Cumbrian men and women who travelled to and sojourned in the East Indies as well as a host of Cumbrians whose East Indies interests were operated from the British Isles. There were many more Cumbrians implicated in those East Indies ventures although they may not have been directly involved or sojourned there. For middling and gentry Cumbrian families, the East Indies presented a promise of success. This thesis explores their hopes and fears around ventures in the East Indies. It shows how gentry and middling families mobilised the resources necessary to pursue East Indies success and how East Indies sojourns were enmeshed with expressions of success in Cumbrian society. This thesis illuminates the connections between individuals, families, and place in local, national and global settings. Using the new flexibility and reach provided by the digital world, it incorporates and layers quantitative and structural analysis; thematic analysis around experience, sensibility and identity; and, biographical narratives that trace the contingent and complex trajectories of people’s lives. The Cumbrian encounter with the East Indies brings a new lens to historiographies beyond Cumbria’s regional history: the changing fortunes of middling ranks and gentry, the social and economic history of provincial life, and British imperial expansion. It underscores the importance of regional or provincial cases in understanding experiences usually treated as a nationally determined and driven by national imperatives. It highlights, too, how the pursuit of success by individuals and families has ramifications beyond themselves and their kin

Chinese reverse glass painting 1720-1820

Displaying a talent for combining aesthetic sensibility with scientific rigor, the author has given new life to something that once excited European passions: an original, non-academic art at the forefront of the ‘new technology’ of the time. For decades, aristocrats of the Old World and then American collectors (the latter at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries) spent countless sums on the purchase of these works, which were worth a fortune. These wealthy collectors of curiosities of all types were also most certainly great dreamers seeking a worthy setting for their dreams. Unbeknownst to them, their endeavours had much greater scope, creating and nourishing the conditions for a rare encounter between two worlds: a golden age of atypical collaboration, a combined adventure between China and Europe

The development of the Welsh country house: ‘dy lŷs enaid y wlad/your court, the soul of the land’

This thesis focuses on two main themes in the architectural history of the country house in Wales, investigating firstly its development, and secondly some of the distinctively Welsh features of these houses. It argues that both themes have been marginal in recent historiography of Welsh architecture, culture and society. In this work, houses owned by families of Welsh descent are discussed to ascertain whether ethnicity and nationhood are actually identifiable in the architecture. Critical analysis of built fabric is supplemented and supported by primary sources such as the poetry of the bards, building accounts and records, architectural drawings, travel journals, photographs, works of art and a variety of secondary sources. In this thesis, it becomes apparent that one of the most distinctive features of country houses in Wales is the unit-system. This form of dual planning is a peculiarly Welsh feature, enabling two ‘households’ to co-exist simultaneously, adjacent to each other but not necessarily physically connected. Such forms of building are absent from most regions of England, and its presence here is due to differences in the development of the Welsh family. The existence of a different legal system and associated customs in Wales, such as the prominence of gavelkind and female inheritance, are thus expressed in physical form. This practice has set a precedent for design and planning which has influenced a distinctly Welsh country house plan, based not only upon the need to accommodate several family members but also on a desire to preserve the domestic property of their ancestors as a physical manifestation of precedency, pedigree and memory. This elevation of genealogy is a defining feature among Welsh gentry families, who distinguished themselves not by wealth but by blood, which in England became reversed. The development of the Welsh country house offered an alternative form of nationalism, which was multifaceted in nature, and formed an essential element of architectural history in Wales

Moltke og Scheel: Adeligt kunstforbrug under den oplyste enevælde i den gryende romantik

Cand.mag. Klaus Højbjerg fra Dansk Center for Herregårdsforskning ser i denne artikel nærmere på A.G. Moltke og den lidt senere Jørgen Scheel som forbrugere af kunst. De to adelsmænd tegner sig som to forskellige profiler i denne sammenhæng og illustrerer tilsammen strømninger i periodens adelsidealer og samfundspositioner

The diary of Charles Blagden: information management and the gentleman of science in eighteenth-century Britain

This thesis provides a transcription and examination of the diary of Charles Blagden (1748-1820), physician and secretary of the Royal Society between 1784 and 1797. The diary is here understood as a ‘paper tool’ for managing information, that assisted Blagden’s efforts in fashioning his identity as a gentleman. Informed by a variety of manuscript genres, the diary operated as an aide-memoire, in accordance with eighteenth-century understandings of associationism. Blagden used the diary to advance through patronage and emulation, by cultivating relationships with eminent male scholars—the chemist Henry Cavendish and president of the Royal Society Joseph Banks. The eighteenth century saw the emergence of alternative cultures of advancement that favoured meritocracy and scientific publication over displays of patronage. This thesis reassesses key events in Blagden’s career, in the priority dispute known as the ‘water controversy’ and the Royal Society ‘dissensions’ of the 1780s, as examples where such cultures of advancement conflicted. In building his career, Blagden undertook natural philosophical investigations with his patrons, supported by his diary. This thesis exposes Blagden’s scientific agenda, and his approach to record keeping, as examples of eighteenth-century ‘oeconomy’. Though Blagden had sought the patronage of Banks and Cavendish, this strategy did not furnish him with the gentlemanly status he desired. Dissatisfied by the rate of advancement and reward, Blagden increasingly attached himself to a community of socially elevated women in London in the 1790s, whose lifestyle he emulated in order to pursue his social ambitions, as seen in his diary for the year 1795. Exploring the development of Blagden’s diary reveals the role of a material object in assisting the self-fashioning of the identity of the gentleman of science in Britain, at the end of the eighteenth century

The Brady collection and the mediation of eighteenth-century women's performance in theatrical ephemera

This thesis explores the mediation of eighteenth-century women’s dramatic performance in contemporary print both within, and outside of, the theatre. Taking the performance ephemeron as its subject, and the theatrical archive as its setting, it interrogates the presence of eighteenth-century actresses’ performances in specific forms of printing found in one collection. This is the Brady Collection, a large assemblage of theatrical ephemera dating from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries, collected by Francis Bridgford Brady (1890-1981) and held at Christ Church Library, Oxford. Using a series of case studies of individual print forms to reflect on the mediation of performance, this thesis analyses the interconnected relationship between theatrical celebrity, gender, and print in the period. It adopts an interdisciplinary and self-reflexive methodology to explore the different layers of mediation that pervade theatrical performance, printing, and the writing of theatre histories. This work opens with an overview of the Brady Collection and its collector as crucial context for the following chapters that interrogate individual forms of theatrical ephemera. Chapter 1 argues that the theatrical playbill, and its typography, played a crucial role in constructing an actress’s career. Chapter 2 considers how an actress’s theatricality is translated into text by the printed epilogue. Chapter 3 turns to theatrical portraiture, arguing that portraits published by John Bell appear to mediate an imagined instance of performance read against an actress’s repertoire. The fourth and final chapter, homing in closely on the Brady Collection, uses a case study of a scrapbook of Sarah Siddons to explicate the mediatory power of the theatrical archive itself. Additional appendices provide limited lists of some of the Brady Collection’s significant contents that are relevant to and can serve as a guide for, fellow researchers interested in eighteenth-century theatrical ephemera and its collection

Germ Cell Tumor

The book aims to provide an overview of current knowledge regarding germ cell tumors. It deals with the clinical presentations, treatment modalities, the biology and genetics of germ cell tumors in children and adults. Most chapters are focused on testicular germ cell tumors whose incidence has been increasing in young males. Included are reviews on the pathogenesis, risk factors, diagnosis and treatment regimens applied to precursor, pre-invasive lesions as well as to seminomatous and non-seminomatous germ cell tumors of the testes. In addition, a review is included on the diagnosis and current management options for intracranial germ cell tumors in children. Authors have also contributed articles on the genetics and epigenetics of germ cell tumor development in humans and in the mouse model system. This book will be of interest to scientists, physicians and lay readers wishing to review recent developments in the field of germ cell cancers

The Expansion of British Naval Hydrographic Administration, 1808-1829

The period from 1808 to 1829, largely neglected by those historians who have looked at the Hydrographic Office, was the crucial formative period for expansion that laid the solid foundations which later Hydrographers could then exploit. The context, achievements and failures of the Admiralty’s hydrographic function, including surveying, chart production, supply, sales and its contribution to the Navy and the scientific world, as an all encompassing beast has been overlooked; the Admiralty placed the responsibility for those tasks on the shoulders of its Hydrographer. Subsequently he determined the success or failure of the office, using his initiative to expand and develop opportunities benefiting the Admiralty, as well as managing a valuable resource of geographical intelligence, fostering links with scientists and the international hydrographic community. The Hydrographer also found himself creating his own policies, serving as Secretary to the Board of Longitude, being a consultant on navigational matters, taking responsibility for the acquisition, supply and maintenance of chronometers for the Navy, as well as being a focal point for issues concerning pay, promotion and manning for surveying specialists. The period from 1808 to 1829 saw many changes, which gave rise to numerous opportunities for expansion. The Admiralty Board and William, Duke of Clarence (as the last Lord High Admiral), both had a direct influence in the way the office expanded, which saw innovation and experimental work become part of the Hydrographer’s routine, especially after the Peace of 1815. But expansion required funding and at a time when internal economy appeared to the be the main objective within the Admiralty, Captain Thomas Hurd managed not only to establish a 100% increase in surveying capacity but laid the foundation for a distinct specialist and professional core of survey officers. His successor, Captain William Parry, despite his absences, overhauled working practices in the office, set standards for surveyors to follow and continued to expand the number of survey ships in commission. Subsequently Captain Francis Beaufort was left the most highly efficient hydrographic office since its foundation in 1795