The writing on the wall: the concealed communities of the East Yorkshire horselads

This paper examines the graffiti found within late nineteenth and early-twentieth century farm buildings in the Wolds of East Yorkshire. It suggests that the graffiti were created by a group of young men at the bottom of the social hierarchy - the horselads – and was one of the ways in which they constructed a distinctive sense of communal identity, at a particular stage in their lives. Whilst it tells us much about changing agricultural regimes and social structures, it also informs us about experiences and attitudes often hidden from official histories and biographies. In this way, the graffiti are argued to inform our understanding, not only of a concealed community, but also about their hidden histor

Modelling a wool scour bowl

Wool scouring is the process of washing dirty wool after shearing. Our model simulates, using the advection-diffusion equation, the movement of contaminants within a scour bowl. The effects of varying the important parameters are investigated. Interesting, but simple, relationships are found which give insight into the dynamics of a scour bowl

A simple mathematical model of wool scouring

The transport of contaminants in a wool scour bowl is modelled by advection diffusion equations. Averaging over the thin layers of wool and the water beneath gives two coupled differential equations clearly showing the contaminant interaction between the layers, and leading to simple asymptotic relationships