2 research outputs found
Lundy: An Analysis and Comparative Study of Factors Affecting the Development of the Island from 1577 to 1969, with a Gazetteer of Sites and Monuments.
The dates chosen for the thesis encompass the development
of Lundy from an isolated subsistence economy, reliant on
the harvesting of sea birds and rabbits, to a small village
community with increasing economic dependence on seasonal
visitors.
This change is considered in the context of a
comparative study of small islands, and in relation to the
broader context of regional and national economic and
social background. These, with new researches and the
re-examination of existing texts, have enabled a fuller
and more accurate account of Lundy's history than has
hitherto been offered. This study concludes that while many
factors have shaped. Lundy's development, the most
illuminating have been the geography, the nature of the
ownership in its response to the island and the dynamics of
change, and the effect of external factors in the last two
centuries. It is also suggested that the island has been
more consistently populated than was previously thought.
Claims to extra-ordinary legal status for Lundy are
examined, and considered to be without substance. It is
found that Lundy's extra-parochial status, and exclusion
from administrative processes until the mid-twentieth
century, rested on its isolation and lack of importance in
terms of size or the value of its resources. This lack of importance has also contributed to the present
re-interpretation of island resources.
The study exemplifies the proposition that
understanding of local history does not rest on a sequence
of documented events in one place, but upon the integration
of documentary, archaeological, cartographic, photographic
and artistic resources taken in the broader context of
comparative studies, and a wider understanding of external
historical, economic and social circumstances.
The systematic cross reference of the gazetteer of the
sites and monuments to the main text serves both to
illuminate some parts of the history, and to provide a firm
base from which future work may proceed