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

Suez and After: Canada and British Policy in the Middle East, 1956–1960

The Suez crisis is generally considered to be a decisive turning-point in Canada’s relations with Great Britain. Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent and Secretary of State for External Affairs Lester Pearson refused to support Britain’s military action in Egypt, choosing instead to work through the United Nations for a resolution of the conflict. It seemed that Canada was repudiating a subservient role and declaring its final independence from the mother country. However, the documentary record shows that Canadian politicians and diplomats were in fact eager to work for what they believed to be Britain’s good. In their view, Britain had temporarily lost sight of its own, and the western world’s, best interests. During the years immediately after Suez, support for British policies was a priority of Canadian diplomats, most notably Arnold Smith, Canada’s ambassador to Egypt from 1958 to 1960. Smith played an important role in the resumption of diplomatic relations between Britain and Egypt. Drawing on previously unused documents in the files of the Department of External Affairs, this paper outlines Canadian views of, and Canada’s relationship to, British policy in the Middle East during and after Suez. It demonstrates that a “colony to nation” framework is inadequate for the study of the Anglo-Canadian relationship in the years following World War II. Instead, the broader context of Cold War politics must be taken into consideration. The paper also shows that despite the surface differences between Liberal and Conservative foreign policy, there were strong elements of continuity between the St. Laurent and Diefenbaker governments.La crise de Suez est généralement considérée comme un tournant décisif dans les relations entre le Canada et la Grande-Bretagne. Le premier ministre Louis St-Laurent et le sous-secrétaire des Affaires extérieures Lester B. Pearson ont refusé d’appuyer l’action militaire britannique en Égypte, choisissant plutôt de collaborer avec les Nations Unies afin de résoudre le conflit. Le Canada parut alors déclarer une fois pour toute son indépendance par rapport à la mère patrie. Toutefois, les documents sonores montrent que politiciens et diplomates canadiens ne considéraient pas qu’ils avaient cessé de travailler pour ce qu’ils croyaient être le bien de la Grande-Bretagne. À leurs yeux, le problème était plutôt que la Grande-Bretagne avait temporairement perdu de vue ses meilleurs intérêts et ceux du monde occidental. Au cours des années qui ont immédiatement suivi la crise de Suez, l’appui des politiques britanniques demeura une priorité pour les diplomates canadiens, notamment Arnold Smith, ambassadeur du Canada en Égypte de1958 à1960. Celui-ci allait jouer un rôle important dans la reprise des relations entre la Grande-Bretagne et l’Égypte. Inspiré des documents inutilisés des anciens dossiers du ministère des Affaires extérieures, cet article décrit le point de vue des Canadiens à l’égard des relations du Canada et de la politique britannique au Moyen-Orient durant et après la crise de Suez. Il démontre que le un récit privilégiant le passage du statut de colonie à celui de pays ne convient pas à l’étude de la relation anglo-canadienne dans les années qui ont suivi la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Le contexte plus large des politiques de la guerre froide doit être pris en considération. L’article montre également qu’en dépit de différences superficielles, les politiques étrangères des gouvernement libéral de St Laurent et conservateur de Diefenbaker contiennent d’importants éléments de continuité