Twentieth Century British History - Advance Access

Protestant Challenges to the 'Protestant State': Ulster Unionism and Independent Unionism in Northern Ireland, 1921-1939

Reid, C. — 2008-08-05

This article considers intra-unionist divisions in inter-war Northern Ireland, with an emphasis on the antagonistic relationship between the governing Ulster Unionist Party and a number of independent unionists. The article is divided into four sections. The first section briefly outlines the nature of independent unionism in pre-partition Ireland. The second section considers the politics of the inter-war Ulster Unionist Party, with an emphasis on its programme to create and maintain unionist unity. This provides the context for the third section, which examines the political contribution of a small band of independent unionists who stood outside this unity. The final section conducts an analysis of the electoral politics in inter-war Northern Ireland. This reveals that the most heated political cleavage in inter-war Northern Ireland was not the traditional unionist–nationalist battle line; it was instead the intra-unionist divide.

Recuperation, Rehabilitation and the Residential Option: The Brentwood Centre for Mothers and Children

Welshman, J. — 2008-08-05

The place of anti-social behaviour in government policy in the United Kingdom is attracting increasing attention. Particularly interesting are residential projects aiming to rehabilitate ‘problem families’. Nevertheless, to date, attempts to view these initiatives in historical perspective have been limited. This article reconstructs the history of one such institution, the Brentwood Recuperation Centre for Mothers and Children, within the broader context of the problem family debate. The argument is that, unlike in the Netherlands (whose pioneering efforts in this field were widely noted at the time), Britain tended to steer clear of residential options for families, regarding these as an expensive last resort. Nevertheless the Brentwood Centre was an important experiment, with its rise and fall mirroring broader changes in the relationship between voluntarism and the state; social work theory and practice; and attitudes to the segregation and social integration of families. Letters from the mothers also challenge the idea that stays in residential institutions were always punitive and unpleasant.

Socialism, Puritanism, Hedonism: the Parliamentary Labour Party's Attitude to Gambling, 1923-31

McClymont, G. — 2008-08-05

This article examines one aspect of the Parliamentary Labour Party's (PLP's) attitude to gambling between 1923 and 1931: its opposition to the taxation and legalization of working-class gambling on horses with street bookmakers. The first section explores the mixture of ethical socialism and religious and cultural Puritanism which led many Labour MPs to hold that gambling was wrong in principle and which informed the PLP's defence of prohibition. The second section identifies MPs who disagreed with the party's position: a minority itself divided between those who saw the issue as a distraction from more pressing political matters, and those who more systematically defended the working classes’ right to gamble. The latter group was culturally distinctive, appearing hedonistic in comparison with their parliamentary colleagues. The final section develops this distinction: in particular it suggests that the PLP's puritanical political culture informed, and was informed by, Labour's political ideology of ethical socialism. Culture and ideology met in opposition to gambling.

Children's Experiences of War: Handicapped Children in England During The Second World War

Wheatcroft, S. — 2008-08-05

The experiences of children during the Second World War have attracted considerable attention, both scholarly and popular. Not all children however, have received equal attention. Handicapped children are conspicuous by their absence from all types of literature, both on evacuation and on children's experiences of the Second World War. This article restores these children to the story of wartime England and assesses their experiences. It examines the plans that were made for their evacuation and how they were carried out, and compares their lives, both individually and institutionally (i.e. in the various types of ‘special’ school) with those who, for various reasons, were not evacuated. It also compares their experiences, to a lesser degree, with those of their non-handicapped counterparts. The article argues that for many handicapped children it was a positive experience but one which depended on specific aspects, such as the attitudes of the authorities and of the general public, and perhaps more importantly, the attitudes and quality of the teaching and nursing staff, who were responsible for the children on a daily basis.

Labour and the Land: From Municipalization to the Land Commission, 1951-1971

Weiler, P. — 2008-08-05

This article examines the Labour Party's changing commitment to land reform in the 1950s and 1960s, a commitment that featured more prominently in the party's plans than historians have realized. In the 1950s Labour promised to ‘municipalize’ all rent-controlled dwellings, some six million houses and flats. After municipalization proved electorally unattractive in 1959 Labour turned to the idea of a Land Commission to purchase all commercially developable land at 30 per cent more than its ‘use value’. That land would then be leased to developers, thus realizing most of the ‘unearned increment’ for the state. Labour's promise to use the Land Commission to control land speculation and end rising prices in land contributed to Harold Wilson's victory in 1964, although in the event the Land Commission failed to realize its promise. In addition to adding a neglected dimension to the history of the Labour Party in these decades, this article argues that the issue of land reform shows the continued radicalism of the Labour Party, the continued strength of the ethical tradition in its socialism, and the continued hold on its members of a vision for social transformation.

A Wider Patriotism: Alfred Milner and the British Empire. By J. Lee Thompson.

Prior, C. — 2008-08-05

Psychological Socialism: The Labour Party and Qualities of Mind and Character, 1931 to the Present. By Jeremy Nuttall.

Ellis, C. — 2008-08-05

The Religious Crisis of the 1960s. By Hugh McLeod.

Grimley, M. — 2008-08-01

The Civil Servant and Public Remembrance: Sir Lionel Earle and the Shaping of London's Commemorative Landscape, 1918-1933

Heathorn, S. — 2008-07-30

The erection of First World War memorials in London was a complex and bureaucratically contested process, requiring the mediation of officials charged with enforcing Victorian government legislation designed to protect the aesthetic and didactic role of public statuary in the metropolis. By concentrating on the role and views of the senior civil servant who more than any other individual was responsible for enabling the re-shaping London's commemorative landscape in the inter-war years, this article highlights the significant intersection of aesthetic and practical concerns in memorial planning and implementation.

Wanting and Having: New Histories of Scarcity and Excess in Modern Britain

Gurney, P. — 2008-07-10