Saturday, 5 December 1998 at the British Library in London. It was a study day consisting of lectures about British cinema in the 1950s: most of these are printed here, with an equal number of new essays which have been written since. In the evenings of the week preceding the study day, seven films were screened. They appeared under the headings of ‘Festive Fifties’ ( The Importance of Being Earnest , in a sparkling new print
4 In France with the British Expeditionary Force Introduction: the power of professional nursing In the second decade of the twentieth century, a British nursing reform movement, which had begun more than seventy years previously, was reaching its zenith. In the 1840s, small and isolated groups of British nurses, inspired by Continental examples and working under the patronage of the Church, had begun to demonstrate the value of a disciplined nursing workforce. Their achievements had been catapulted into the public consciousness by Florence Nightingale’s highly
Innocence the magic charm is, Keeping sorrow’s form at bay; By its influence, every harm is Banished ruthlessly away; Ill and danger fright her not, Happy is her simple lot. –E.M. 1 ‘By the Lake: An Indian Eclogue’ by ‘E.M.’ appeared in the British Guianese newspaper the Colonist in 1882 and was not, to my knowledge, ever republished. It did not really need to be. Its central trope – the Indigenous subject as innocent, childlike, and idle – is so often repeated in settler descriptions of native peoples, so
3 Off-course betting, bookmaking and the British n 1923 an assistant mistress of a London County Council boys’ school reported that betting was fairly general in her class. While she and the head took this seriously, the boys treated it as nothing wrong, and her remonstrations as a joke. They were actually ‘encouraged by their parents’. She felt helpless. She could not go to the police because ‘in a poor neighbourhood it is a very dangerous thing to excite the animosity of the parents’.1 The popularity of betting in that particular culture was clear. His Majesty
The Peterloo Massacre was more than just a Manchester event. The attendees, on whom Manchester industry depended, came from a large spread of the wider textile regions. The large demonstrations that followed in the autumn of 1819, protesting against the actions of the authorities, were pan-regional and national. The reaction to Peterloo established the massacre as firmly part of the radical canon of martyrdom in the story of popular protest for democracy. This article argues for the significance of Peterloo in fostering a sense of regional and northern identities in England. Demonstrators expressed an alternative patriotism to the anti-radical loyalism as defined by the authorities and other opponents of mass collective action.
Ch a pter 3 Appraisals of Britain’s Military Strength and War Propaganda [Britain] is convinced that the life of the British citizen is too precious to be risked in the petty fights among continental countries.1 F or Mussolini, war was the greatest test of nations and ideologies, and it was the pursuit of war and imperial expansion that led Fascist Italy down the path of hostility with Britain.2 However, war itself proved the doom of the Fascist experiment, mainly at the hands of the British Empire. The Italian Fascist representation of Great Britain from a
Ch a pter 2 British Politics, Economics and Culture in Fascist Discourse We think with pride to our Mussolinian discipline, which out of a people without an empire, without materials and without resources [coming from] old accumulated wealth, made an ordered and tempered nation, where there are not Laburisti, but everyone is a worker.1 W hile Renzo De Felice argued that Mussolini was convinced the corporative experiment was a long-term one, he also maintained that the Duce was sincerely convinced his new system was the way forward in order to avoid the
Ch a pter 5 The Italian Public’s Reception of the Fascist Discourse on Britain Concerning Britain, I heard everywhere the harshest words, words of hatred from the people who do not forget, and I heard many donnette [poor women] with little education show [anti-British] hatred – fierce hatred.1 M ussolini’s attempt to transform Italians was not a spectacular success. The catastrophic defeat in the war and the quick fall of the regime in 1943 demonstrated that the experiment to create a ‘Fascist New Man’ had failed. However, the failure to create a nation of
Coalmining was a notoriously dangerous industry and many of its workers experienced injury and disease. However, the experiences of the many disabled people within Britain’s most dangerous industry have gone largely unrecognised by historians. This book examines the British coal industry through the lens of disability, using an interdisciplinary approach to examine the lives of disabled miners and their families.
The book considers the coal industry at a time when it was one of Britain’s most important industries, and follows it through a period of growth up to the First World War, through strikes, depression and wartime, and into an era of decline. During this time, the statutory provision for disabled people changed considerably, most notably with the first programme of state compensation for workplace injury. And yet disabled people remained a constant presence in the industry as many disabled miners continued their jobs or took up ‘light work’. The burgeoning coalfields literature used images of disability on a frequent basis and disabled characters were used to represent the human toll of the industry.
A diverse range of sources are used to examine the economic, social, political and cultural impact of disability in the coal industry, looking beyond formal coal company and union records to include autobiographies, novels and oral testimony. It argues that, far from being excluded entirely from British industry, disability and disabled people were central to its development. The book will appeal to students and academics interested in disability history, disability studies, social and cultural history, and representations of disability in literature.
Ch a pter 6 The Perception of the British after the Fall of Fascism T he landing in Sicily of a powerful Anglo-American invasion force in July 1943 convinced the Italian elites that a people with no remaining will or means to fight had to sue for peace. Mussolini had reached the same conclusions but had no plans nor energy left to change the course of events. On 19 July he met Hitler at Feltre, but obtained nothing. On the same day, Rome was bombed for the first time.1 On 25 July, Mussolini was arrested, and Badoglio, moving with the approval of the King