Journal articles on the topic 'French Royal Navy'

1904 : The Royal Navy as seen by the French naval attaché in London a titan in the process of major reform ; At the beginning of the twentieth century Great Britain was struggling to maintain its naval supremacy, the keystone of the Pax Britannica that had lasted since 1815. The Admiralty, under the impulsion of Admiral Sir John Fisher, embarked on a massive reform of the Royal Navy - a reform whose outlines were disclosed in a memorandum dated 6 December 1904. The report from the French naval attaché in London, Commander Mercier de Lostende, serves as a reminder of the principal measures in what remains a major turning point in British naval policy. His assessments offer insights into the complex relationships that the French naval officers of the period enjoyed with the Royal Navy, in the immediate aftermath of the agreements earlier in 1904 that set the seal on the Entente Cordiale

The Rebirth of the Royal Moroccan Navy from indépendance to the present Obliged to cease operating at the beginning of the XXth Century, Morocco's fighting fleet was reborn at independence under the name of the Royal Moroccan Navy. Its development has occurred in three phases : The putting of the structures in place and creation of a first naval group. Then the acquisition of modern naval combat, maritime surveillance and transport vessels consequent on the missions entailed in the recovery of the southern Saharan provinces - and also an effort to develop infrastructures and training establishments ; Finally, from 2002 the creation of a naval aviation component. Throughout these periods, the evolution of the Royal Moroccan Navy has been accompanied by active assistance from the French fleet under the aegis of military cooperation agreements.

Born in Norfolk, England, on September 29, 1758, Horatio Nelson was the sixth of eleven children in a working-class family. With the help of his uncle, Maurice Suckling, a captain in the Royal Navy, Nelson began his naval career as a 13-year-old midshipman on the British battleship Raisonnable. His courage and leadership in the battle marked him for promotion, and he rose quickly from midshipman to admiral, serving in the West Indies, East Indies, North America, Europe, and even the Arctic. As his rank ascended, Nelson's consistent strategy was close engagement, an approach that led to success in combat but placed him in direct danger. Thus, Britain's greatest warrior was also her most famous patient: Nelson suffered more injuries and underwent more operations than any other flag officer in Royal Navy history. His career reached a climax off Cape Trafalgar, where he not only led the Royal Navy to victory over the combined French and Spanish fleets but also met his own death.

In 1954 army historian George Stanley claimed that naval initiatives from the eighteenth century to the 1870s by the French and British armies in Canada and the local land militia were the true roots of the Royal Canadian Navy. He privately admitted that he was being intentionally provocative. The present article, however, reviews subsequent scholarship and offers new research that strengthens Stanley’s findings, and shows that the Canadian army continued to promote the organization of naval forces after the 1870s. The army, moreover, lobbied for the founding of the Royal Canadian Navy in 1910, and supported the new service in its troubled early years. En 1954, l’historien de l’armée George Stanley a affirmé que les initiatives navales entreprises du 18e siècle aux années 1870 par les armées française et britannique au Canada et par la milice terrestre locale étaient les véritables racines de la Marine royale canadienne. Par contre, il a aussi admis en privé qu’il avait été délibérément provocateur. Le présent article passe en revue les études ultérieures et propose de nouvelles recherches qui viennent renforcer les conclusions de Stanley et indiquent que l’armée canadienne a continué de promouvoir l’organisation des forces navales après les années 1870. De plus, l’armée a fait pression en faveur de la fondation de la Marine royale canadienne en 1910, puis elle a appuyé le nouveau service au cours de ses premières années tumultueuses.

With few exceptions, existing research in British social and maritime history has never focused on the presence and role of Scotsmen in the Royal Navy of the French Wars era (1793–1815), on their identification and self-presentation within this institution, and on attitudes towards naval warfare in Scotland more generally. Situating the problem within current debates on ‘four nations’ history and the development of British identity, this article aims to fill this gap. It will consider, in turn, the Navy's institutional language and practices, individual experiences, and, chiefly employing as a case study the 1797 victory of Camperdown, achieved by the Scottish Admiral Duncan, public representations in the Scottish press. This will help to illustrate the often ambiguous relationship that Scots in the Navy—and particularly on the quarterdeck—could have with their homeland, and the powerful attraction, reinforced by the naval environment and administrative structures, which Englishness exerted on them. More broadly, it will be shown how the late Hanoverian Navy, as a markedly Anglocentric institution, acted as a key instrument of cultural, social and political assimilation of Scots into Britain, thus offering a valuable case study for an investigation of patterns of British integration.

The Royal Navy (RN) has in-service experience of both marinized industrial and aero derivative propulsion gas turbines since the late 1940s. Operating through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the British, Dutch, French, and Belgian Navies the current in-service propulsion engines are marinized versions of the Rolls Royce Tyne, Olympus, and Spey aero engines. Future gas turbine engines, for the Royal Navy, are expected to be the WR21 (24.5 MW), a 5 to 8 MW engine and a 1 to 2 MW engine in support of the All Electric Ship Project. This paper will detail why the Royal Navy chose gas turbines as prime movers for warships and how Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) guidance has been evaluated and developed in order to extend engine life. It will examine how the fleet of engines has historically been provisioned for and how a modular engine concept has allowed less support provisioning. The paper will detail the planned utilization of advanced cycle gas turbines with their inherent higher thermal efficiency and environmental compliance and the case for all electric propulsion utilizing high speed gas turbine alternators. It will examine the need for greater reliability/availability allowing single generator operation at sea and how by using a family of 3 engines a nearly flat Specific Fuel Consumption (SFC) down to harbour loads can be achieved. [S0742-4795(00)01203-5]

SUMMARYThis paper draws on the mortality records of the French, US and UK Royal navies to reconstruct the spatiotemporal evolution of the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic in global Allied naval forces. For a total of 7658 deaths attributed to respiratory diseases (French and US navies) and all diseases (UK Royal Navy) at 514 locations worldwide, techniques of spatial point pattern analysis were used to generate weekly maps of global mortality intensity in 1918. The map sequence for the main period of pandemic mortality, mid-August to mid-November 1918, revealed a near-simultaneous development of mutiple foci of high disease intensity in three distant locations (Europe, North America, West Africa). Given the relatively slow speed of naval ships in convoy at this time (<12 knots), our findings suggest that the pandemic influenza virus was circulating on three continents at the observed onset of the main mortality wave.

The article shows the Anglo-French confrontation on the Iberian Peninsula as an important stage of the Second Hundred years’ War. The example of remote action of the British expeditionary force demonstrates the «English style» of war: the operation of army troops with the active support of the Royal Navy. The author comes to the conclusion that the Pyrenean wars of the beginning of the XIX century have a certain significance in the system of Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.

Travel always spreads disease. Bubonic plague reached Turkey in 1347 via the Silk Road, following an outbreak in 1330s China. By 1348, it raged in Italy, shadowing the gaiety of Boccaccio’s Decameron. By 1351, half of Europe lay in plague pits. One hundred and fifty years later, the conquistadors took smallpox to the Americas, decimating local populations. They returned – many believe – with syphilis, which ‘enjoyed’ its first European outbreak in 1495 among Charles VIII’s army, then besieging Naples. The French called it the ‘Neapolitan disease’ and carried it home. In England, it became the ‘French pox’ and in Tahiti, the ‘British disease’, imported by the Royal Navy.

AbstractIn the spring of 1797, when French invasion appeared likely, the Spithead and Nore mutinies successively immobilized the two Royal Navy fleets responsible for home defence. The Spithead mutineers gained more pay and greater food rations for all Royal Navy sailors, and a general pardon for themselves. The Nore mutiny ended in collapse, courts martial, and the execution of approximately twenty-eight prominent mutineers. In their scale and potential danger, these fleet mutinies rank among the most serious manifestations of collective resistance in eighteenth-century Britain. In complexity, they far exceeded single-ship mutinies like the Bounty or Hermione. The mutineers deliberately subverted symbols of the legitimate rule of officers and deployed them in support of their own rival regime. “Counter-theatre” allowed the mutineer leaders to perpetuate their rule with minimal recourse to coercion by combining familiar symbols of naval order, new mutineer power structures, and sailors’ traditions of resistance. As such, the mutinies speak to wider literatures: to histories of the age of revolutions, to the revolutionary Atlantic, and to histories of popular protest and resistance.

By the 1840’s the era of the wooden ship of the line was coming to a close. As early as the 1820’s and 1830’s, ships of war were outfitted with increasingly heavy guns. Naval guns such as the increasingly popular 68 pounder could quickly damage the best wooden hulled ships of the line. Yet, by the 1840’s, explosive shells were in use by the British, French, and Imperial Russian navies. It was the explosive shell that could with great ease, cripple a standard wooden hulled warship, this truth was exposed at the Battle of Sinope in 1853. For this reason, warships had to be armored. By 1856, Great Britain drafted a design for an armored corvette. In 1857, France began construction on the first ocean going ironclad, La Gloire, which was launched in 1859. This development quickly caused Great Britain to begin construction on HMS Warrior and HMS Black Prince. By the time HMS Warrior was commissioned in 1861, the Royal Navy had decided that its entire battle fleet needed to be armored. While the British and the French naval arms race was intensifying, the United States was entering into its greatest crisis, the United States Civil War. After the outbreak of the Civil War, the majority of the United States Navy remained loyal to the Union. The Confederacy, therefore, gained inspiration from the ironclads across the Atlantic, quickly obtaining its own ironclads. CSS Manassas was the first to enter service, but was eventually brought down by a hail of Union broadside fire. The CSS Virginia, however, made an impact. Meanwhile, the Union began stockpiling City Class ironclads and in 1862, the USS Monitor was completed. After the veritable stalemate between the CSS Virginia and USS Monitor, the Union utilized its superior production capabilities to mass produce ironclads and enter them into service in the Union Navy. As the Union began armoring its increasingly large navy, the world’s foremost naval power certainly took notice. Therefore, this paper will utilize British newspapers, government documents, Royal Naval Reviews, and various personal documents from the 1860’s in order to examine the British public and naval reaction to the Union buildup of ironclad warships.

Perceived threats to established social order can influence the willingness of those in authority to inflict punishments as well as the severity of those punishments. Our article explores that proposition in the case of summary punishment by flogging in the Royal Navy. In the Royal Navy commanders were given the power to inflict flogging for a host of offenses. Prevailing penal thinking emphasized general deterrence, whereby punishment of a few serious offenders would deter the body of seamen. Eighteenth-century reforms were intended to rationalize and normalize flogging and limit its severity. Qualitative evidence indicates that naval commanders saw the established order under attack after 1789 and, emphasizing moral offenses, imposed tighter discipline on their crews. The evidence we have assembled based on a randomly selected sample of ships between 1740 and 1820 shows that flogging aboard ships was moderate up until the “Age of Revolution” that began after 1789 but increased dramatically in its frequency and severity in the wake of the French Revolution. Multivariate analysis shows that greater penal severity is associated with several factors, including a period effect associated with the onset of the revolutionary age. Our findings are consistent with existing research that suggests that disorder influences the willingness to punish.

Sir Gilbert Blane (1749-1834) was a Medical Officer in the Royal Navy who saw action against both the French and Spanish fleets, and later served as a Commissioner on the Sick and Wounded Board of the Admiralty. His work to improve the living conditions and health of sailors, and the significant reductions in sickness rates this achieved, brought him national recognition and honoursIn 1830, Sir Gilbert Blane established a legacy with the Royal College of Surgeons of England for the award of a Gold Medal in his name to be awarded to medical officers ‘who have brought about an advancement….or improvement in any matter affecting the health or living conditions of Naval personnel’. The first two Gilbert Blane medals were awarded in 1832, and the eponymous award continues to this day, 182 years after his death.

The Stirling power module V4-275R, integrated with a liquid oxygen system, is currently built for submarines for the Royal Swedish Navy and for the offshore company Comex in France. Since mid 1985 the Stirling engine system for the Swedish Navy has been successfully tested in a full-scale submarine test section. The next step in this programme will be an integration of the Stirling system into an operational Swedish submarine. A contract has been signed having Kockums as the main contractor. The French programme means a 500 ton manned diver lock-out submarine, the SAGA I, which is under final construction at Comex in Marseille. The energy system for the SAGA submarine consists of two V4–275R Stirling engines of maximum 100 kW power each. The oxygen storage, manufactured by AGA Cryo in Gothenburg, consists of two liquid oxygen tanks providing a total capacity of 10000 kWh, allowing the submarine to perform missions of up to 14 days submerged.

The risks of Napoleon's maritime strategy ; Evaluating Napoleon’s relations with his navy and his maritiume strategy is like trying to shine light into a black hole. Only the defeats have gone down into history - Aboukir, Trafalgar - the underside, as it were, of the glories of the Napoleonic era. Yet in exile on St. Helena Napoleon, with some justification, declared himself satisfied with his record at sea. This article seeks to explain this apparent paradox. On assuming power, Napoleon inherited a French navy crippled by six years of war and blockade. He got to grips with making improvements quite effectively, but realised that he would need ten years of peace to fashion a fleet capable of challenging Britain’s Royal Navy with any prospect of suc¬ cess. The ending of the Peace of Amiens (1803) left France virtually disarmed at sea, certainly compared with the protection afforded Britain by its insular position and the ‘wooden walls’ of her fleet. To escape this strategic impasse, Napoleon decided to attempt an invasion of Britain. He based his plan on the assembly of a large fleet of shallow-draught barges to project the Grand Army, 150,000 soldiers, across the Channel. But the plan became delayed. And the more time passed, the greater the complications that emerged, and the clearer became the need for an accompanying sea-going fleet. In 1805 Napoleon attempted a large-scale manoeuvre aimed at concentrating the squadrons of the French fleet in the rear of the British - in the West Indies - before bringing them unexpectedly and suddenly back into Channel waters to cover the passage of the Grand Army to England. The plan failed, but it resulted in the Battle of Trafalgar, which ought never to have taken place. Napoleon, who at first sought to deny the scale of that defeat, did not give up on the French navy. On the contrary, he had it rebuilt once again and raised to the level of the fleet in 1789. He hoped that Britain would lower its guard, to enable him at some point to deliver her a mortal blow. Thus, contrary to what is often argued, Napoleon did understand the mysteries of naval strategy. He realised that a full-scale naval recovery could not be achieved in wartime, whilst Britain retained its mastery of the waves. Yet, and to his credit, he persevered.

AbstractThe period 1877–1878 was one of tension between Britain and Russia caused by the Russo-Turkish War and the consequent threat to the route to India. The Royal Navy was deployed to deter the Russians in seas adjacent to the Balkans, but also undertook intelligence gathering missions further afield. Two of these were to Petropavlovsk in sub-Arctic Kamchatka and were undertaken by Commander A.L. Douglas in HMS Egeria. The British, with their French allies, had sustained a serious defeat there during the Crimean War and wished to ascertain the state of Russian defences should there be fresh hostilities. In the event, Douglas discovered that the Russians had abandoned Petropavlovsk as a fortified post and that there was no garrison. His reports were, therefore, negative, but included interesting information concerning Petropavlovsk in this era.

ABSTRACTWhile Restoration historians have traditionally assumed that there was little public interest in foreign affairs, and that English attitudes towards Europe were determined either by religious or domestic concerns, this essay argues that there was a lively and sophisticated English debate about Europe which turned on the proper identification of the universal monarch rather than religion. In the later 1660s the English political nation was deeply divided in its understanding of European politics. Enthusiastic supporters of the restored monarchy thought that the republican United Provinces sought universal dominion, while the monarchy's radical critics identified absolutist France as an aspirant to universal monarchy. French success in the early phases of the third Anglo-Dutch war, the failure of the French navy to support the English fleet at sea, and the overthrow of the Dutch republican regime in favour of William III, Prince of Orange, convinced the vast majority of the English that France represented the greater threat. Ultimately popular pressure compelled Charles II to abandon the French alliance. In addition, the popular conviction that Louis XIV had succeeded in corrupting the English court resulted in a new-found desire for popular accountability in foreign affairs, and a consequent diminution of the royal prerogative in that sphere.

Abstract Early modern shipping under neutral flags was an activity that required many capacities, combining practices from three different fields: commerce and shipping, diplomacy, and international law. This complexity of neutral shipping is the reason why traditional diplomatic history paid limited attention to it, despite the fact that shipping and prize cases consumed much of the attention and time of diplomats of neutral nations. The neutral agents had to be able to understand, communicate and move between all three fields. This article studies seizures of Swedish neutral vessels by British privateers and the Royal Navy between 1770 and 1800, including the years of the War of American Independence and the French Revolutionary Wars. It provides examples of how exchanges between different field actors—e.g. shipmasters, ship-owners, merchants, agents, lawyers, naval officers and diplomats—were communicated and understood from the perspective of Sweden’s representatives in London.

<p>This article, which is the author’s trial lecture for the degree of Philosophiae Doctor, offers a brief history of the use of Latin among men of learning. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are known as the periods of Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment, respectively. In the same timespan the Republic of Letters flourished, a word which connoted a kind of ‘imagined community’ (in Benedict Anderson’s words) which bound together the supporters of the new science. In transgressing confessional, civil, and ideological boundaries Latin offered a peculiar kind of assistance. A text in Latin would signify not merely erudition, but also some sort of neutrality. However much the active use and the passive ability to understand various vernacular languages rose internationally, neither Italian, French, English, or German was received without mixed feelings. Escaping the famous definition of a language as ‘a dialect with an army and a navy’, Latinity proved capable of persisting by means of ‘soft power’ alone. The processes which led to the end of this state of affairs were not one and the same. Italian, which Galilei and the academicians of Florence used, achieved national or regional, rather than international, success. English, cultivated by the Royal Society of London, was undoubtedly comprehensible to many learned, but it was used rarely abroad nevertheless. French, having the Académie Royale des Sciences and the encyclopédistes among its supporters, especially towards the end of the eighteenth century seemed poised to take over the Republic of Letters. German, read by many men of learning in Nordic and Eastern parts of Europe, reeked of vulgarity or even barbarism. That Latin, the victim of nationalism, democratisation, and secularisation, in brief, of European modernity, also served as a vehicle and a midwife for that very same modernity is a lesson well worth bearing in mind.</p>

AbstractTHAT something remarkable was happening in England in the quarter millennium separating the late sixteenth century from the early nineteenth is plain. In Elizabeth I's reign the Spanish Armada was perceived as a grave threat: the English ships were scarcely a match for the Spanish, and the weather played a major part in the deliverance of the nation. By the later eighteenth century the Royal Navy was unchallenged by the naval forces of any other single country, and during the generation of war which followed the French revolution, it proved capable of controlling the seas in the face of the combined naval forces mustered by Napoleon in an attempt to break the British oceanic stranglehold. Growing naval dominance was a symbol of a far more pervasive phenomenon. In the later sixteenth century England was not a leading European power and could exercise little influence over events at a distance from its shores. The Napoleonic wars showed that, even when faced by a coalition of countries occupying the bulk of Europe west of Russia and led by one of the greatest of military commanders, Britain possessed the depth of resources to weather a very long war, enabling her to outlast her challenger and secure a victory. The combination of a large and assertive Navy and dominant financial and commercial strength meant that, in the early decades of the nineteenth century, Britain was able to impose her will over large tracts of every continent. But her dominance did not grow out of the barrel of a gun. It derived chiefly from exceptional economic success: it grew out of the corn sack, the cotton mill, and the coal mine.

The Royal Observatory of the Spanish Navy (ROA) is specialist in space geodesy since the beginning of the space race. In 1975 a laser station was installed at ROA in collaboration with the French CERGA (Centre de Recherches en Géodynamique et Astrométrie). Since 1980, ROA has operated that station by their own. This equipment routinely tracks artificial satellites equipped with retro-reflectors. In 2014 ROA opened a new field of research: tracking of artificial satellites currently not active and equipped with retroreflectors. This new area was a challenge given the poor orbital accuracies that are available for these objects as they were not tracked on a routine basis. This served as an approach to our final goal: to strictly monitor space debris, this is, any type of uncontrolled man-made orbiting objects. To fulfill the objective, since 2017, we made significant changes to our laser installation. The most important was the replacement of the old laser bench with two new ones. One transmitting 500 mW-pulses, and another laser bench with 25 W transmission power. The study for the installation of the later laser was financed through European Union (EU) H2020 fundings and granted by the Spanish Centre for Industrial Technological Development (CDTI). Although it allows the tracking of collaborative objects, it is ideal for tracking non-collaborative too. Tracking activities begin in November 2017. From then onward, non-collaborative objects are monitored on a regular basis. This work shows the modifications already made, and the results obtained until 2019.

As the 110th anniversary of the beginning of the excavations at Vinča is nearing, the question arises as to how much we really know about the role and motives of a number of British subjects who in various ways played decisive roles in the research and the international affirmation of this important Late Neolithic site. It is possible, on the basis of archives and personal correspondence of Miloje M. Vasić, to view the investigations of Vinča in the wider context of political and military relations, influencing the general situation in the Kingdom of The Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later Yugoslavia. John Lynton Myres was a professor at the universities in Oxford and Liverpool, the founder and editor of the Journal Man and the director of the British Archaeological School in Athens. During the World War I, between 1916 and 1919, he was an officer of the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, first in the Navy Intelligence Service, and then in Military Control Office in Athens. The Browns, Alec and Catherine, also played an important role. Alec Brown, a left-oriented writer, translator and correspondent, arrived to Serbia as a Cambridge graduate, aiming at the post of an English language teacher in high schools. In the period from 1929 to 1931 he took part in the excavations at Vinča, taking this setting as the base for the plot of one of his books. His wife, Elsie Catherine Brown, whose life is very poorly documented, served in the British Embassy in Belgrade between the wars. Vasić dedicated the third volume of Prehistoric Vinča to her, for her devoted work in the British medical mission and the care she took of the Serbian soldiers near Thessalonica, but also for her part played in the establishment of the initial contact with Sir Charles Hyde. The life of Catherine Brown may be seen as one of the many exceptional stories about the noble British ladies, celebrated in Serbia for over a century. However, one should bear in mind that the events and characters (Myres, Hyde, the Browns) linked to the research in Vinča may be a part of a larger scene, and a consequence of other, equally important circumstances of a more direct involvement of Great Britain in the political situation in Yugoslavia between the wars. Myres, a man close to the scientific, intelligence and diplomatic circles, is the key person in the initial contact between Vasić and Catherine Brown. Since his first encounter with Vasić in 1918 in Athens, on the occasion of his return from France to Serbia, Myres himself or through Catherine Brown, worked to establish the collaboration and keep the contact with Vasić. It is possible that the Athens meeting, initiated by Myres, was a consequence not only of the scholarly interest, but also the growing British involvement in the Balkans. After the same line of reasoning, the arrival of Alec Brown in Belgrade cannot be understood solely as a consequence of the individual ambition of a young Slavic scholar, but as well as a part of the strategy of deepening the British influences over the region traditionally more inclined towards France, due to the political and cultural ties and military alliances. After the war, many Serbian linguists were posted as teachers of the language at the most prestigious British universities, such as Oxford and Cambridge, where Alec Brown earned his degree. His application to the post of English teacher in Serbia is closely preceded by the recommendation of Earl Curzon of Kedleston, British Foreign Secretary, to secure teaching English in the Yugoslav schools, and not only French, as it was previously the case. The collaboration between British and Serbian intellectuals was surely a very suitable context for the establishment of intimate contacts and spreading of cultural and political influences. As illustrated by the case of the Near East, archaeology and archaeologists are particularly useful in this respect. Their long sojourns and mobility in the field, command of the language, enabled them to gain the confidence of the locals, learn about the customs, and gain information, just like Myres the Blackbeard did, and more or less successfully Catherine and Alec Brown as well. Regardless of the real or clandestine motifs, in the case of the investigations of Vinča, this collaboration made possible the publication the four-volume work of Vasić – Prehistoric Vinča, exceptional in many respects, and the international recognition of Vinča as one of the most important Late Neolithic settlements in South-eastern Europe.

In January 1787, on board Lapérouse's Boussole anchored off Macao, the chevalier de Lamanon wrote a letter to the marquis de Condorcet, the then permanent secretary of the Académie Royale des Sciences in Paris. Lamanon's letter contained a summary of his magnetic observations made up to that point on Lapérouse's famous but ill-fated expedition. The letter, amongst other detail, included evidence that the Earth's magnetic field increased in intensity from the equator towards the poles. Sent to Condorcet via the then minister for the French Navy (the maréchal de Castries), the letter was subsequently lost, but not before it was copied. The copy, with early nineteenth-century ownership identified first to Nicolas Philippe Ledru and subsequently to Louis Isidore Duperrey, was itself then lost for over 150 years, but recently rediscovered bound-in with other manuscripts related to the Lapérouse expedition and terrestrial magnetism, including instructions by Ledru and remarks written in the 1830s and 1840s by Duperrey on Lamanon's letter and observations. The significance of Lamanon's letter and the Ledru and Duperrey manuscripts to the history of geomagnetism is discussed here. Duperrey's notes are transcribed in French for the first time and the Lamanon, Ledru and Duperrey manuscripts are translated into English, also for the first time.

This article explores the presence of black sailors in the French maritime world during the second part of the eighteenth century. It is apparent that both French and British navies at this time of war seem to have had opposite policies with regard to the employment of black sailors as almost none can be found on French warships whereas several examples may be found in the British Royal Navy . This article further explores whether the military navy was the rule or the exception in the French maritime world, seeking black sailors – either slaves or freemen – in the maritime activities of the French West Indies, and the islands of Guadeloupe in particular. Finally, the third part of the article examines the use of black sailors in the French merchant navy in not only the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, but also the Indian Ocean.

During the War of 1812, hundreds of private armed vessels, or privateers, carrying letters of marque and reprisal from their respective governments, served as counterweights to the navies of Great Britain and the United States. By 1812, privateering was acknowledged as an ideal way to annoy the enemy at little or no cost to the government. Local citizens provided the ships, crews and prizes while the court and customs systems took in the appropriate fees. The entire process was legal, licensed and often extremely lucrative. Unlike the navy, privateers were essentially volunteer commerce raiders, determined to weaken the enemy economically rather than militarily. So successful were they, that from July 1812 to February 1815, privateers from the United States, Britain, and the British provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia (as well as those sailing under French and Spanish flags) turned the shipping lanes from Newfoundland to the West Indies, Norway to West Africa, and even the South Pacific into their hunting grounds. In the early months of the war, privateers were often the only seaborne force patrolling their own coasts. With the Royal Navy pre-occupied with defending Britain and its Caribbean colonies from French incursions, there were relatively few warships available to protect British North American shipping from their new American foes. Meanwhile, the United States Navy had only a handful of frigates and smaller warships to protect their trade, supported by 174 generally despised gunboats. The solution was the traditional response of a lesser maritime power lacking a strong navy—private armed warfare, or privateering.

The Album de Colbert compiled by an anonymous author in the second half of the seventeenth century is among the most important illustrated testimonies of the art of shipbuilding. Probably commissioned by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Minister of Finance and Minister of the Navy of the kingdom of France, the Album was composed to make Louis XIV understand the complexity of shipbuilding. It was also made to support the creation of a navy with the ambition of being competitive with the Royal Navy and with the intent of modernising and expanding the French shipbuilding industry. The fifty plates that make up this illustrated treatise unravel the story of the construction of a first-rank 80-gun line vessel, from the laying of the keel to the launch. It is a unique document that has no contemporaries or precursors because it is not a didactic collection of boats, like the previous treaties that had a completely different methodological approach, more technical-descriptive than illustrative, but it wants to go beyond the scientific treatise. Its purpose was instead to measure itself with representation, showing through the strength of drawing and images the peculiar aspects of the reality of shipbuilding, using iconography as a means of transmitting knowledge related to the world of shipyards and shipbuilding in the 17th century.

The Album de Colbert compiled by an anonymous author in the second half of the seventeenth century is among the most important illustrated testimonies of the art of shipbuilding. Probably commissioned by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Minister of Finance of the Kingdom of France, it was compiled with the aim of making Louis XIV understand the complexity of shipbuilding. The Album was made to support the creation of a navy with the ambition of being competitive with the Royal Navy and with the intent of modernizing and expanding the French shipbuilding industry. The fifty plates that make up this illustrated treatise unravel the story of the construction of a first-rank 80-gun line vessel, from the laying of the keel to the launch. It is a unique document that has no contemporaries or precursors because it is not a didactic collection of boats, like the previous treaties that had a completely different methodological approach, more technical-descriptive than illustrative, but wants to go beyond the scientific treatise. Its purpose is instead to measure itself with representation, showing through the strength of drawing and images the peculiar aspects of the reality of shipbuilding, using iconography as a means of transmitting knowledge related to the world of shipyards and shipbuilding in the 17th century.

Leslie Wallace Lauste (1908–2001) was an English surgeon of French ancestry who practised in Brighton. This article used his memoirs and interviews to describe his life during the Second World War. In 1940, after declining evacuation by the Royal Navy, he was captured at Boulogne- Sur-Mer. Lauste went on to work in the following hospitals, of which most were attached to prisoner of war (POW) camps: Dannes-Camiers (France), Lille (France), Enghien (Belgium), Malines (Belgium), Dieberg (Germany), Klein-Zimmern (Germany), Stadtroda (Germany), Treysa (Germany), Kloster Haina (Germany), Lamsdorf (Poland), and Moosburg (Germany). Lauste’s memoirs indicate that most surgical work was routine rather than trauma-related. He gained considerable freedoms in camp and attended external hospitals to give a surgical opinion. Lauste witnessed the consequences of allied bombing raids on German cities and considered these a “genocide.” Lauste’s life offers insight into the Nazi mistreatment of Russian prisoners, management of a typhus outbreak, camp liberation, and extraordinary journeys within occupied Europe. His memoirs provide new insight into the life of a British POW surgeon and reveals personal courage, kindness to others, and passion for medicine. Lauste never married. He died in Brighton in 2001.

Abstract In 1795, Britain’s Parliament passed the “Seamen’s Families Bill” which enabled sailors to allot half of their monthly pay to either their mothers or wives for the duration of their service. This article examines the significance of the bill from a number of perspectives. First is the unprecedented level of national and local bureaucratic organization needed to implement pay allotments successfully. Second, and most extensively, the article examines the records produced by the bill’s implementation, which include such information as place of residence, number and gender of children, rank, wages, and relationship to the recipient. Drawing from a considerable sample of sailors who served from 1795 to the end of the French wars in 1815, the authors created a database of 7,514 sailors, who volunteered to allot half of their pay, as means to better understand the ordinary men who made up the rank and file of the Royal Navy. Among several findings is a strong challenge to the notion of the independent and irresponsible sailor who enlisted to escape an unhappy home life. Finally, the article considers the significance of the allotments within the British system of poor relief. Highly localized since its inception two centuries earlier, poor relief varied enormously across Britain. Equating annually to roughly one-quarter of poor relief expenditure across Britain, pay allotments to sailors’ families mark an unparalleled intervention by the British central government into social welfare.

Virtually every publication on the Greek Revolution signals the Battle of Navarino (20 October 1827) as a turning point in international involvement with events in Greece. What the historiography tends to ignore, however, is the significant degree of military intervention that preceded 1827, particularly at sea. Yet, the Greek Revolution was six years underway and had already taken to the sea by the time of Navarino. Several naval actors at Navarino had been involved in the maritime handling of the revolution since its very beginning, including the Royal Navy captain Gawen Hamilton, the French Vice-Admiral Henri de Rigny and the Algerine commander Mustapha Bachalî Raïs. What had they been doing before then in the seas around Greece? By looking at the first phases of the Greek Revolution, from 1821 to 1827, this article clarifies how different imperial powers tried to manage the uncertainties and threats that the rebellion brought to the waters of the Mediterranean. It draws from source material on the navies of Great Britain, France, Austria and the Ottoman Empire. The piece provides three insights that highlight the significance and contingencies of imperial involvement in the first phase of the revolution. These insights relate to: (a) belligerency at sea; (b) the security threats of piracy and privateering; and (3) naval interventionism.

In 1858 EBB declared her son Pen “shall be a ‘citizen of the world’ after my own heart & ready for the millennium.”[i] Living in Italy for most of the fifteen years of her married life and passionately supporting Italian unification and independence in her mature poetry, Elizabeth Barrett Browning proudly regarded herself as “a citizen of the world.” But world citizenship is a perspective toward which EBB[ii] strove in her juvenilia long before she employed the phrase. Much of her childhood writing expresses her compulsion to address social and political issues and to transcend national prejudices in doing so. Recent critics have illuminated EBB’s gender and political views in fascinating detail. Marjorie Stone, to cite one example, has ably traced EBB’s commitment to “a poetry of the present and ‘the Real’” and her “turn towards human and contemporary subjects, away from the self-confessedly mystical and abstract subject matter of her 1838 volume….”[iii] We should recognize, however, that a strong political impulse surfaces in even her earliest writings and in her recollections of childhood. Her letters from early childhood demonstrate her precocious interest in power negotiations between nations, and also between individual citizens and governments. At age six, for example, she informed her mother and father that “the Rusians has beat the french killd 18.000 men and taken 14000 prisners”--an account which, though mistakenly attributing victory to the wrong side, documents her early interest in the Napoleonic wars (31 August 1812, BC 1: 9). More telling for consideration of her aesthetic-political theory, her earliest known poem—composed in the month she turned six—in four lines critiques the British government’s policy of impressing civilians (even Americans) to serve in the British navy.[iv] Entitled “On the Cruelty of Forcement to Man: Alluding to the Press Gang” (1812), it suggests in its final two lines the viewer’s--specifically the extremely young female poet’s--responsibility to grapple with the moral and ethical implications of this military practice: Ah! the poor lad in yonder boat, Forced from his wife, his friends, his home, Now gentle Maiden how can you, Look at the misery of his doom![v] Her last two lines pose a question that will shape her poetic career: How can you represent disturbing issues that demand your attention? Although her brief first poem does not resolve this conundrum, by expressing her query as an exclamation, she leaves no uncertainty that she must do so. [i] The Brownings’ Correspondence, 26 vols. to date, ed. Philip Kelley, et al. (Winfield, KS, and Waco, TX: Wedgestone Press, 1984- ), vol. 25, p. 98; hereafter cited parenthetically as BC. For discussion of EBB’s views on the cosmopolitan education of her son and its relationship to her poetic practice, see Beverly Taylor, “Elizabeth Barrett Browning and the Politics of Childhood,” Victorian Poetry 46 (2008): 405-27; and Christopher M. Keirstead, “‘He Shall Be a “Citizen of the World”’: Cosmopolitanism and the Education of Pen Browning,” Browning Society Notes 32 (2007): 74-82. EBB associated the concept “citizen” or “citizeness of the world” with both personal experience and international political concerns. In 1852 she wrote to her beloved distant kinsman and friend John Kenyon about her bitter estrangement from England, on the personal level fostered particularly by her father’s obdurate refusal to reconcile following her marriage, and on the political level, by England’s failure to support Italy’s independence: “I’m a citizeness of the world now, you see, and float loose” (BC 17: 70). [ii] To avoid the confusion of using her maiden name (Elizabeth Barrett Barrett) and her married name, throughout the essay I refer to Elizabeth Barrett Browning by the initials she frequently used to sign her manuscripts and letters. Both she and Robert Browning expressed pleasure that her initials and characteristic signature would not change with their marriage (BC 11: 248-49). [iii] Marjorie Stone, Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1995), pp. 27, 24-25. Yet even so magisterial a study as Isobel Armstrong’s Victorian Poetry: Poetry, Poetics and Politics (London: Routledge, 1993), while it ranges beyond the traditional canon to include many women and working-class writers, scarcely mentions EBB. [iv] What were you thinking about at age six? Britain’s practice of seizing sailors from merchant ships and forcing them to serve in the Royal Navy (“forcement” or “impressment”) constituted one cause the United States declared war on England in 1812, while England was still at war with France. The London Times discussed the problem of impressment. See, e.g., “Parliamentary Proceedings,” 26 June 1812; “American Papers,” 10 March 1812; as well as editorial comment calling impressment “the disgrace of England and of a civilized age” (“Upon Hearing Cuxhaven,” 3 October 1811). On naval impressment see Nicholas Rogers, The Press Gang: Naval Impressment and Its Opponents in Georgian Britain (London: Continuum, 2007), esp. pp. 134-38. [v] First published in H. Buxton Forman’s edition of EBB’s Hitherto Unpublished Poems and Stories with an Inedited Autobiography, vol. 1 (Boston: Bibliophile Society, 1914), p. 31; subsequently cited as HUP. Punctuation follows that of the manuscript copied into a notebook by EBB’s mother, in the Berg collection of the New York Public Library; see The Browning Collections: A Reconstruction with Other Memorabilia, compiled by Philip Kelley & Betty A. Coley (Winfield, KS: Armstrong Browning Library of Baylor University, The Browning Institute, Mansel Publishing, Wedgestone Press, 1984), D666. All quotations from EBB’s works follow The Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 5 vols., vol. eds. Sandra Donaldson, Rita Patteson, Marjorie Stone, and Beverly Taylor (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2010); subsequently cited as WEBB. EBB’s juvenilia appear in vol. 5, this first poem on pp. 159-60. On this poem and other juvenilia, see Beverly Taylor, “Childhood Writings of Elizabeth Barrett Browning: ‘At four I first mounted Pegasus,’” The Child Writer from Austen to Woolf, ed. Christine Alexander and Juliet McMaster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 138-53.

Chuquisaca, located in the current territory of Bolivia, whose main city was La Plata. Its proximity to the Porco and Potosí mines would lead to its foundation. It housed the capital of the Royal Audience of Charcas and the Archbishopric and brought together the population from various places who came to make their requests or to study in schools and at the San Francisco Xavier University. When the news of the French invasion of the Peninsula arrived in 1808, this city swore allegiance and organized the first meeting of the territory. In this context of crisis, research has been developed that highlights the construction of the nation, therefore, this work aims to delve into the realists, the forgotten or those who were excluded from traditional histories. During the years 1809 to 1812, the local population showed, in its vast majority, its fidelity to the Crown, to maintain peace and stability. This analysis identifies specific times that demonstrate a commitment to realism, a political option exposed from various events and actions conducted when defending the king's flags and, to his privileges and assets endangered with the advance of the patriotic troops coming from Buenos Aires since 1810. Chuquisaca, situada en el actual territorio de Bolivia, cuya ciudad principal fue La Plata. Su cercanía a las minas de Porco y Potosí provocaría su fundación. Albergó a la capital de Real Audiencia de Charcas y del Arzobispado y congregaba a la población de diversos lugares que llegaban a realizar sus peticiones o a estudiar en los colegios y en la Universidad San Francisco Xavier. Al llegar las noticias de la invasión francesa a la Península en 1808, esta ciudad juró fidelidad y organizó la primera junta del territorio. En este contexto de crisis, se han desarrollado investigaciones que resaltan la construcción de la nación, por ello, este trabajo pretende ahondar en los realistas, en los olvidados o en los que fueron excluidos de las historias tradicionales. Durante los años 1809 a 1812, la población local mostró en su gran mayoría, su fidelidad a la Corona, debido a mantener la paz y la estabilidad. Este análisis identifica tiempos específicos que evidencian una apuesta por el realismo, opción política expuesta a partir de diversos acontecimientos y acciones llevados a cabo a la hora de defender las banderas del rey y también, a sus privilegios y bienes puestos en peligros con el avance de las tropas patriotas provenientes de Buenos Aires desde 1810.

Why do politicians wear what they wear? Social conventions and parliamentary rules largely shape how politicians dress. Clothing is about power, especially if we think about clothing as uniforms. Uniforms of judges and police are easily recognised as symbols of power. Similarly, the business suit of a politician is recognised as a form of authority. But what if you are a female politician: what do you wear to work or in public? Why do we expect politicians to wear suits and ties? While we do expect a certain level of behaviour of our political leaders, why does the professionalised suit and tie signal this? And what happens if a politician challenges this convention? Female politicians, and largely any women in a position of power in the public sphere, are judged when they don’t conform to the social conventions of appropriate dress. Arguably, male politicians are largely not examined for their suit preferences (unless you are Paul Keating wearing Zenga suits or Anthony Albanese during an election make-over), so why are female politicians’ clothes so scrutinised and framed as reflective of their abilities or character? This article interrogates the political uniform and its gendered contestations. It does so via the ways female politicians are challenging gender norms and power relations in how they dress in public, political, and parliamentary contexts. It considers how rules and conventions around political clothing are political in themselves, through a discussion on how female politicians and political figures choose to adhere to or break these rules. Rules about what dress is worn by parliamentarians are often archaic, often drawn from rules set by parliaments largely made up of men. But even with more women sitting in parliaments, dress rules still reflect a very masculine idea of what is appropriate. Dress standards in the Australian federal parliament are described as a “matter for individual judgement”, however the Speaker of the House of Representatives can make rulings on members’ attire. In 1983, the Speaker ruled dress was to be neat, clean, and decent. In 1999, the Speaker considered dress to be “formal” and “similar to that generally accepted in business and professional circles”. This was articulated by the Speaker to be “good trousers, a jacket, collar and tie for men and a similar standard of formality for women”. In 2005, the Speaker reinforced this ruling that dress should be “formal” in keeping with business and professional standards, adding there was no “dignity of the House for Members to arrive in casual or sportswear” (“Dress”). Clothes with “printed slogans” are not considered acceptable and result in a warning from the Speaker for Australian MPs to “dress more appropriately”. Previous dress rulings also include that members should not remove their jackets in parliament, “tailored safari suits without a tie were acceptable, members could wear hats in parliament but had to remove them while entering or leaving the chamber and while speaking”. The safari suit rule likely refers to the former Foreign Affairs Minister Gareth Evans’s wearing of the garment during the 1980s and 1990s. The Speaker can also rule on what a member of the federal parliament can’t do. While in parliament, members can’t smoke, can’t read a newspaper, can’t distribute apples, may not climb over seats, and can’t hit or kick their desks. Members of parliament can however use their mobile phones for text messaging, and laptops can be used for emails (“Dress”). These examples suggest an almost old-fashioned type of school rules juxtaposed with modern sensibilities, positing the ad-hoc nature of parliamentary rules, with dress rules further evidence of this. While a business suit is considered the orthodoxy of the political uniform for male politicians, this largely governs rules about what female politicians wear. The business suit, the quasi-political uniform for male MPs, is implicit and has social consensus. The suit, which covers the body, is comprised of trousers to the ankle, well cut in muted colours of blue, grey, brown, and black, with contrasting shirts, often white or light colours, ties that may have a splash of colour, often demonstrating allegiances or political persuasions, mostly red or blue, as in the case of Labor and Liberal or Republicans and Democrats. The conventions of the suit are largely proscribed onto women, who wear a female version of the male suit, with some leeway in colour and pattern. Dress for female MPs should be modest, as with the suit, covering much of the body, and especially have a modest neckline and be at least knee length. In the American Congress, the dress code requires “men to wear suit jackets and ties ... and women are not supposed to wear sleeveless tops or dresses without a sweater or jacket” (Zengerle). In 2017, this prompted US Congresswomen to wear sleeveless dresses as a “right to bare arms” (Deutch and Karl). In these two Australian and American examples of a masculine parliamentary wear it is reasonable to suppose a seeming universality about politicians’ dress codes. But who decides what is the correct mode of political uniform? Sartorial rules about what are acceptable clothing choices are usually made by the dominant group, and this is the case when it comes to what politicians wear. Some rules about what is worn in parliament are archaic to our minds today, such as the British parliament law from 1313 which outlaws the wearing of armour and weaponry inside the chamber. More modern rulings from the UK include the banning of hats in the House of Commons (although not the Lords), and women being permitted handbags, but not men (Simm). This last rule reveals how clothing and its performance is gendered, as does the Australian parliament rule that a “Member may keep his hands in his pockets while speaking” (“Dress”), which assumes the speaker is likely a man wearing trousers. Political Dress as Uniform While political dress may be considered as a dress ‘code’ it can also be understood as a uniform because the dress reflects their job as public, political representatives. When dress code is considered as a uniform, homogenisation of dress occurs. Uniformity, somewhat ironically, can emphasise transgressions, as Jennifer Craik explains: “cultural transgression is a means of simultaneously undermining and reinforcing rules of uniforms since an effective transgressive performance relies on shared understandings of normative meanings, designated codes of conduct and connotations” (Craik 210). Codified work wear usually comes under the umbrella of uniforms. Official uniforms are the most obvious type of uniforms, clearly denoting the organisation of the wearer. Military, police, nurses, firefighters, and post-office workers often have recognisable uniforms. These uniforms are often accompanied by a set of rules that govern the “proper” wearing of these items. Uniforms rules do not just govern how the clothing is worn, they also govern the conduct of the person wearing the uniform. For example, a police officer in uniform, whether or not on duty, is expected to maintain certain codes of behaviour as well as dress standards. Yet dress, as Craik notes, can also be transgressive, allowing the wearer to challenge the underpinning conventions of the dress codes. Both Australian Senator Sarah Hanson-Young and US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to name just two, leveraged social understandings of uniforms when they used their clothing to communicate political messages. Fashion as political communication or as ‘fashion politics’ is not a new phenomenon (Oh 374). Jennifer Craik argues that there are two other types of uniform; the unofficial and the quasi-uniform (17). Unofficial uniforms are generally adopted in lieu of official uniforms. They generally arise organically from group members and function in similar ways to official uniforms, and they tend to be identical in appearance, even if hierarchical. Examples of these include the yellow hi-vis jackets worn by the French Gilets Jaunes during the 2018 protests against rising costs of living and economic injustice (Coghlan). Quasi-uniforms work slightly differently. They exist where official and unofficial rules govern the wearing of clothes that are beyond the normal social rules of clothing. For example, the business suit is generally considered appropriate attire for those working in a conservative corporate environment: some workplaces restrict skirt, trouser, and jacket colours to navy, grey, or black, accompanied by a white shirt or blouse. In this way we can consider parliamentary dress to be a form of “quasi-uniform”, governed by both official and unofficial workplaces rules, but discretionary as to what the person chooses to wear in order to abide by these rules, which as described above are policed by the parliamentary Speaker. In the Australian House of Representatives, official rules are laid down in the policy “Dress and Conduct in the Chamber” which allows that “the standard of dress in the Chamber is a matter for the individual judgement of each Member, [but] the ultimate discretion rests with the Speaker” (“Dress”). Clothing rules within parliamentary chambers may establish order but also may seem counter-intuitive to the notions of democracy and free speech. However, when they are subverted, these rules can make clothing statements seem even more stark. Jennifer Craik argues that “wearing a uniform properly ... is more important that the items of clothing and decoration themselves” (4) and it is this very notion that makes transgressive use of the uniform so powerful. As noted by Coghlan, what we wear is a powerful tool of political struggle. French revolutionaries rejected the quasi-uniforms of the French nobility and their “gold-braided coat, white silk stockings, lace stock, plumed hat and sword” (Fairchilds 423), and replaced it with the wearing of the tricolour cockade, a badge of red, blue, and white ribbons which signalled wearers as revolutionaries. Uniforms in this sense can be understood to reinforce social hierarchies and demonstrate forms of power and control. Coghlan also reminds us that the quasi-uniform of women’s bloomers in the 1850s, often referred to as “reform dress”, challenged gender norms and demonstrated women’s agency. The wearing of pants by women came to “symbolize the movement for women’s rights” (Ladd Nelson 24). The wearing of quasi-political uniforms by those seeking social change has a long history, from the historical examples already noted to the Khadi Movement led by Gandhi’s “own sartorial choices of transformation from that of an Englishman to that of one representing India” (Jain), to the wearing of sharecropper overalls by African American civil rights activists to Washington to hear Martin Luther King in 1963, to the Aboriginal Long March to Freedom in 1988, the Tibetan Freedom Movement in 2008, and the 2017 Washington Pink Pussy Hat March, just to name a few (Coghlan). Here shared dress uniforms signal political allegiance, operating not that differently from the shared meanings of the old-school tie or tie in the colour of political membership. Political Fashion Clothing has been used by queens, female diplomats, and first ladies as signs of power. For members of early royal households, “rank, wealth, magnificence, and personal virtue was embodied in dress, and, as such, dress was inherently political, richly materialising the qualities associated with the wearer” (Griffey 15). Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603), in order to subvert views that she was unfit to rule because of her sex, presented herself as a virgin to prove she was “morally worthy of holding the traditionally masculine office of monarch” (Howey 2009). To do this she dressed in ways projecting her virtue, meaning her thousands of gowns not only asserted her wealth, they asserted her power as each gown featured images and symbols visually reinforcing her standing as the Virgin Queen (Otnes and Maclaren 40). Not just images and symbols, but colour is an important part of political uniforms. Just as Queen Elizabeth I’s choice of white was an important communication tool to claim her right to rule, Queen Victoria used colour to indicate status and emotion, exclusively wearing black mourning clothes for the 41 years of her widowhood and thus “creating a solemn and pious image of the Queen” (Agnew). Dress as a sign of wealth is one aspect of these sartorial choices, the other is dress as a sign of power. Today, argues Mansel, royal dress is as much political as it is performative, embedded with a “transforming power” (Mansel xiiv). With the “right dress”, be it court dress, national dress, military or civil uniform, royals can encourage loyalty, satisfy vanity, impress the outside world, and help local industries (Mansel xiv). For Queen Elizabeth II, her uniform rendered her visible as The Queen; a brand rather than the person. Her clothes were not just “style choices”; they were “steeped with meaning and influence” that denoted her role as ambassador and figurehead (Atkinson). Her wardrobe of public uniforms was her “communication”, saying she was “prepared, reliable and traditional” (Atkinson). Queen Elizabeth’s other public uniform was that of the “tweed-skirted persona whose image served as cultural shorthand for conservative and correct manner and mode” (Otnes and Maclaren 19). For her royal tours, the foreign dress of Queen Elizabeth was carefully planned with a key “understanding of the political semantics of fashion … with garments and accessories … pay[ing] homage to the key symbols of the host countries” (Otnes and Maclaren 49). Madeline Albright, former US Secretary of State, engaged in sartorial diplomacy not with fashion but with jewellery, specifically pins (Albright). She is quoted as saying on good days, when I wanted to project prosperity and happiness, I'd put on suns, ladybugs, flowers, and hot-air balloons that signified high hopes. On bad days, I'd reach for spiders and carnivorous animals. If the progress was slower than I liked during a meeting in the Middle East, I'd wear a snail pin. And when I was dealing with crabby people, I put on a crab. Other ambassadors started to notice, and whenever they asked me what I was up to on any given day, I would tell them, “Read my pins”. (Burack) Two American first ladies, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Michelle Obama, demonstrate how their fashion acted as a political uniform to challenge the ideal notions of American womanhood that for generations were embedded in the first lady (Rall et al.). While modern first ladies are now more political in their championing of causes and play an important role in presidential election, there are lingering expectations that the first lady be the mother of the nation (Caroli). First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s eclectic style challenged the more conservative tone set by prior Republican first ladies, notably Barbara Bush. Rodham Clinton is a feminist and lawyer more interested in policy that the domesticity of White House functions and décor. Her fashion reflects her “independence, individuality and agency”, providing a powerful message to American women (Rall et al. 274). This was not that much of a shift from her appearance as the wife of a Southern Governor who wouldn’t wear makeup and kept her maiden name (Anderson and Sheeler 26). More recently, as Democratic Presidential nominee, Rodham Clinton again used fashion to tell voters that a woman could wear a suit and become president. Rodham Clinton’s political fashion acted to contest the gender stereotypes about who could sit in the White House (Oh 374). Again, the pantsuit was not new for Rodham Clinton; “when I ran for Senate in 2000 and President in 2008, I basically had a uniform: a simple pantsuit, often black” (Mejia). Rodham Clinton says the “benefit to having a uniform is finding an easy way to fit in … to do what male politicians do and wear more or less the same thing every day”. As a woman running for president in 2016, the pantsuit acted as a “visual cue” that she was “different from the men but also familiar” (Mejia). Similarly, First Lady Michelle Obama adopted a political uniform to situate her role in American society. Gender but also race and class played a role in shaping her performance (Guerrero). As the first black First Lady, in the context of post-9/11 America which pushed a “Buy American” retail campaign, and perhaps in response to the novelty of a black First Lady, Obama expressed her political fashion by returning the First Lady narrative back to the confines of family and domesticity (Dillaway and Paré). To do this, she “presented a middle-class casualness by wearing mass retail items from popular chain stores and the use of emerging American designers for her formal political appearances” (Rall et al. 274). Although the number of women elected into politics has been increasing, gender stereotypes remain, and female representation in politics still remains low in most countries (Oh 376). Hyland argues that female politicians are subject to more intense scrutiny over their appearance … they are held to higher standards for their professional dress and expected to embody a number of paradoxes — powerful yet demure, covered-up but not too prim. They’re also expected to keep up with trends in a way that their male counterparts are not. Sexism can too easily encroach upon critiques of what they wear. How female politicians dress is often more reported than their political or parliamentary contributions. This was the case for Australia’s first female Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Jansens’s 2019 research well demonstrates the media preoccupation with political women’s fashion in a number of ways, be it the colours they choose to wear, how their clothing reveals their bodies, and judgements about the professionalism of their sartorial choices and the number of times certain items of clothing are worn. Jansens provides a number of informative examples noting the media’s obsession with Gillard’s choices of jackets that were re-worn and tops that showed her cleavage. One Australian Financial Review columnist reported, I don’t think it’s appropriate for a Prime Minister to be showing her cleavage in Parliament. It’s not something I want to see. It is inappropriate to be in Parliament, it is disrespectful to yourself and to the Australian community and to the parliament to present yourself in a manner that is unprofessional. (Jansens) The media preoccupation with female politicians’ clothing is noted elsewhere. In the 2012 Korean presidential election, Geun-hye Park became the first female president of Korea, yet media reports focussed largely on Park’s fashion: a 2013 newspaper published a four-page analysis titled “Park Geun-hye Fashion Project”. Another media outlet published a review of the 409 formal function outfits worn by Park (Oh 378). The larger focus, however, remains on Park’s choice to wear a suit, referred to as her “combat uniform” (Cho), for her daily parliamentary and political duties. This led Oh to argue that Korean female politicians, including Park, wear a “male suit as a means for benefit and survival”; however, with such media scrutiny “female politicians are left under constant surveillance” (382). As Jansens argues, clothing can act as a “communicative barrier between the body and society”, and a narrative that focusses on how clothes fit and look “illustrates women’s bodies as exceptional to the uniform of the political sphere, which is a masculine aesthetic” (212). Drawing on Entwistle, Jansens maintains that the the uniform “serves the purpose in policing the boundaries of sexual difference”, with “uniforms of gender, such as the suit, enabl[ing] the repetitious production of gender”. In this context, female politicians are in a double bind. Gillard, for example, in changing her aesthetic illustrates the “false dichotomy, or the ‘double bind’ of women’s competency and femininity that women can be presented with regarding their agency to conform, or their agency to deviate from the masculine aesthetic norm” (Jansens 212). This was likely also the experience of Jeannette Rankin, with media reports focusing on Rankin’s “looks and “personal habits,” and headlines such “Congresswoman Rankin Real Girl; Likes Nice Gowns and Tidy Hair” (“Masquerading”). In this article, however, the focus is not on the media preoccupation with female politicians’ political fashion; rather, it is on how female politicians, rather than conforming to masculine aesthetic norms of wearing suit-like attire, are increasingly contesting the political uniform and in doing so are challenging social and political boundaries As Yangzom puts it, how the “embodiment of dress itself alters political space and civic discourse is imperative to understanding how resistance is performed in creating social change” (623). This is a necessary socio-political activity because the “way the media talks about women affects the way women are perceived in society. If women’s appearances are consistently highlighted in the media, inequality of opportunity will follow from this inequality of treatment” (Jansens 215). Contesting the Political Uniform Breaking fashion norms, or as Entwistle argues, “bodies which flout the conventions of their culture and go without the appropriate clothes are subversive of the most basic social codes and risk exclusion, scorn and ridicule” (7), hence the price may be high to pay for a public figure. American Vice-President Kamala Harris’s penchant for comfy sneakers earned her the nickname “the Converse candidate”. Her choice to wear sneakers rather than a more conventional low-heel shoe didn’t necessarily bring about a backlash; rather, it framed her youthful image (possibly to contrast against Trump and Biden) and posited a “hit the ground running” approach (Hyland). Or, as Devaney puts it, “laced up and ready to win … [Harris] knew her classic American trainers signalled a can-do attitude and a sense of purpose”. Increasingly, political women, rather than being the subject of social judgments about their clothing, are actively using their dressed bodies to challenge and contest a range of political discourses. What a woman wears is a “language through which she can send any number of pointed messages” (Weiss). In 2021, US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wore a ‘Tax the rich’ dress to the Met Gala. The dress was designed by social activist designers Brother Vellies and loaned to Ocasio-Cortez to attend the $30,000 ticket event. For Ocasio-Cortez, who has an Instagram following of more than eight million people, the dress is “about having a real conversation about fairness and equity in our system, and I think this conversation is particularly relevant as we debate the budget” (“Alexandria”). For Badham, “in the blood-spattered garments of fighting class war” the “backlash to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s … dress was instant and glorious”. At the same event, Congresswomen Carolyn Maloney wore an ‘Equal Rights for Women’ suffragette-themed floor length dress in the suffragette colours of purple, white, and gold. Maloney posted that she has “long used fashion as a force 4 change” (Chamlee). US Senator Kyrsten Sinema is known for her “eccentric hipster” look when sitting in the chamber, complete with “colourful wigs, funky glasses, gold knee-high boots, and a ring that reads ‘Fuck off”’ (Hyland). Simena has been called a “Prada Socialist” and a “fashion revolutionary” (Cauterucci). Similarly, UK politician Harriet Harmen received backlash for wearing a t-shirt which read “This is what a feminist looks like” when meeting PM David Cameron (Pilote and Montreuil). While these may be exceptions rather than the rule, the agency demonstrated by these politicians speaks to the patriarchal nature of masculine political environments and the conventions and rules that maintain gendered institutions, such as parliaments. When US Vice-President Kamala Harris was sworn in, she was “not only … the first woman, Black woman, and South Asian-American woman elected to the position, but also … the first to take the oath of office wearing something other than a suit and tie”, instead wearing a feminised suit consisting of a purple dress and coat designed by African-American designer Christopher John Rogers (Naer). Harris is often photographed wearing Converse sneakers, as already noted, and Timberland work boots, which for Naer is “quietly rebellious” because with them “Harris subverts expectations that women in politics should appear in certain clothing (sleek heels, for instance) in order to compete with men — who are, most often, in flats”. For Elan, the Vice-President’s sneakers may be a “small sartorial detail, but it is linked to the larger cultural moment in which we live. Sneakers are a form of footwear finding their way into many women’s closets as part of a larger challenge to outmoded concepts of femininity” as well as a nod to her multiracial heritage where the “progenitors of sneaker culture were predominantly kids of colour”. Her dress style can act to disrupt more than just gender meanings; it can be extended to examine class and race. In 2022, referencing the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez 2021 Met dress, Claudia Perkins, the wife of Australian Greens leader Adam Bandt, wore a “white, full-length dress covered in red and black text” that read “coal kills” and “gas kills”, with slick, long black gloves. Bandt wore a “simple tux with a matching pocket square of the same statement fabric” to the federal parliament Midwinter Ball. Joining Perkins was Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, wearing an “hourglass white dress with a statement on the back in black letters” that read: “end gas and coal”. The trim on the bottom was also covered in the same text. Hanson-Young posted on social media that the “dress is made from a 50-year-old damask table cloth, and the lettering is made from a fast fashion handbag that had fallen apart” (Bliszczyk). Federal MP Nicolle Flint posted a video on Twitter asking a political commentator what a woman in politics should wear. One commentator had taken aim at Flint’s sartorial choices which he described “pearl earrings and a pearly smile” and a “vast wardrobe of blazers, coats and tight, black, ankle-freezing trousers and stiletto heels”. Ending the video, Flint removes her black coat to reveal a “grey bin bag cinched with a black belt” (Norman). In 2018, Québec politician Catherine Dorian was criticised for wearing casual clothes, including Dr Marten boots, in parliament, and again in 2019 when Dorian wore an orange hoodie in the parliamentary chamber. The claim was that Dorian “did not respect decorum” (Pilote and Montreuil). Dorian’s response was “it’s supposed to be the people’s house, so why can’t we look like normal people” (Parrillo). Yet the Québec parliament only has dress rules for men — jacket, shirt and ties — and has no specifics for female attire, meaning a female politician can wear Dr Martens or a hoodie, or meaning that the orthodoxy is that only men will sit in the chamber. The issue of the hoodie, somewhat like Kamala Harris’s wearing of sneakers, is also a class and age issue. For Jo Turney, the hoodie is a “symbol of social disobedience” (23). The garment is mass-produced, ordinary, and democratic, as it can be worn by anyone. It is also a sign of “criminality, anti-social behaviour and out of control youth”. If the media are going to focus on what female politicians are wearing rather than their political actions, it is unsurprising some will use that platform to make social and political comments on issues relating to gender, but also to age, class, and policies. While this may maintain a focus on their sartorial choices, it does remind us of the double bind female politicians are in. With parliamentary rules and social conventions enamoured with the idea of a ‘suit and tie’ being the appropriate uniform for political figures, instances when this ‘rule’ is transgressed will risk public ridicule and social backlash. However, in instances were political women have chosen to wear garments that are not the conventional political uniform of the suit and tie, i.e. a dress or t-shirt with a political slogan, or a hoodie or sneakers reflecting youth, class, or race, they are challenging the customs of what a politician should look like. Politicians today are both men and women, different ages, abilities, sexualities, ethnicities, religions, and demographics. To narrowly suppose what a politician is by what they wear narrows public thinking about a person’s contribution or potential contribution to public life. While patriarchal social conventions and parliamentary rules stay in place, the political sphere is weaker for it. References Agnew, Molly. “Victorian Mourning Dress.” Eternal Goddess 27 Nov. 2020. 12 Dec. 2022 <https://www.eternalgoddess.co.uk/posts/esbvxua79pcgcwyjp6iczrdfgw4vm5>. Albright, Madeleine. Read My Pins: Stories from a Diplomat’s Jewel Box. Sydney: Harper Collins, 2010. “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Wears Dress with ‘Tax the Rich' Written on It to Met Gala.” NBC 13 Sep. 2021. <https://www.nbcnewyork.com/entertainment/the-scene/met-gala/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-wears-dress-with-tax-the-rich-written-on-it-to-met-gala/3270019/>. Anderson, Karrin, and Kristine Sheeler. Governing Codes: Gender, Metaphor and Political Identity. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2005. Atkinson, Emma. “Power Dressing: The Queen’s Unique Style.” BBC News 1 Jun. 2022. <https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-61593081>. Badham, Van. “AOC’s Guide to Getting Noticed at Parties: Drape Yourself in the GGarments of Class War.” The Guardian 15 Sep. 2021. <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/15/aocs-guide-to-getting-noticed-at-parties-drape-yourself-in-the-garments-of-class-war>. Bliszczyk, Aleksandra. “Adam Bandt’s Wife and Sarah Hanson-Young Slayed Last Nights Midwinter Ball w/ Anti-Coal Dresses.” Pedestrian TV 8 Sep. 2022. <https://www.pedestrian.tv/style/adam-bandt-wife-anti-coal-statement-midwinter-ball/>. Burack, Emily. “An Ode to Madeleine Albright's Best Brooches.” Town and Country 24 Mar. 2022. <https://www.townandcountrymag.com/style/jewelry-and-watches/g39526103/madeleine-albright-brooch-tribute/>. Caroli, Betty. First Ladies: The Ever-Changing Role, from Martha Washington to Melania Trump. 5th ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2019. Cauterucci, Christina. “Kyrsten Sinema Is Not Just a Funky Dresser. She’s a Fashion Revolutionary.” Slate 31 Jan. 2019. <https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/01/kyrsten-sinema-fashion-boots.html>. Chamlee, Virginia. “The New York Democrat Also Wore a Bag Emblazoned with ‘ERA YES’, an Endorsement of the Proposed Equal Rights Amendment.” People 14 Sep. 2021. https://people.com/style/congresswoman-carolyn-maloney-wears-suffragette-themed-met-gala-dress. Cho, Jae-eun. “During Election Season, Clothes Make the Politicians.” Korea JoongAng Daily 4 Sep. 2012. <https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2012/09/04/features/During-election-season-clothes-make-the-politician/2958902.html>. Coghlan, Jo. “Dissent Dressing: The Colour and Fabric of Political Rage.” M/C Journal 22.1 (2019). <https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1497>. Craik, Jennifer. Uniforms Exposed: From Conformity to Transgression. Oxford: Berg, 2005. Deutch, Gabby, and Emily Karl. “Congresswomen Protest the ‘Right to Bare Arms’.” CNN 14 Jul. 2017. <https://edition.cnn.com/2017/07/14/politics/capitol-dress-code-protest/index.html>. Devaney, Susan. “How Kamala and Her Converse Rewrote the Rule Book on Political Style.” British Vogue 13 Nov. 2020. <https://www.vogue.co.uk/news/article/kamala-harris-sneakers-fashion>. Dillaway, Heather, and Elizabeth Paré. “Locating Mothers: How Cultural Debates about Stay-at-Home versus Working Mothers Define Women and Home.” Journal of Family Issues 29.4 (2008): 437–64. “Dress and Conduct in the Chamber”. Parliament of Australia, 11 Nov. 2022. <https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/House_of_Representatives/ Powers_practice_and_procedure/Practice7/HTML/Chapter5/Dress_and_conduct_in_the_Chamber>. Elan, Priya. “Kamala Harris: What Her Sneakers Mean”. The Guardian 4 Sep. 2020. <https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2020/sep/03/kamala-harris-what-her-sneakers-mean>. Entwistle, Joanne. The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress, and Modern Social Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000. Fairchilds, Cissie. “Fashion and Freedom in the French Revolution.” Continuity and Change 15.3 (2000): 419-33. Griffey, Erin. Introduction. Sartorial Politics in Early Modern Europe: Fashioning Women. Ed. Erin Griffey. Amsterdam UP, 2019: 15-32. Guerrero, Lisa. “(M)other-in-Chief: Michelle Obama and the Ideal of Republican womanhood.” New Femininities. Eds. Rosalind Gill and Christina Scharff. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011: 68–82. Howey, Catherine. “Dressing a Virgin Queen: Court Women, Dress, and Fashioning the Image of England’s Queen Elizabeth I.” Early Modern Women 4 (2009): 201-208. Hyland, Veronique. “Women in US Politics Have Learnt to Stop Worrying and Embrace Fashion.” Financial Times 17 Mar. 2022. <https://www.ft.com/stream/c5436241-52d7-4e6d-973e-2bcacc8866ae>. Jain, E. “Khadi: A Cloth and Beyond.” Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal & Gandhi Research Foundation, 2018. <https://www.mkgandhi.org/articles/khadi-a-cloth-and-beyond.html> Jansens, Freya. “Suit of Power: Fashion, Politics, and Hegemonic Masculinity in Australia.” Australian Journal of Political Science 52.2 (2019): 202-218. <https://doi.org/10.1080/10361146.2019.1567677>. Ladd Nelson, Jennifer. “Dress Reform and the Bloomer.” Journal of American and Comparative Cultures 23.1 (2002): 21-25. Mansel, Philip. Dressed to Rule: Royal and Court Costume from Louis XIV to Elizabeth II. New Haven: Yale UP, 2005. “Masquerading as Miss Rankin.” US House of Representatives: History, Arts and Archives. 22 Mar. 2017. <https://history.house.gov/Blog/2017/March/3-27-Masquerading-Rankin/>. Mejia, Zameena. “4 Powerful Reasons Hillary Clinton Always Wears Her Famous Pantsuits.” CNBC 14 Sep. 2017. <https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/14/hillary-clinton-discusses-why-she-wears-pantsuits-in-what-happened.html>. 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Parrillo, Felicia. “What Not to Wear: Quebec National Assembly to Review Dress Code.” Global News 5 Dec. 2018. <https://globalnews.ca/news/4732876/what-not-to-wear-quebec-national-assembly-review-dress-code/>. Pilote, Anne-Marie, and Arnaud Montreuil. “It’s 2019: What’s the Proper Way for Politicians to Dress?” The Conversation 15 Nov. 2019. <https://theconversation.com/its-2019-whats-the-proper-way-for-politicians-to-dress-126968>. Rall, Denise, Jo Coghlan, Lisa Hackett, and Annita Boyd. “‘Dressing Up’: Two Democratic First Ladies: Fashion as Political Performance in America.” Australasian Journal of Popular Culture 7.2 (2018): 273–287. Simm, Pippa. “What Not to Wear in Parliament.” BBC News 23 Dec. 2015. <https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-33700928>. Turney, Joanne. Fashion Crimes: Dressing for Deviance. Bloomsbury, 2019. <https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/fashion-crimes-dressing-for-deviance/>. 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IntroductionSydney’s Garden Palace was a magnificent building with a grandeur that dominated the skyline, stretching from the site of the current State Library of New South Wales to the building that now houses the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. The Palace captivated society from its opening in 1879. This article outlines the building of one of Sydney’s early structural icons and how, despite being destroyed by fire after three short years in 1882, it had an enormous impact on the burgeoning colonial community of New South Wales, thus building a physical structure, pride and a suite of memories.Design and ConstructionIn February 1878, the Colonial Secretary’s Office announced that “it is intended to hold under the supervision of the Agricultural Society of New South Wales an international Exhibition in Sydney in August 1879” (Official Record ix). By December the same year it had become clear that the Agricultural Society lacked the resources to complete the project and control passed to the state government. Colonial Architect James Barnet was directed to prepare “plans for a building suitable for an international exhibition, proposed to be built in the Inner Domain” (Official Record xx). Within three days he had submitted a set of drawings for approval. From this point on there was a great sense of urgency to complete the building in less than 10 months for the exhibition opening the following September.The successful contractor was John Young, a highly experienced building contractor who had worked on the Crystal Palace for the 1851 London International Exhibition and locally on the General Post Office and Exhibition Building at Prince Alfred Park (Kent 6). Young was confident, procuring electric lights from London so that work could be carried out 24 hours a day, to ensure that the building was delivered on time. The structure was built, as detailed in the Colonial Record (1881), using over 1 million metres of timber, 2.5 million bricks and 220 tonnes of galvanised corrugated iron. Remarkably the building was designed as a temporary structure to house the Exhibition. At the end of the Exhibition the building was not dismantled as originally planned and was instead repurposed for government office space and served to house, among other things, records and objects of historical significance. Ultimately the provisional building materials used for the Garden Palace were more suited to a temporary structure, in contrast with those used for the more permanent structures built at the same time which are still standing today.The building was an architectural and engineering wonder set in a cathedral-like cruciform design, showcasing a stained-glass skylight in the largest dome in the southern hemisphere (64 metres high and 30 metres in diameter). The total floor space of the exhibition building was three and half hectares, and the area occupied by the Garden Palace and related buildings—including the Fine Arts Gallery, Agricultural Hall, Machinery Hall and 10 restaurants and places of refreshment—was an astounding 14 hectares (Official Record xxxvi). To put the scale of the Garden Palace into contemporary perspective it was approximately twice the size of the Queen Victoria Building that stands on Sydney’s George Street today.Several innovative features set the building apart from other Sydney structures of the day. The rainwater downpipes were enclosed in hollow columns of pine along the aisles, ventilation was provided through the floors and louvered windows (Official Record xxi) while a Whittier’s Steam Elevator enabled visitors to ascend the north tower and take in the harbour views (“Among the Machinery” 70-71). The building dominated the Sydney skyline, serving as a visual anchor point that welcomed visitors arriving in the city by boat:one of the first objects that met our view as, after 12 o’clock, we proceeded up Port Jackson, was the shell of the Exhibition Building which is so rapidly rising on the Domain, and which next September, is to dazzle the eyes of the world with its splendours. (“A ‘Bohemian’s’ Holiday Notes” 2)The DomeThe dome of the Garden Palace was directly above the intersection of the nave and transept and rested on a drum, approximately 30 metres in diameter. The drum featured 36 oval windows which flooded the space below with light. The dome was made of wood covered with corrugated galvanised iron featuring 12 large lattice ribs and 24 smaller ribs bound together with purlins of wood strengthened with iron. At the top of the dome was a lantern and stained glass skylight designed by Messrs. Lyon and Cottier. It was light blue, powdered with golden stars with wooden ribs in red, buff and gold (Notes 6). The painting and decorating of the dome commenced just one month before the exhibition was due to open. The dome was the sixth largest dome in the world at the time. During construction, contractor Mr Young allowed visitors be lifted in a cage to view the building’s progress.During the construction of the Lantern which surmounts the Dome of the Exhibition, visitors have been permitted, through the courtesy of Mr. Young, to ascend in the cage conveying materials for work. This cage is lifted by a single cable, which was constructed specially of picked Manilla hemp, for hoisting into position the heavy timbers used in the construction. The sensation whilst ascending is a most novel one, and must resemble that experienced in ballooning. To see the building sinking slowly beneath you as you successively reach the levels of the galleries, and the roofs of the transept and aisles is an experience never to be forgotten, and it seems a pity that no provision can be made for visitors, on paying a small fee, going up to the dome. (“View from the Lantern of the Dome Exhibition” 8)The ExhibitionInternational Exhibitions presented the opportunity for countries to express their national identities and demonstrate their economic and technological achievements. They allowed countries to showcase the very best examples of contemporary art, handicrafts and the latest technologies particularly in manufacturing (Pont and Proudfoot 231).The Sydney International Exhibition was the ninth International Exhibition and the colony’s first, and was responsible for bringing the world to Sydney at a time when the colony was prosperous and full of potential. The Exhibition—opening on 17 September 1879 and closing on 20 April 1880—had an enormous impact on the community, it boosted the economy and was the catalyst for improving the city’s infrastructure. It was a great source of civic pride.Image 1: The International Exhibition Sydney, 1879-1880, supplement to the Illustrated Sydney News Jan. 1880. Image credit: Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (call no.: DL X8/3)This bird’s eye view of the Garden Palace shows how impressive the main structure was and how much of the Gardens and Domain were occupied by ancillary buildings for the Exhibition. Based on an original drawing by John Thomas Richardson, chief engraver at the Illustrated Sydney News, this lithograph features a key identifying buildings including the Art Gallery, Machinery Hall, and Agricultural Hall. Pens and sheds for livestock can also be seen. The parade ground was used throughout the Exhibition for displays of animals. The first notable display was the International Show of Sheep featuring Australian, French and English sheep; not surprisingly the shearing demonstrations proved to be particularly popular with the community.Approximately 34 countries and their colonies participated in the Exhibition, displaying the very best examples of technology, industry and art laid out in densely packed courts (Barnet n.p.). There were approximately 14,000 exhibits (Official Record c) which included displays of Bohemian glass, tapestries, fine porcelain, fabrics, pyramids of gold, metals, minerals, wood carvings, watches, ethnographic specimens, and heavy machinery. Image 2: “Meet Me under the Dome.” Illustrated Sydney News 1 Nov. 1879: 4. Official records cite that between 19,853 and 24,000 visitors attended the Exhibition on the opening day of 17 September 1879, and over 1.1 million people visited during its seven months of operation. Sizeable numbers considering the population of the colony, at the time, was just over 700,000 (New South Wales Census).The Exhibition helped to create a sense of place and community and was a popular destination for visitors. On crowded days the base of the dome became a favourite meeting place for visitors, so much so that “meet me under the dome” became a common expression in Sydney during the Exhibition (Official Record lxxxiii).Attendance was steady and continuous throughout the course of the Exhibition and, despite exceeding the predicted cost by almost four times, the Exhibition was deemed a resounding success. The Executive Commissioner Mr P.A. Jennings remarked at the closing ceremony:this great undertaking […] marks perhaps the most important epoch that has occurred in our history. In holding this exhibition we have entered into a new arena and a race of progress among the nations of the earth, and have placed ourselves in kindly competition with the most ancient States of the old and new world. (Official Record ciii)Initially the cost of admission was set at 5 shillings and later dropped to 1 shilling. Season tickets for the Exhibition were also available for £3 3s which entitled the holder to unlimited entry during all hours of general admission. Throughout the Exhibition, season ticket holders accounted for 76,278 admissions. The Exhibition boosted the economy and encouraged authorities to improve the city’s services and facilities which helped to build a sense of community as well as pride in the achievement of such a fantastic structure. A steam-powered tramway was installed to transport exhibition-goers around the city, after the Exhibition, the tramway network was expanded and by 1905–1906 the trams were converted to electric traction (Freestone 32).After the exhibition closed, the imposing Garden Palace building was used as office space and storage for various government departments.An Icon DestroyedIn the early hours of 22 September 1882 tragedy struck when the Palace was engulfed by fire (“Destruction of the Garden Palace” 7). The building – and all its contents – destroyed.Image 3: Burning of the Garden Palace from Eaglesfield, Darlinghurst, sketched at 5.55am, Sep 22/82. Image credit: Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (call no.: SSV/137) Many accounts and illustrations of the Garden Palace fire can be found in contemporary newspapers and artworks. A rudimentary drawing by an unknown artist held by the State Library of New South Wales appears to have been created as the Palace was burning. The precise time and location is recorded on the painting, suggesting it was painted from Eaglesfield, a school on Darlinghurst Road. It purveys a sense of immediacy giving some insight into the chaos and heat of the tragedy. A French artist living in Sydney, Lucien Henry, was among those who attempted to capture the fire. His assistant, G.H. Aurousseau, described the event in the Technical Gazette in 1912:Mister Henry went out onto the balcony and watched until the Great Dome toppled in; it was then early morning; he went back to his studio procured a canvas, sat down and painted the whole scene in a most realistic manner, showing the fig trees in the Domain, the flames rising through the towers, the dome falling in and the reflected light of the flames all around. (Technical Gazette 33-35)The painting Henry produced is not the watercolour held by the State Library of New South Wales, however it is interesting to see how people were moved to document the destruction of such an iconic building in the city’s history.What Was Destroyed?The NSW Legislative Assembly debate of 26 September 1882, together with newspapers of the day, documented what was lost in the fire. The Garden Palace housed the foundation collection of the Technological and Sanitary Museum (the precursor to the Powerhouse Museum, now the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences), due to open on 1 December 1882. This collection included significant ethnological specimens such as Australian Indigenous artefacts, many of which were acquired from the Sydney International Exhibition. The Art Society of New South Wales had hung 300 paintings in preparation for their annual art exhibition due to open on 2 October of that year, all of these paintings consumed by fire.The Records of the Crown Lands Occupation Office were lost along with the 1881 Census (though the summary survived). Numerous railway surveys were lost, as were: £7,000 worth of statues, between 20,000 and 30,000 plants and the holdings of the Linnean Society offices and museum housed on the ground floor. The Eastern Suburbs Brass Band performed the day before at the opening of the Eastern Suburbs Horticultural Society Flower show; all the instruments were stored in the Garden Palace and were destroyed. Several Government Departments also lost significant records, including the: Fisheries Office; Mining Department; Harbour and Rivers Department; and, as mentioned, the Census Department.The fire was so ferocious that the windows in the terraces along Macquarie Street cracked with the heat and sheets of corrugated iron were blown as far away as Elizabeth Bay. How Did The Fire Start?No one knows how the fire started on that fateful September morning, and despite an official enquiry no explanation was ever delivered. One theory blamed the wealthy residents of Macquarie Street, disgruntled at losing their harbour views. Another was that it was burnt to destroy records stored in the basement of the building that contained embarrassing details about the convict heritage of many distinguished families. Margaret Lyon, daughter of the Garden Palace decorator John Lyon, wrote in her diary:a gentleman who says a boy told him when he was putting out the domain lights, that he saw a man jump out of the window and immediately after observed smoke, they are advertising for the boy […]. Everyone seems to agree on his point that it has been done on purpose – Today a safe has been found with diamonds, sapphires and emeralds, there were also some papers in it but they were considerably charred. The statue of her majesty or at least what remains of it, for it is completely ruined – the census papers were also ruined, they were ready almost to be sent to the printers, the work of 30 men for 14 months. Valuable government documents, railway and other plans all gone. (MLMSS 1381/Box 1/Item 2) There are many eyewitness accounts of the fire that day. From nightwatchman Mr Frederick Kirchen and his replacement Mr John McKnight, to an emotional description by 14-year-old student Ethel Pockley. Although there were conflicting accounts as to where the fire may have started, it seems likely that the fire started in the basement with flames rising around the statue of Queen Victoria, situated directly under the dome. The coroner did not make a conclusive finding on the cause of the fire but was scathing of the lack of diligence by the authorities in housing such important items in a building that was not well-secured a was a potential fire hazard.Building a ReputationA number of safes were known to have been in the building storing valuables and records. One such safe, a fireproof safe manufactured by Milner and Son of Liverpool, was in the southern corner of the building near the southern tower. The contents of this safe were unscathed in contrast with the contents of other safes, the contents of which were destroyed. The Milner safe was a little discoloured and blistered on the outside but otherwise intact. “The contents included three ledgers, or journals, a few memoranda and a plan of the exhibition”—the glue was slightly melted—the plan was a little discoloured and a few loose papers were a little charred but overall the contents were “sound and unhurt”—what better advertising could one ask for! (“The Garden Palace Fire” 5).barrangal dyara (skin and bones): Rebuilding CommunityThe positive developments for Sydney and the colony that stemmed from the building and its exhibition, such as public transport and community spirit, grew and took new forms. Yet, in the years since 1882 the memory of the Garden Palace and its disaster faded from the consciousness of the Sydney community. The great loss felt by Indigenous communities went unresolved.Image 4: barrangal dyara (skin and bones). Image credit: Sarah Morley.In September 2016 artist Jonathan Jones presented barrangal dyara (skin and bones), a large scale sculptural installation on the site of the Garden Palace Building in Sydney’s Royal Botanic Garden. The installation was Jones’s response to the immense loss felt throughout Australia with the destruction of countless Aboriginal objects in the fire. The installation featured thousands of bleached white shields made of gypsum that were laid out to show the footprint of the Garden Palace and represent the rubble left after the fire.Based on four typical designs from Aboriginal nations of the south-east, these shields not only raise the chalky bones of the building, but speak to the thousands of shields that would have had cultural presence in this landscape over generations. (Pike 33)ConclusionSydney’s Garden Palace was a stunning addition to the skyline of colonial Sydney. A massive undertaking, the Palace opened, to great acclaim, in 1879 and its effect on the community of Sydney and indeed the colony of New South Wales was sizeable. There were brief discussions, just after the fire, about rebuilding this great structure in a more permanent fashion for the centenary Exhibition in 1888 (“[From Our Own Correspondents] New South Wales” 5). Ultimately, it was decided that this achievement of the colony of New South Wales would be recorded in history, gifting a legacy of national pride and positivity on the one hand, but on the other an example of the destructive colonial impact on Indigenous communities. For many Sydney-siders today this history is as obscured as the original foundations of the physical building. What we build—iconic structures, civic pride, a sense of community—require maintenance and remembering. References“Among the Machinery.” The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser 10 Jan. 1880: 70-71.Aurousseau, G.H. “Lucien Henry: First Lecturer in Art at the Sydney Technical College.” Technical Gazette 2.III (1912): 33-35.Barnet, James. International Exhibition, Sydney, 1880: References to the Plans Showing the Space and Position Occupied by the Various Exhibits in the Garden Palace. Sydney: Colonial Architect’s Office, 1880.“A ‘Bohemian’s’ Holiday Notes.” The Singleton Argus and Upper Hunter General Advocate 23 Apr. 1879: 2.Census Department. New South Wales Census. 1881. 3 Mar. 2017 <http://hccda.ada.edu.au/pages/NSW-1881-census-02_vi>. “Destruction of the Garden Palace.” Sydney Morning Herald 23 Sep. 1882: 7.Freestone, Robert. “Space Society and Urban Reform.” Colonial City, Global City, Sydney’s International Exhibition 1879. Eds. Peter Proudfoot, Roslyn Maguire, and Robert Freestone. 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