Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Higher Victoria History 19th century'

This study contributes to current critical discussions about the figure of the Victorian woman journalist. Most previous scholarship on nineteenth-century female journalism has focused either on women's anonymous writings or on their contributions to conventionally feminine genres like serial fiction and prose articles on domesticity and fashion. Although women's campaigning journalism has attracted some attention, especially from historians of feminism, its role in the professionalization of women writers has gone largely unexamined. Consequently, it has been assumed that female journalists did not write on social and political issues, unless they wrote anonymously or as reformers with little interest in developing careers as presswomen. This thesis radically revises this view by showing the mid-century rise of female journalists who wrote on serious social and political topics and earned national and international repute. They broke the codes of anonymity in a number of ways, including signing articles in their own names and developing distinctly female personae. They presented themselves as model middle-class professional authors: knowledgeable, financially independent and vocationally committed. They proved, by example, women's fitness for conventionally masculine lines of journalism. By examining their careers in the periodical press, my thesis offers the first in-depth analysis of 'high-minded' female journalism in Victorian England. Beginning with the 1850s, the thesis is organised around certain key developments in the periodical press, such as the debates about professional authorship, discussions of the plight of single women and the nature of female work, and the advent of signed publication. It examines the rise of prestigious presswork by women through the study of three distinct, yet overlapping models of the female professional journalist: the feminist journalist, the mainstream reform journalist, and the foreign correspondent. It then discusses the representation of women's high-minded journalism in the domain of fiction. The study ends in the 1880s, noting how these mid-Victorian models of women's presswork influenced the discussion and practice of female professional journalism in the 1890s.

This thesis is a study of Durham University, from its inception in 1831 to the opening of the College of Physical Science in Newcastle in 1871. It considers the foundation and early years of the University in the light of local and national developments, including movements for reform in the church and higher education. The approach is holistic, with the thesis based on extensive use of archival sources, parliamentary reports, local and national newspapers, and other primary printed sources as well as a newly-created and entirely unique database of Durham students. The argument advanced in this thesis is that the desire of the Durham authorities was to establish a modern university that would be useful to northern interests, and that their clear failure to achieve this reflected the general issues of the developing higher education sector at least as much as it did internal mismanagement. This places Durham in a different position relative to the traditional understanding of how universities and colleges developed in England and therefore broadens and deepens the quality of that narrative. In the light of the University's swift decline, and poor reputation, from the mid-1850s what were the ambitions of the founders and how did this deterioration occur? Were the critics' accusations against the University - principally that it was a theologically-dominated, inadequate imitation of Oxford, bound to the Chapter of Durham and ruled autocratically by its Warden - based on fact or prejudice? And if the critics were wrong, what were the factors that lead to the University's failings?

In 1877 the University of St Andrews initiated a unique qualification, the Lady Literate in Arts, which came into existence initially as the LA, the Literate in Arts, a higher certificate available to women only. Awarded by examination but as a result of a programme of distance learning, it was conceived and explicitly promoted as a degree-level qualification at a time when women had no access to matriculation at Scottish universities and little anywhere in the United Kingdom. From small beginnings it expanded both in numbers of candidates and in spread of subjects and it lasted until the early 1930s by which time over 36,000 examinations had been taken and more than 5,000 women had completed the course. The scheme had emerged in response to various needs and external pressures which shaped its character. The purpose of this thesis is to assess the nature and achievements of the LLA in its first fifteen years and to establish its place within the wider movement for female equality of status and opportunity which developed in the later decades of the nineteenth century. The conditions under which the university introduced the LLA, its reasons for doing so, the nature of the qualification, its progress and development in the years before 1892 when women were admitted to Scottish universities as undergraduates and the consequences for the university itself are all examined in detail. The geographical and social origins and the educational backgrounds of the candidates themselves are analysed along with their age structure, their uptake of LLA subjects and the completion rates for the award. All of these are considered against the background of the students' later careers and life experiences. This thesis aims to discover the extent to which the LLA was influential in shaping the lives of its participants and in advancing the broader case for female higher education. It seeks to establish for the first time the contribution that St Andrews LLA women made to society at large and to the wider movement for female emancipation.

Entre la fin des années 1860 et le milieu des années 1920, la philologie, la grammaire historique et l’histoire de la langue sont introduites dans l’enseignement supérieur français grâce à la création de postes et de chaires dans des établissements nouvellement fondés, comme l’École Pratique des Hautes Études et l’École normale supérieure de jeunes filles de Sèvres, ou profondément rénovés, comme la Faculté des lettres de Paris. La disciplinarisation de ces savoirs linguistiques de type historique participe du rapprochement entre enseignement et recherche et, ainsi, du renouvellement du système universitaire. En atteste la carrière dans les trois institutions citées de Gaston Paris, Arsène Darmesteter et Ferdinand Brunot, retracée à l’aide de correspondances privées et de documents d’archives d’ordre institutionnel. L’analyse de documents publiés par les établissements eux-mêmes (affiches, livrets, comptes rendus d’enseignements, ouvrages commémoratifs) met en évidence les difficultés que rencontrent ces trois enseignants pour s’adapter aux divers publics étudiants et aux préconisations officielles. Leurs notes de cours reflètent un travail de didactisation, qui passe par des pratiques d’écriture diverses dont on identifie les spécificités à l’aide des outils de la génétique textuelle. L’étude approfondie de deux objets de savoir met en lumière l’intérêt de ces notes en tant que sources pour l’histoire des idées linguistiques et de leur enseignement. D’abord, l’histoire de l’orthographe française, bien qu’absente des intitulés des cours, est présente dans les notes de cours. Ensuite, le « latin vulgaire » est un thème porteur d’enjeux idéologiques et épistémologiques majeurs invisibles dans les affichages institutionnels
Between the late 1860s and the mid-1920s, philology, historical grammar and language history are introduced into the French higher education system with the creation of positions and tenures in newly founded schools, such as the École Pratique des Hautes Études and the girls’ École normale supérieure in Sèvres, and in deeply transformed institutions, like the Paris Faculty of Letters. Making history-oriented linguistic knowledge into disciplines contributed to bring teaching and research closer together and led to the rebirth of the university system. This is illustrated by the careers of Gaston Paris, Arsène Darmesteter and Ferdinand Brunot in these institutions as evidenced by private correspondence and institutional archive material. The analysis of documents published by the establishments (posters, booklets, teaching records, anniversary publications) casts light on the problems these teachers faced when attempting to adapt to various student populations and official guidelines. Their teaching notes reveal content adaptation through diverse writing practices, which we identify and characterize by using text genetics. The in-depth study of two knowledge contents demonstrates the use that can be made of these notes as sources for the history of linguistic thought and its teaching. Firstly with the history of French orthography which is present in teaching notes, although it does not appear in course titles. Secondly with vulgar Latin as a theme that pertains to major ideological and epistemological issues which are invisible in institutional display material

This thesis contains an examination of infectious disease and its socio-economic relationship with the Victorian population during the colonial and early modern eras (1853 to c.1930) (the study period). This involved interpreting some now obsolete diagnoses, studying disease natural history and engaging in the debate surrounding the decline in mortality rates in the nineteenth century. The study period has proved to be an extremely good model in which to test the effects of various social and economic variables on health at a population level. The Gold Rush of the early 1850s and the resulting waves of boom and bust changed the population demography, economic development, and social diversification and stratification. This will be demonstrated to have had an effect on population health both at the state and local levels. Disease exposure and disease susceptibility were observed to vary substantially over the study period for typhoid and whooping cough: typhoid mortality shifts dramatically from children and older adults before 1870, to young adults after 1870, which is indicative of a change in disease exposure patterns with the urbanisation of the colony; whooping cough mortality patterns reduce in some groups compared to others, indicative of changing susceptibility to the disease. These examples highlight the heterogeneity of factors affecting disease causation for different infectious diseases and therefore the specificity of information that can be drawn from observations of changing disease patterns. It was shown that variation in the natural history of disease also occurred. For Group A streptococcal infections, a scarlet fever epidemic cycle was observed until 1876, from which point on mortality from post streptococcal nephritis increases dramatically. For diphtheria cases, however, the natural history of the disease remained very predictable until medical developments in the late nineteenth century. Like disease causation the factors associated with disease progression are also disease specific. To investigate variation in the natural history of diseases with a more complicated ecology, tuberculosis and syphilis mortality and morbidity were investigated. It was shown that for tuberculosis mortality from pulmonary and extra-pulmonary tuberculosis was negatively correlated for much of the study period. Mortality from congenital syphilis and venereal syphilis also trended in opposite directions, with mortality in children trending higher while syphilis mortality in adults trended lower. The principal findings of this work are how disease-specific the ecological interaction is between parasite and host and how responsive a particular disease is to a historical event (which can be interpreted as an ecological change in behaviour by the host in the parasite host relationship) whilst other diseases may not have any reaction or a completely different reactions to the same historical event. This thesis just scratches the surface of the potential of this data in furthering our understanding of the ecological interaction between parasite and host in the past.

This thesis examines work and unions in the Victorian building industry between 1856 and 1890. It presents reasons to rethink the character of the nineteenth century Australian labour movement on the basis of the experiences, ideas and institutions of these building workers, whose craft unions have been contrasted to the new unions of semi- and unskilled occupations that formed in the 1880s. From detailed evidence on each building trades' work, common dimensions of working experience, and changes in work between 1860 and 1890, the first part of the thesis argues that skilled building workers were not labour aristocrats. There was diversity in their working experiences which led to conflict and cooperation with both their employers and fellow workers. Conflicts emerged, particularly during the building boom of the 1880s, when a massive expansion of the industry affected craft labour markets and some social values. The second part of the thesis recounts the history of the building unions from their attainment of an eight hour working day in 1856 to a crisis of "sweating" in the building industry in 1890. While the unions had early successes, there were many difficulties faced by these institutions in subsequent years. My research suggests a large number of revisions and enrichments of common understandings of nineteenth century unions. In particular, the thesis argues for an understanding of the social world of the unionists, which included a complex intellectual and social relationship to liberalism, rivalries and friendships between officials, and sustaining moral values embodied in the conduct of unions. Despite growing organisational strength, the building unions had neither strong collective agreements with employers nor control of craft labour markets. The contrasting examples of key individuals, William Murphy and Ben Douglass, are discussed to show tradition and change at work in the building unions. While Murphy embraced change, including that commonly attributed to the new unions of the 1880s, Douglass resisted organisational and ideological developments by retreating to the eight hour day tradition. This tradition was the building unions' major cultural contribution to the Victorian labour movement. Finally, the thesis concludes by suggesting that a more complex interpretation of nineteenth century labour history invites a re-examination of the relationships between colonial and modem labour movements. While 1890 was in many ways a turning point in labour history, there were important connections between "new" and "old" unionists, and between nineteenth century working class liberalism and twentieth century labour's social ideas.

This thesis examines English immigration to eastern Australia between 1815 and 1860, dealing predominantly with the colonies of New South Wales and Victoria. I focus on the English because of their relative neglect in Australian immigration historiography, despite their being in the majority among the immigrants. I uncover evidence of origins, class, gender, motivation and culture. To provide a rounded picture of these immigrants, I use statistics and contemporary literary sources, principally correspondence, diaries and official and private archives, and compare the English immigrants in eastern Australia with English immigrants to the United States and with Scottish and Irish immigrants to New South Wales and Victoria in the same decades. To analyse the origins, motives and skills of the immigrants, I employ demographic data and case studies and examine separately immigrants with capital and assisted immigrants. Overwhelmingly, for both sets of immigrants, the motive was to seek material success in the colonies, faster than they believed they could at home. For the majority, this overcame scruples about the primitive state of the colonial societies and the taint of convictism. Land was a major attraction for many self-funded immigrants, who began to come into New South Wales in increasing numbers in the 1820s, initially mainly in family groups, but later larger numbers of single men were attracted to seek wealth prior to marriage. Many settled on the land as their primary source of income; others who came to practice in middle class professions were also keen to acquire town and country land for the status and wealth it promised, but lived and worked in urban areas. Chain migration was a common feature among middle class families in all decades. The gold rushes of the 1850s throw into stark relief the gambling element propelling so many people drawn from all but the poorest classes to chase fortunes. In the promotion of the Australian colonies to labouring people through government-assisted passages, the period 1831-1836 was experimental. I analyse the steps taken, the lessons learned and the background, motivations and skills of the English people attracted by this early scheme. Revised recruitment criteria were put into action in 1837 and I examine a profile of the assisted immigrants from a one in sixty sample from that year to 1860. This longitudinal study shows that, despite contemporary and subsequent criticisms of the quality of the assisted immigrants, they fitted the categories demanded by the colonists and predominantly came from regions of England suffering economic decline. To examine the culture and values of the English immigrants, I develop an extended case study of one family over two generations and analyse key themes emerging from the private papers of a cross-section of people. These two perspectives illustrate the contribution English immigrants made to the culture in eastern Australia and show how many of them maintained contact with family in England over a long period, while engaging actively in their new society.