Why was urban overcrowding much more severe in Scotland than in the rest of the British Isles? Evidence from the first (1904) official household expenditure survey

This article presents an analysis of British urban working-class housing conditions in 1904, using a rediscovered survey. We investigate overcrowding and find major regional differences. Scottish households in the survey were more overcrowded despite being less poor. Investigating the causes of this overcrowding, we find little support for supply-side theories or for the idea that the Scottish households in our survey experienced particularly great variations in income, causing them to commit to overly modest accommodation. We present evidence that is consistent with idea that particularly tough Scottish tenancy and local tax laws caused excess overcrowding. We also provide evidence that Scottish workers had a relatively high preference for food, rather than housing, expenditure, which can be at least partly attributed to their inheritance of more communal patterns of urban living.

British railways and the challenge from road haulage: 1919-39

Interwar Britain witnessed the rapid rise of road transport as a serious competitor to the railways. This article examines road–rail competition for freight traffic. It demonstrates that, contrary to previous accounts—which have been highly critical of the railway companies—their failure to prevent rapid loss of traffic to the roads was the inevitable consequence of the regulatory framework under which the railways had been returned to private control in 1921. Given the constraints imposed by this framework, price competition with road hauliers would have further depressed railway company profits. Railway policy thus concentrated on pressing for a revision of the legislative framework governing road–rail competition.

British public policy and multinationals during the “Dollar Gap” era, 1945–1960

This article examines the role of British exchange and import controls in stimulating the dramatic increase in overseas (particularly American) multinationals in Britain from the end of the Second World War to the late 1950s, together with the ways in which the government used controls to regulate the foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow. Exchange controls were both an important stimulus to inward investment and a powerful and flexible means of regulating its volume and character. Government was relatively successful in using these powers to maximize the dollar balance and industrial benefits of FDI to Britain, given initially severe dollar and capacity constraints, and in liberalizing policy once these constraints receded and competition from other FDI hosts intensified.

Cycles and steps in British commercial property values

This paper examines cyclical behaviour in commercial property values over the period 1956 to 1996, using a structural times series (unobserved components) approach. The influence of the transition to short rent reviews during the late 1960s and the short and long-term impacts of the 1974 and 1990 property crashes are also incorporated into the analysis, via dummy variables. It is found that once these variables are taken into account a fairly regular cyclical pattern can be discerned, with a period of about 7.8 years. Furthermore, the 1974 and 1990 property crashes are shown to have had a major long-term impact on property value growth (presumably via their influence on investors' expectations).

'Your secret language': classics in the British colonies of West Africa

What were the cultural politics of classics in British colonies? Did classical education operate as a sign of oppression, or as a tool for forging an anti-colonial politics? Why did Europeans bring the classics to West Africa, and how did they manage the developing dynamic when West Africans laid independent claim to the classical heritage? This ground-breaking study examines the ways in which European colonisers and West African nationalists clashed, or collaborated, over the uses of Latin, Greek and the classics.

The future of the tenanted sector in British agriculture: a review of the proposals for change

The impending decline of the tenanted sector in British agriculture has been forecast for many years. Much debate has surrounded the issues and ensuing legislation has repeatedly attempted to stave-off what some view as the inevitable demise of tenant farmers. Following a flurry of activity after the Northfield Report of 1979 and culminating in the Agricultural Holdings Acts of 1984 and 1986, the debate has recently been fuelled by a strongly pro-market lobby. With the public support of successive Ministers of Agriculture, this lobby has advocated a rejection of the former state intervention in the landlord/tenant relationship in favour of freedom of contract, an option that now appears increasingly likely to reach the statute books. This paper reviews the significant elements of the debate, attempting to explain the principal reasons for the failure of earlier legislation and the primary shortcomings of the current emphasis of consultation. The paper concludes that while there are some significant legislative disincentives to letting land, the freeing-up of contracts in isolation from other, non-contractual issues, will not result in the increase in lettings purportedly desired by the Ministers and their acolytes.

Planning, conservation and political ideology: the British case

This paper examines some broad issues concerning the role that conservation policy plays in statutory planning in Britain. It argues that planning contains a number of different, often conflicting, objectives. Conservation, in contributing to one of these objectives, exacerbates this conflict. The paper further argues that since different objectives are accorded different priorities depending upon the prevailing political ideology, conservation policy is not only operating within the context of possibly opposing planning objectives, but also within a particular political environment which will separately determine the degree of importance attached to it. The British example is used to explore these themes, particularly in examining the ideological basis for the redefinition of preservation and protection away from their welfarist traditions towards issues of private rights and market supremacy. The paper concludes that rather than contributing to social welfare, planning and conservation policy is now contributing to the increasing division between rich and poor in society.

How many Frenchmen did you kill? British bombing policy towards France (1940-1945)

The Allied bombing of France between 1940 and 1945 has received comparatively little attention from historians, although the civilian death toll, at about 60,000, was comparable to that of German raids on the UK. This article considers how Allied, and particularly British, bombing policy towards France was developed, what its objectives were and how French concerns about attacks on their territory were (or were not) addressed. It argues that while British policymakers were sensitive to the delicate political implications of attacking France, perceived military necessities tended to trump political misgivings; that Vichy, before November 1942, was a stronger constraint on Allied bombing than the Free French at any time and that the bombing programme largely escaped political control from May 1944.

Stable isotopes and diet: their contribution to Romano-British research

The study of stable isotopes surviving in human bone is fast becoming a standard response in the analysis of cemeteries. Reviewing the state of the art for Roman Britain, the author shows clear indications of a change in diet (for the better) following the Romanisation of Iron Age Britain—including more seafood, and more nutritional variety in the towns. While samples from the bones report an average of diet over the years leading up to an individual's death, carbon and nitrogen isotope signatures taken from the teeth may have a biographical element—capturing those childhood dinners. In this way migrants have been detected—as in the likely presence of Africans in Roman York. While not unexpected, these results show the increasing power of stable isotopes to comment on populations subject to demographic pressures of every kind.

The determinants of competitive success in the interwar British radio industry

This article discusses the sources of competitive advantage in the interwar British radio industry. Specifically, it examines why sections of the industry that reaped substantial monopoly rents from the downstream value chain failed to dominate the industry. During the 1920s Marconi (which controlled the fundamental UK patents) had a key cost advantage, as had other members of the ‘Big Six’ electrical engineering firms which formed the BBC and were granted preferential royalties. Meanwhile the valve manufacturers' cartel was also able to extract high rents from set manufacturers. The vertical integration literature suggests that input monopolists have incentives to control downstream production. Yet—in contrast to the gramophone industry, which became concentrated into two huge companies following market saturation in the 1930s—radio retained a much more competitive structure. The Big Six failed to capitalize fully on their initial cost advantages owing to logistical weaknesses in supplying markets subject to rapid technical and design obsolescence. Subsequently, during the 1930s, marketing innovations are shown to have played a key role in allowing several independents to establish successful brands. This gave them sufficient scale to provide strong bargaining positions with input suppliers, negating most of their initial cost disadvantage.

Pagan epic in contemporary British poetry: Hughes and Logue, Ovid and Homer

In 'Tales from Ovid' and 'War Music' respectively, Ted Hughes and Christopher Logue turned to classical epic as source material and a model for contemporary poetry. In this essay I consider the different ways in which they work with the original epic poems and how they rework them both textually and generically. In the process, I suggest, Hughes gives his readers an Ovid modeled on his own, vatic conception of Homer, while Logue reworks Homer in a manner that is essentially Ovidian.