Punters Punting

Some people had a question as to what is punting. This is Newton before being a Dr., punting (or being punted?) in 1980.

Class Dismissed?

Your final presentations have been posted online. Please take a moment to review what your colleagues, compatriots, or comrades (however you view each other) put together, from Krystal incorporating great pictures from our trip, to Ashley's synthezing many different aspects of what we did, to Ray demonstrating graph building skill I didn't know he had.

Londinum was probably a port before it was a fortress: exploring the Thames down to Greenwich

And then there was one. The last full day of the program in Britain, and the last full day in London. Both the English literature group and the history group set off from the Embankment down the River Thames to Greenwich. London was important because it was on an important waterway, and, while we saw sites such as the Tower of London (in the background, here), it was really the docklands to the East of the Tower (the East End) that was most important for our purposes.

Today, the warehouses and docks have closed, to be replaced by upmarket condos, and the Canary Wharf financial district, but, for hundreds of years the East Ends docks were the center of a vibrant community of poorer Londoners.

At Greenwich itself are the buildings designed by Christopher Wren, surrounding one or two buildings of a royal palace, the Palace of Placentia, surviving from the days of Henry VIII and Elizabeth. Under the Stuarts, Greenwich declined until rebuilt by Charles II. But, after the Glorious Revolution, William had little interest in Greenwich, which was built to Wren's design (and largely completed by Hawksmoor). It became a hospital and home for retired sailors, the Royal Naval Hospital. After that it became the Royal Naval College, and, currently, is the home of Greenwich University. I didn't take you all to the Painted Hall in the old Naval College buildings, which was a mistake, but I did a quick run there myself.

• The Painted Hall is a masterpiece of decoration. The artist was Sir James Thornhill, and it took him nineteen years to complete the work, finishing in 1727. He was paid three pounds a square yard for the ceiling and one pound a square yard for the walls. The Hall was designed as a dining room for the pensioners, but proved to small for the population. It was not used for this purpose again until 1939, when the Navy used it as their Mess until 1998. In 1806 the body of Nelson lay in state in the Painted Hall until he was taken upriver by funeral barge for burial at St Pauls Cathedral. (Greenwich Guide)

Next time, you really ought to poke your head in there. Walls and ceilings are all upholding the Glorious Revolution by focusing on William and Mary. I also visited and ate at Goddard's Pie and Eel shop (although I didn't have eels), while most of you had TexMex food. It is one of the last of a kind serving more traditional East End working class hot lunches, but I thought I might have trouble convincing you of the joys of meat pie, mash, and mushy pees with "liquor" (a green flecked clearish white liquid of indertiminate origin). I enjoyed the experience.


What we all seemed to enjoy is hiking up to the Greenwich Observatory, founded and built under Charles II in the late seventeenth century. Observation of the skies was vital for determining latitude and longitude of ships travelling the globe in the 18th century and beyond, as was, for longitude, the exact measurement of time. Greenwich became the home Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), from which all other times zones derived. So, we became quite proficient at taking our picture on the Prime Meridian outside the Observatory.

Prime(-Time) Meridian

(Left) Ray, Amanda, Cassie, Ashley, Kristie, Krystal. (Right) Uhhh, ditto.













(Left)Krystal, Amanda, Cassie, Jessie, Kristi, Ashley, Megan, Kelly, Carrie, Andrea, Ray, Ben, and ? (is that right?)

London: the pre-industrial, industrial, and post-industrial city?

A quick tour through London's and Britain's past at the Museum of London, Barbican, and the British Galleries of the Victoria & Albert Museum, South Kensington. I went early to Barbican to find a coffee shop and grade and to walk through Smithfield. Smithfield markets have long been the meat markets of London (here is the storefront of a tripe and offal establishment) from which restaurants and local butchers buy wholesale. (It was also infamous for the "fires of Smithfield," where unrecanting Protestants were burnt under Mary Tudor.)

We then met for a quick tour through Barbican, an area that was basically a large bomb crater after World War II and then was rebuilt into either an ideal urban residential area, or, if you see it that way, a concrete dystopia. The idea was that upper class and lower class flats would be intermingled (as many streets were in the early modern period). At least at its center (as in this photo), I find it more an ideal than a dystopia, but there are some walkways which are vaguely A Clockwork Orange.

Then on to South Kensington and Exhibition Road. At the bottom of Exhibition Road are the Victoria & Albert, the Science, and the Natural History Museum. Dr. Angela McShane-Jones walked us through the British Galleries focusing on the argument made in the panels that there is little to differentiate the Industrial Revolution between 1760 and 1830 from the mass production of the 17th, even 16th centuries. Perhaps one might find a full-fledged industrial revolution from the 1890s or even 1950s, but not, so the argument goes, before. The argument is interesting because it notes that historians have focused on cotton textiles because parliamentary committees focused on the cotton textile factories and, thus, produced reams of documents (which we historians love). But many industries were producing in mass quantities for the market much earlier, but left material culture artifacts not documents. Agree or disagree, the argument and the Galleries provoked thought and discussion (which is amazing because we were quite tired by Wednesday and thinking of flying home on Friday).

Most of us then walked up Exhibition Road towards Albert Memorial. I don;t have much to add about this recently cleaned monument, except to say "what was she thinking!?" Like Barbican, it can be seen as both beautiful and a monstrosity. On our way towards the Memorial in Kensington Gardens, we came to the gates at the end of Exhibitiion Road, which was the place where the Great Exhibition of 1851 (or the Crystal Palace) had been built and opened. The gates are, of course, the Coalbrookdale Gates, and they are still there (though turned 90 degrees so they don't block the road which now goes through the park dividing Kensington Gardens from Hyde Park) as are (in the photo) Ben, Carrie, Ashley, Krystal, Megan, Amanda, Cassie, Derrick, and Raymond.

West of the West End?: Westminster

On Tuesday, our first full day in London, we travelled to Westminster, just a short tube ride away from our hotel. The West End is to the west of central London, obviously, the old "mile square" walled city that now houses the nation's (and one of the world's major) financial districts. (The East End is to the, uh, east.) But the West End was also the area towards (and eventually interfilling the area between London and) Westminster.

Ever since Edward the Confessor, as Dr. Peter Catterall noted, who spent much time and money on refounding and expanding Westminster Abbey, Westminster has been associated with England's and then Britain's governmental center. The Court was at Whitehall Palace (which burned in 1698, leaving only the Banquetting Hall designed by Inigo Jones in the early 17th century), and at St. James's Palace, and, more recently, at Buckingham Palace. The House of Lords and the House of Commons were also at the Palace of Westminster, and the houses of Parliament, also burnt in 1834, so the new Parliament dates from the mid-19th century. (We had a very interesting discussion with a Tory whip and toured the buildings, but, of course, were unable to photograph inside.) From the late 17th or early 18th century, the head of the political party with the most MPs was, more or less, heading the government. In the 1720s and 1730s, that leader of the Whigs was Sir Robert Walpole, and he became known, derisively at first, as the Prime Minister. We visited his Norfolk home, Houghton Hall, which he rebuilt at great expense. But he probably spent more time at his home in Westminster, No. 10 Downing Street. That address has become the home of all Prime Ministers, and it is the non-descript grey building in this photograph (upper right, taken as we walked down Whitehall). One used to be able to walk through Downing Street but security tightened when there was an IRA mortar or missle attack on the building a few decades ago. Whitehall is also the home of the various governmental adminsitration buildings: Cabinet Office, Foreign Office, Ministry of Defence.

But Whitehall and Westminster is also home to many quasi-governmental bodies: offices of political parties, political journalists' offices, offices of solicitors who draft parliamentary legislation, institutes and associations which lobby for particular Acts (or for government to act).
Here is our intrepid group about to turn down Great Peter Street (which I realized by enlarging the photograph). The Institute of Economic Affairs, the Royal Academy of Engineers: these are both on Great Peter Street in Westminster just south of Westminster Abbey, and the work of these various lobbying associations are very important for the working of British government today. If one solely examines government from the perspective of Parliament, one doesn't realize its scope.

Westminster to Greenwich--West End to East End: the metropolis beckons

Greetings. finally catching up with postings regarding the last week. We did not read the novel Brick Lane as did the English literature group. But we did discuss the East End. In any case, we all partook in the adventure of dining in the East End. It was a long series of tables so I include a picture from each end. On the walk to the restaurant, you might have noticed the nearby church (on the corner of Fournier St. and Commericial St. , a block off Brick Lane). It was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor (in the 1710s), a student of Christopher Wren (who had designed St. Paul's and the Emmanuel College Chapel we saw). A block further on is The Jamme Masjid or Great London Mosque on the corner of Brick Lane and Fournier Street.

• This building is a perfect illustration of the East End's role as the point of entry for immigrant groups. It was originally founded as a church for Hugenots - French protestants who fled to London to avoid persecution at home. The chapel was later used by Methodists. In the late 19th century, when Whitechapel became the centre of the Jewish East End, it became the Machzike Adass, also known as the Spitalfields Great Synagogue. With the dispersal of the Jewish community and a new influx of Bengali immigrants, it became the Jamme Masjid or Great London Mosque in 1976. (PortCities London)
  

Huguenots, as we discussed, were French Protestants, and many of them had fled France after the Revocation of Nantes in 1685. In any case, the area from Spitalfields to Brick Lane still has the simple 2-3 story buildings with the huge windows on the ground floor. Many of these housed Huguenot silkweavers and their looms (for which intricate work they needed light). I'd like to do more with the history of the Spitalfields area, next program. In any case, it is notable that the Brick Lane area housed Huguenots, working class Methodists, Jews immigrating from continental Europe, and Bengalis in succession from the 18th to the 20th centuries. You might have noticed that, in the 21st century, the area around Brick Lane has gone decidedly upmarket (at least the area around Spitalfield Market). Orwell's "Spikes" are nowhere to be seen.

From Darbys's Coalbrookdale to Dickens' Coketown

(Apologies. Did not have my battery charged for my digital camera so took pictures with a regular camera. I have "borrowed" a couple of pictures from Ashley's site--she does have a great photographer's eye.) The first picture is on the Ironbridge of Ironbridge Gorge, the first bridge made out of iron as one would expect. Abraham Darby began casting it in 1779 and that is the date on the central piece around which the students are gathered. Darby almost went broke as the bridge was a marvel and everyone visited it, but they went back to making bridges out of wood and brick, until a flood towards the end of the century washed out all bridges on the River Severn, except this one.

Even with the success of Ironbridge, the Darbys and their successors soon had to shift from making large practical items to focusing on the ornamental and the decorative. Of course, some of the decorative pieces, like the great gates to the Great Exhibition (Crystal Palace) of 1851 or the iron lamp posts for London, were massive or massive projects. Still, by the mid-19th century, the Darbys sought to market themselves as cast iron artists (and some of the pieces shown in the museums at Ironbridge make iron look like a rare mineral). One of the reasons for the change is that Coalbrookdale and the other places where there were blast furnaces (like Blists Hill) were started because it was a great place to use the river and the canal system to bring in materials (iron ore, coke made from coal, and limestone for the catalyst) from a short distance away. The picture to the right shows a rail bridge crossing the river. The railways were important for the area (iron rails and steam engine boilers were made here and nearby) and also were the undoing of the area (it was too costly to build many railroads in an area cut by rivers, valleys, and canals). One of the reasons that Ironbridge is a World Heritage Site is that there was no modernization after the mid-19th century and much of the place remains as it was during the first Industrial Revolution (or is that Evolution?).

Note: the UNESCO World Heritage List includes 26 sites in the United Kingdom (probably the highest number in any one country), including: Ironbridge Gorge (1986), Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites (1986), City of Bath (1987), Westminster Palace, Westminster Abbey and Saint Margaret's Church (1987), Tower of London (1988), Maritime Greenwich (1997), all of which we have seen or will see (well Tower in passing). If you add Tintern Abbey (as it is very similar to Studley Royal Park including the Ruins of Fountains Abbey, 1986), and the various places many of you have seen or will see--Old and New Towns of Edinburgh (1995), Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (2003), Liverpool, Maritime Mercantile City (2004)--we can say we did a fair portion of the list!

Whose 18th Century?

Moll Flanders and Walpole at the beginning of the century, Pride and Prejudice and Pitt at the end (with Persuasion just around the corner in 1811). A century dominated by the landed aristocracy or a century dominated by the monied interest, merchants, and traders of the metropolis of London? A stable society reinforcing hierarchy or a rich edifice unsteadily topping an ungovernable people?

Bath is there at the beginning and the end of the century, and it could be taken for representing both visions of 18th-century society. For our purposes, one of the great features of Bath, is that it remains largely Hanoverian (indeed, Georgian); in Jane Austen's time here, it must have been one huge builders' site. Here we are walking towards one of the pump rooms, where they are now rebuilding a spa.

Bath was about separating the classes in an infinite hierarchy of status. Thus, Sir Walter wants to be in the best rooms of Camden Place built on the highest hill. But the Royal Crescent, perhaps a built older remains a slightly more prestigious address (seen here to the right). Bath was about mixing the classes, like horse races and gambling spots in London, and exciting place to watch and be watched by others. Moll can meet someone of higher status at the Bath: is it a matter of hiding one's previous status?; or is it that one just doesn't care in Bath (Las Vegas)? Sir Walter separates himself in the highest hill, then spends his time on the street in town watching others of all sorts of ranks.

In retrospect we should have spent a bit more time in Bath after the tour (although many of us set off on explorations in Cardiff and discovered a bit there too the next day). Some tasted the waters, some (me at least) explored the Abbey, did anyone see where Beau Nash lived like I did? The Abbey was chock-full of monuments to departed surgeons, farriers, apothecaries, and military men (as that to the left). Adm. Croft and Capt. Wentworth were fictional characters in Austen's Bath only in name it appears.

Dickens and Orwell: two centuries or two classes?

[assignment week 4, due Mon.] Simple final blog assignment. Find your favorite telling quote from Hard Times and your favorite from Down and Out in Paris and London, quote them, and compare them stating what you think they say about class. You don't need to write or comment on but you might think about the extent to which Dickens and Orwell were writing about two different periods or about two different strata of society.

Composed a few miles above Oxford City, On Revisiting the Past Couple of Weeks During a Tour, June 22, 2006

Or should it just state, 'Palladianized'? We visited Houghton and Holkham Halls constructed in the main in the first half of the 18th century last week. Ashley, Ray, Krystal, Megan, Cassie, Amanda, Carrie, Ben, and Kristi can just about be delineated in this picture. I've taught Sir Robert Walpole and I have read quite a bit about Sir Robert, but visiting this pile again (hot and ice water in the dining room?) gives me added insight into the originator of No. 10 Downing Street.

That weekend, many of us travelled across the British Isles. For me, it was down to London, where I greeted my daugther at Heathrow and then met EIU MA in History alumni: Bill (of Houston), Evi (of Innsbruck), and Michael (of Vienna, both of Michael has his arm around Daniella). We are on Portobello Road at the time of this picture, but all the people in this picture have lived in Charleston, Illinois at one time.

Finally, I just thought I'd leave an image for Amanda. Amanda, despite going to university in central Illinois, finds that animals on an estate, particularly domesticated deer, should not relieve themselves wherever they please. I noted the following sign on pavement in London and, perhaps, she might ask them to place same throughout the estates of the aristocracy in future?
By the way, we need to focus on Hard Times and Cannadine's 19th-century chapter for Monday, and I should have your journals (at least 3 entries per week, and we are now on week 4) by Sunday. I am currently viewing future possible study abroad sites, but will be back Saturday. You may leave same with Dr. Bredesen at dinner Friday night. Got used to having you all around these past two trips and missing you all in Oxford (can that be?).

The Bath of Defoe, and Bath of Austen

[assignment week 3, due Wed.] Compare and contrast the Bath of Moll and Bath of Anne Elliott. Is the city about class separation or class mixing? Why do they go to (the) Bath? Is the difference one or character or one of period (early 18th, early 19th)? (In your comparison answer two of these three questions.)

Also, prepare one paragraph on your assigned Bath or Cardiff historical personage below in order to be able to tell the rest of the group by Tuesday (in other words, due it today; you should probably do the first blog assignment today as well): John Wood, senior (or the elder, Carrie); Thomas Rowlandson (Cassandra); Beau Nash (Krystal); Ralph Allen (Kristi); John Palmer (Ashley); Dr. William Oliver (Ben); William Wilberforce (Ray); William Gilpin (esp. his Observations on the River Wye and several parts of South Wales, Megan); First and Third Marquess of Bute (focusing on Cardiff Castle, Amanda).

Defoe and the Patricians and the Plebeians

[assignment week 2. due Wednesday.] How does E.P. Thompson's article "Patricians and Plebs" (versions of which pub. 1974, 1978, combined 1978, penguin ed., pp. 16-49) help us to understand Defoe's Moll Flanders? How does Moll not fit Thompson's model? (Indeed, what is his model?; why does he use it--the latter question we can discuss in class.)

A Busman's Holiday?

What do professors do on their weekend off? Go to libraries of course. Well, Profs. Newton and Dagni went to London (showing a few of the students how to get signed into the British Library, the Institute of Historical Research, and leaving them with the compatriots at the British Museum). Back to the BL on Saturday, but some time for climbing the Monument commemorating the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire of 1666 (above) and a visit to Southwark (the Cathedral above right) for markets and relaxation (as one might have done in Shakespeare's time). Group will be returning to the Thames on our last week as well.

Looking for Class in Cambridge

Harlaxtoners Megan and Caroline take pictures of the grass at King's College on which they are not allowed to walk. The first of many steamy, warm days, and our first outing (though the second tour if one includes the tour through Harlaxton by the guides). If class in a 19th-century manor like Harlaxton is denoted by upstairs/downstairs (or, really, the front stairs for the owners and guests, the back stairs for the servants), class in Cambridge was linked to a hierarchical division between scholars, fellows, and masters. Of course, as the quadrangle organization of the colleges (hall, chapel, library, and rooms or dormitory) suggests, the colleges are a guild-like or ordered society like a monastery. "Class" there is more like the estates or orders of the Middle Ages.

Here we have Harlaxtoner Kristi in front of King's College Chapel. Its perpendicular fan vaulting emphasizes the religiosity of its founder Henry VI and Henry VII. Its large reliefs adorning the inside and outside of the Heraldic signs of the Tudors, Beauforts, etc., emphasize the secular power ideals of its completor, Henry VIII.

I should note that at least one of our classy class, Ashley, has her own blog which not only has a different take on all that we see (and some that only her group sees), but also has some great photos uploaded.

Greetings from Harlaxton.

Incidental housekeeping notes: two rooms blew a fuse, but same reported to maintenance, and now repaired. Students have been to Grantham and back on assignment. I am representing Eastern Illinois at a partners' conference on teaching at harlaxton during the academic year!

We are arranging extra rooms for the students to lessen the numbers per room. I'll email students soon to let you know if that rearrangement is successful. (Ashley met the Principal Gordon Kingsley as we walked the hall looking for the available rooms. Sorry for barging in. He did knock!

notes for packing and a comment by Linda Colley

Greetings. Virtually everyone has now posted once (thanks!; I was beginning to think I was in the class alone) although someone posted anonymously, so I don't know who that is.

As we get ready to depart I have had queries about what to bring: sheets, towels, alarm clocks, etc. They have sheets and towels, but, as Dr. Bredesen noted an old towel stuffed into a corner of your bag comes in handy (and you can always throw away at the end). As for electronics and material comforts in your room, you might contact your room-mate, and the pairings I have are: Ben Gaylord and Raymond Szarsinksi, Caroline Deters and Kristan Cagle, Krystal Rose and Megan Tellerina, Amanda Terrell and Ashley Moreland, Cassandra Murray with her friend in the English group. In other words, don't bring two of something that you only need one in a room. But I can't tell you what you need for day-to-day living because (1) I don't know you that well; and (2) I've only spent one night in Harlaxton and it wasn't in the student area. I will ask an informant (a student last year), and try to make one more posting about such things. But if you bring clothes, Cannadine, and a willingness to try and learn new things you won't go too wrong.

Still coolish in UK. Up to 71 F (they use Celsius, so weather reports will seem strange) in London when we arrive, but as low as 49 F at night in Grantham. I have made contact with a colleague at Emmanuel College, who has agreed to give us a brief tour around that college as well, so now we have two residential colleges to tour as well as the university (and we'll see many of the colleges as we walk around).

Finally, note the following from the Guardian Weekly, "The feeling is always mutual," by Linda Colley, professor of history at Princeton University, on how American and European prejudices contain awkward truths about the way both sides view each other

• "Like the proverbial elephant in the room, American anti-Europeanism has loomed large for so long that few trouble to notice it. After all, Americans visit and live in Europe in large numbers and they are generally civilised, smart and generous.
• "American prejudices about Europe rarely surface in headlines, but they are real, pervasive and ingrained. Much of how Americans have always understood their history, culture and identity depends on positioning Europe as the "other", as that "old world" against which they define themselves. During the 17th and 18th centuries, American schoolchildren learn, European refugees crossed the Atlantic to seek sanctuary in a new, better, more abundant land. In 1776 Americans declared themselves independent not just of the oppressions of George III and the British but also of the taste for monarchy, aristocracy, war and colonialism exhibited by Europeans more generally. Americans were fortunate, George Washington declared in 1796, in being so "detached and distant" from "the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humour or caprice".
• "Some 40 million Europeans chose to migrate to the US in the 19th century. The greater prosperity and political rights enjoyed then by most ordinary Americans, provided they were white, entrenched the view that one side of the Atlantic was intrinsically better and more blessed than the other. "While we shall see multiplied instances of Europeans going to live in America," wrote Thomas Jefferson, "I will venture to say no man now living will ever see an instance of an American removing to settle in Europe." Henry James chose to settle in England, but his novels still endorsed the view that Europe was both corrupt and corrupting. Those of his American characters who cross the Atlantic tend to be inveigled and damaged by the old world, like Isabel Archer in Portrait of a Lady, or are morally contaminated by it, like the expatriate American anti-heroine of The Europeans.
• "Seeing Europe as potentially malignant was in part a tacit American acknowledgment of its superior cultural sophistication and armed force, but as the US became more powerful, so the nature of its anti-Europeanism changed. Europe ceased to seem the place where the future was under construction. Instead, US intervention in two world wars encouraged the American view that Europe's inhabitants were so terminally violent and pathetically incompetent as to need to be rescued from themselves, and that only the US could achieve this.
• "Of course, not all Americans think in these ways or ever have; and historically the US has borrowed ideas and institutions from Europe as much as it has disapproved of and distrusted it. None the less, American preconceptions about Europe require taking seriously.
• "To begin with, they reveal what Americans fear and dislike about themselves. It is now almost de rigueur, for instance, for American universities and radical scholars to teach and write on the iniquities of past European colonialism and imperialism. Fair enough, one might think. But the silence about the history of America's own overland and overseas empire is almost deafening. There is a sense, clearly, in which American anxieties about home-grown aggression and imperialism are being transferred on to Europe. In much the same way, most Americans far prefer books and movies about Europe's undeniable class divisions than to think hard about their own economic inequalities or the very considerable degree of hereditary status and influence in their own land.
• "There is a more specific sense in which American anti-Europeanism functions as a kind of self-commentary. In the past America's white elite cherished Europe as well as suspecting it. They adopted European fashions, built universities like Oxford and Cambridge, went on grand tours of European cities; and many of these American patricians were Wasps, white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. As the US population has become more diverse, however, so the authority of this old elite has diminished."

Defoe, Moll Flanders

[pre-departure week 3.] OK. I have bought a new suitcase and new shoes. I have ordered some inexpensive travel guides (just for some additional bits of information), spent time looking at maps, read Hard Times (what a hoot; why did I never read this fully before?--perfect for our class), and checked with this person and that about things Harlaxton and UK (the mother of the boyfriend of my daughter [who will join us from the 16th to the 30th--my daughter, not everyone else] who attended an English dept. Harlaxton trip recently, loved it there, but noted that some of the meals (esp. vegetables) are very institutional (well, I am paraphrasing here; I believe her phrase was not as diplomatic). The good news is: (1) there are great shops food and otherwise at Grantham which are walkable (there is also a shuttle); (2) there is a tv in the basement (don't know what that is apropos of; just thought I'd mention it). She recommends bringing snacks, but I always found food shopping for this and that to be one of the inexpensive pleasures of being in a foreign country. On the note of shopping, I have noted with some trepidation, the falling dollar in the last couple of months. When I began planning this trip, the pound was about 1.75 dollars; now it is 1.87. For your own travelling, etc., whatever you planned to bring, see if you can scrounge up a bit more.

On to Defoe's Moll Flanders (link is to entire text online; not that I would want to read it online) and my last pre-departure question. Those who have responded (5 for the first question, and 2 for the second [Megan put the answer for question one under week 2]) have done a great job. As I have mentioned before the only rule is that you try to answer each question before we depart on the 4th. (Forget the must-be-longer-than-the-last-entry requirement.) Moll begins life in Newgate Prison, is taken by gypsies to Colchester, Essex, adn then the countryside near Colchester, where much of the beginning of the book takes place (indeed, these chapters are the most traditional of an early tragic novel). Eventually, she is in London, travels to Oxford, land in the Mint (part of London where insolvent debtors hide), tries her luck among the ship captains at Redriff (Rotherhithe) near London, then goes to Virginia (York River), before returning to Milford Haven, London again, Bristol, Bath (we will return to this on our Bath week), Gloucester, Reading, Hammersmith, London (Bloomsbury, the Bank), Lancashire (Warrington to Liverpool), Chester (Black Rock), Dunstable (within 30 miles of London), London (St. Jone's near Clerkenwell), etc. So I really should ask a geography question. But, no, let's look at the people with whom she interacts: the Mayoress, the two Brothers (gentry?), the gentleman-tradesman, the sea captain and Virginia planter, her Bath friend, the north-country gentlewoman, Jemmy, Mother Midnight, the gentleman at the Bank. In fact, let's look just at when Moll "at last I found this amphibious creature, this land-water thing called a gentleman-tradesman; and as a just plague upon my folly, I was catched in the very snare which, as I might say, I laid for myself" (p. 41, Bantam ed.). What is a "gentleman-tradesman," and what is the problem with the same? Is it just Moll's problem or is it a larger problem?

Additional Information about London leg of program

The following are planned tours/lecturers in London. It is a lot of touring and we want to leave some free time for you in London, so will probably ask you to sign up for 3 of the 5 planned outings.

Tues 4 July

• Tour of West End and the Courts (from Leicester “House,” to the old Royal Stables, to Pall Mall, to St. James Palace, to Buckingham Palace to St. James Gardens, to Whitehall)
• Tour of Westminster government area (Parliament, Whitehall, Downing Street, guest lecturer: Dr. Peter Catterall, Queen Mary College, University of London)
  

Wed 5 July

• Tour of South Kensington/Exhibition Road area (especially V & A British Galleries, with guest lecturer)
• Tour of City of London (especially Museum of London, guest lecturer for both: Dr. Angela McShane Jones, Oxford Brookes University)
  

Thurs 6 July

• Tour of River Thames, Greenwich, and East End (boat trip down Thames from Embankment to Greenwich, Greenwich Observatory, then back via light railway, and London Transport through East End, walk through Smithfield, etc.) [This is a fullish day.]
  

Cannadine, "The Eighteenth Century: Class Without Class Struggle"

[pre-departure week 2.] I wonder. Cannadine's title is an inversion of E. P. Thompson's view of the 18th-century (in a long view, that century dates from the Glorious Revolution, 1688-89 to the Great Reform Act of 1832; in Cannadine's version, it dates to 1776). But in this chapter (as in most of his chapters) he notes that there are 3 models at play of what English and British society looked like (both then and by historians now): a two-class, polarized model ("us" versus "them," "rich" vs. "poor," "patricians" vs. "plebeians"); a three-layer model (elite-middle-lower; "landowning sort," "middling sort," "labouring sort"); and a hiearchical, layered, continuous chain model (from a Great Chain of Being in which people are ranked between and even within a myriad of stations). Your job is to come up with an understanding of which model William Hogarth used and which group or rank or class he valued most.

I ask you to look at Hogarth (a) because his paintings and engravings are easily available on the web; and (b) because Cannadine does not give you too many examples of what happened within the 18th century (and I certainly don't expect that you all have had a class on 18th-Century Britain). Cannadine is correct to note that England was one of the most urbanized countries in 18th-century Europe: London housed perhaps 10% of the English. But, compared to 19th and 20th century Britain, this was a rural, agricultural country. And landed values remained dominant. "A nobleman, a gentleman, a yeoman; the distinctio of these, that is a good interst of the nation, and a great one!": thus said, Oliver Cromwell in a speech in 1654. His 18th-century descendants would understand the values embraced in that. One distinction that Cannadine does not make much of is the contemporary distinction between the landed interest (the gentry, the "acre-ostracracy"--to use the title of a 19th-century book) and the new, monied interest (the latter centered mainly in "the City"--London).

Again, the assignment for this chapter is to read it, decipher what the three models of class are, then examine several paintings or engravings by Hogarth, and tell what model you think he is using in two of them, why you think this is the model, and which group he tends to support. Hogarth prints are available at:

• William Hogarth and 18th-Century Print Culture
• Web Gallery of Art
• William Hogarth--Gallery
  

Cannadine, "Beyond Class--Forward to Class?'

[pre-departure week 1.] Our first pre-departure week's question is about Marx's concepts of class "in itself" and "for itself" (summarized nicely, in Rise and Fall of Class in Britain, 1999, pp. 2-4). What does he mean? Give four examples [no, that is too many: two examples, either "in itself" and "for itself" from either history or private life; or either "in itself" or "for itself" from both history and private life, or....] of what he means: one from history that shows class "in itself" at work or as a factor, one from history that shows class "for itself," one from your own life or that of your family that shows class "in itself," on from your own life/family that shows class "for itself." Those drawn from British history would be nice, but not necessary. Finally, why do you think historians have become less interested in class explanations since 1980?

• This is the first one so I'll start. In history, I might give the example of the sans culottes in the French Revolution. The sans culottes were a group of artisans and small shopkeepers who became briefly influential in the revolution in Paris, during the radical phase, 1792-94. They demanded fixed prices which helped them compete and able to earn a living. Because many of them were of this one social level (lower bourgeoisie?), they (or many of them) were objetively a class "in itself." But they also defined themselves as the sans culottes (or, "without breaches") which means that they saw themselves as without breaches and fine stockings which were the clothes of the nobility. This class consciousness meant they were to some extent a class "for itself." In my own life, my father was a junior officer when I was young, so we lived in fairly small houses. But not only did he save his money a rise through the ranks, he inherited a small ranch and stocks. So, even though I did not attend private prep schools, it was unsuprising that I attended and succeeded at a fairly elite college. Shorthand, I was from upper, or lower upper, middle class "in itself," and so my college career reflected that. As far as class "for itself," while in London in the mid-70s living with my parents, I adopted the phrase "ta" (meaning, "thank you, very much"). A British friend of my father's told him that I probably shouldn't use that slang as it was very lower class ("'kyou," pronounced "kew," was probably a bit more elevated). My father's friend, then, seems to have been aware of his class "for itself."

OK, you aren't going to want to go on at that length (and I haven't answered the question of whyI think there is a decline in interest in class), but that is the sort of thing I am looking for. The rules are you should each do one posting for each question. There is no length specified, but this is a blog, so don't go on for pages. There is no time specified for posting, but the rule is your comment/posting must be at least one line longer than the previous one (an incentive for posting early) [ok, too long; at least as long as previous]. We are on the internet, so preferably no names, dates, places for examples from your own life/family, please.