New Perspectives on the Great War, 6 December 2017, 4.30pm, Reg Vardy RV213
Ann-Marie Foster (Northumbria University): Family and Individual Remembrance as a Way of Breaching the Divide
During the First World War, 750,000 British soldiers perished. As Adrian Gregory has argued, this means that roughly 10 per cent of the British population lost a close relative. Disasters provide a useful theoretical framework for examining experiences of loss in the Great War. Much like the loss of a Pal’s battalion, an explosion in a colliery could decimate a mining community. Miners often lost close friends and relatives, and newly created widows grieved using largely the same artefacts and ephemera as those who lost a loved one in war. Similarly, for those directly involved in the disaster, men who volunteered for rescue parties would have had to confront the mutilated remains of their companions, if the disaster was such that bodies could be recovered at all. This paper therefore explores individual and family reactions to sudden death at the turn of the century. Through examining these similarly devastating events, a more nuanced understanding of mourning in the early twentieth century can be gained.
Andre Keil (University of Sunderland): In Defence of British Freedom? The Struggle for Civil Liberties and the British State during the First World War
The First World War witnessed a significant expansion of the powers of the British state. Legislation, such as the Defence of the Realm Act, provided the authorities with unprecedented powers to regulate and control almost every aspect of everyday life in the country. This emergency regime during the war has often been described as a 'constitutional dictatorship'. However, these developments did also trigger the emergence of the first civil liberties groups in Britain. This paper will trace the history of the National Council for Civil Liberties during the war and will explain how its campaigns shaped the early civil liberties and human rights movement.
Ann-Marie Foster (Northumbria University): Family and Individual Remembrance as a Way of Breaching the Divide
During the First World War, 750,000 British soldiers perished. As Adrian Gregory has argued, this means that roughly 10 per cent of the British population lost a close relative. Disasters provide a useful theoretical framework for examining experiences of loss in the Great War. Much like the loss of a Pal’s battalion, an explosion in a colliery could decimate a mining community. Miners often lost close friends and relatives, and newly created widows grieved using largely the same artefacts and ephemera as those who lost a loved one in war. Similarly, for those directly involved in the disaster, men who volunteered for rescue parties would have had to confront the mutilated remains of their companions, if the disaster was such that bodies could be recovered at all. This paper therefore explores individual and family reactions to sudden death at the turn of the century. Through examining these similarly devastating events, a more nuanced understanding of mourning in the early twentieth century can be gained.
Andre Keil (University of Sunderland): In Defence of British Freedom? The Struggle for Civil Liberties and the British State during the First World War
The First World War witnessed a significant expansion of the powers of the British state. Legislation, such as the Defence of the Realm Act, provided the authorities with unprecedented powers to regulate and control almost every aspect of everyday life in the country. This emergency regime during the war has often been described as a 'constitutional dictatorship'. However, these developments did also trigger the emergence of the first civil liberties groups in Britain. This paper will trace the history of the National Council for Civil Liberties during the war and will explain how its campaigns shaped the early civil liberties and human rights movement.
