Although it was Thomas, the seventh Earl, who by his acquisition of the Greek Marbles brought unwelcome and continuing notoriety to the Elgin name, it is James, the eighth Earl, who is the hero of this book. Did Byron's furious 'Curse of Minerva' hurled at Thomas for his activities in Greece--that all Elgin's sons be 'without one spark of intellectual fire'--succeed only in producing perhaps the most sensitive and forward-looking British proconsul of the Victorian age? James, as a colonial administrator, showed courage, determination and resource in handling difficult situations in Jamaica, Canada, China, Japan and India. As Viceroy of India, where he died, he might have brought reform to the turbulent subcontinent. His son Victor Alexander, the ninth Earl, a Scot of modest ambition, nevertheless performed creditably as Viceroy of India in the 1890s and as Colonial Secretary in the Liberal government of 1906. Through the pages of the book pass seven countesses. And as base and continuum to the story of a great Scottish family stands Broomhall, the house to which each generation brought trophies, mementos, relics, reports, letters, and ephemera. The book is based on the Elgin archives, which the present Earl of Elgin placed at the disposal of the author, whose extensive research took him as far afield as Canada and Japan.

The Elgins, 1766-1917: A Tale of Aristocrats, Proconsuls and Their Wives

Checkland, Sydney

Reference

Aberdeen Univ Pr

The evolution of British public policy through the industrial revolution, the Victorian age and the inter-war years to 1939 is an essential element of British history. It is also a necessary preliminary to the understanding of today's policy choices as they confront governments. It has not previously been viewed as a totality, embodying the economic aspects, both macro and micro, together with social and welfare provision and the patterns of ideas affecting both. Sydney Checkland's treatment, first published in 1983, embraces all these aspects, and is set within the changing configuration of class and politics as the franchise extended. As successive governments responded to these challenges they sought to improve the operation of the market economy and to ease the social pressures that it generated. They had to find an acceptable level of consent to what they were doing; this often involved limiting the choices of individuals and of groups. Of the latter, in large-scale business the trade unions were an increasing problem. Reciprocally these interests tried both to limit the actions of governments as these affected themselves and, indeed, to influence the general course of policy. Account is taken of the fact that Britain was not one nation, but four, each with its perspective and aspirations. The pattern increases in complexity with the passage of time, so that the discussion of the First World War and the troubled decades of the twenties and thirties comprise the largest section of the book.

British and Public Policy 1776–1939: An Economic, Social and Political Perspective

History

Europe

Cambridge University Press

Business & Money

Economics

This book celebrates the emergence of the Scots and Scotland from centuries of poverty and backwardness as the nineteenth century saw Scottish locomotives and ships working on land and sea throughout the world, and Scottish technology leading the way. It analyses the ways in which Scots retained their strong sense of national identity despite considerable industrial and social upheaval and asks the question: who are the Scots?

Industry and Ethos: Scotland 1832-1914 (New History of Scotland)

Checkland, Olive

Edinburgh University Press

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