104,370 research outputs found
The replanning of the blitzed city centre in Britain: a comparative study of Bristol, Coventry and Southampton, 1941-1950
No full textBefore the outbreak of the Second World War Britain had suffered the consequences of uncontrolled industrial development - too highly populated built-up areas and indiscriminate sprawl of houses in the suburbs of industrial cities. Those associated with town planning called for comprehensive national planning. The state of city centres was the microcosm of the lack of such planning - insufficiency caused by traffic congestion and chaotic development of buildings of all kinds, and the absence of social amenities such as civic centres and public open spaces. But the local authorities could do very little, because, for one thing, there was no proper legislation dealing with such highly densely developed areas.
The German air raids on several industrial cities in 1940 were thought to have provided a golden opportunity for the local authorities to set to the task of replanning city centres. The Government promised to make up the necessary legislation, and encouraged the blitzed local authorities to plan boldly and comprehensively. City centre replanning had become a symbol of post-war reconstruction as a whole. However, the blitzed authorities soon had to face a wave of pressure to subdue boldness in their city centre plans. This thesis, by exploring the three case studies of Bristol, Coventry, and Southampton, illustrates the development of city centre replanning in the 1940s, and explains why it failed to live up to some of the expectations of its supporters
Women, work and war : industrial mobilisation and demobilisation, Coventry and Bolton, 1940-1946
No full textThe emphasis in this thesis is on women's popular
attitudes towards the two processes of industrial mobilisation
and demobilisation which took place between 1940 and 1946.
Although the work includes a survey of the national picture of
those two processes, it concentrates on case studies in two towns
which exhibited different characteristics of women's employment,
Coventry and Bolton. This is done in an attempt to see if the
tradition of women's employment affected their attitudes towards
war work. In Coventry, the best sources of women's employment
were for single women. During the nineteen-thirties it was obvious
that the motor industry employed increasing numbers of women, but, again,
the unmarried. The economic participation rate in Coventry was slightly
lower than the national average. On the other hand, the cotton industry
in Bolton customarily had engaged married women as well as single women,
therefore, the women's economic participation rate was about 10 per cent.
higher than the national average. Local custom with regard to married
women's employment appears to have affected women's ideas About their
domestic responsibilities. Coventry women were more reserved and more
conscious of their domestic role. However, the comparison between the
two towns also brought out similarities as well as differences in women's
attitudes to industrial mobilisation. During demobilisation, the
similarities between Coventry and Bolton were more strongly marked.
The majority of women war workers had no intention of staying on in the
factory, in jobs which were still largely thought of as 'men's work'.
Most women thought that their well-being was dependent on men's secure
employment and high wages. They did not want to do anything to threaten
it. There seems to have been little antagonism between men and women
during the mobilisation and demobilisation period
Consistency in successive spatial utterances
No full textVorwerg C. Consistency in successive spatial utterances. In: Coventry KR, Tenbrink T, Bateman JA, eds. Spatial language and dialogue. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2009: 40-55
Engineering workers and the rise of Labour in Coventry 1914-1939
No full textThis thesis is concerned with Coventry in the period 1914 to 1939.
It is a study of the developments in the city's labour movement in this
period. It concentrates on the fortunes of engineering trade unions, the
Labour Party, the Co-operative movement, and the Communist Party. The aim
of the thesis is to explain the way the labour movement changed in these
years, and to draw attention to the shifts in working class consciousbess
that took place.
Although most of the thesis covers the period 1914 - 1939 there is an
introductory survey that covers the development of large scale engineering
in Coventry, and the growth of the engineering unions and the Labour Party
before the First World War. The thesis then follows the progress of the
unions during the war, and. explains the effect of the main war-time strikes.
The years after the war, up to 1922, are dealt with in detail, as these were
years of political and industrial upheaval. The lockout of the engineering
unions in 1922 is also dealt with in detail, and the thesis looks at the effect
of the lockout on the AEU in particular.
Then the position of the unions in the period of set-backs and defeats
after 1922 is covered, as is their eventual recovery in the 1930's. A study
is made of the way the recovery took place, and the differences between the
resurgent trade unionism and the earlier unionism of the war and the early
1920's are shown. The thesis also looks at the effect of the General Strike
on Coventry. Throughout the thesis, an attempt is made to explain the changing
relationship between the Labour Party and the trade unions, and account for
the gradual emergence of the Labour Party as the majority party in the city.
The victory of the Labour Party in the local elections is considered, and an
assessment of Labou& period of rule between 1937 and 1939 is given. The
role of the Communist Party in organising the unemployed in the post-war
years, and its involvement in the unions, and particularly the recovery of
the unions, is studied.
The thesis also covers the political life of Coventry in this period;
and therefore deals with the Conservative and Liberal Parties and the
coalition they formed against the Labour Party. It attempts to explain
the many different ways in which these parties exercised social and political
leadership in Coventry. The work of the City Council in the fields of
housing and education is studied, and emphesis given to the differences
in policy between the Labour Party and the other political parties, and the
impact of Council policies on working class people.
The role of the Engineering Employers' Association is studied, and
the changes in its relations with the unions throughout this period. Attenion
is also given to its relations with the local political parties, and its
influence on Coventry in general. The internal discussion that took place
within the Coventry Co-operative Society in the 1920's is assessed, as is
its strengthening links with the Labour Party.
The thesis examines the way the development of mass production in the
engineering industry changed jobs and changed the role of the unions in the
factories. The response of trade union shop stewards to changix conditions
is examined, both in the period of unrest during and after the First World
War, and in the second part of the 1930's. Technological change in the period
is only dealt with in its effects on employment, though a broad outline of
economic change is given
Weavers and freemen in Coventry, 1820-1861 : social and political traditionalism in an early Victorian town
No full textThis thesis is concerned with Coventry from about 1820
to 1861, and in particular with the social and political attitudes
that characterised it. The dominant industry in the city and the
area of Warwickshire to the north was the weaving of silk ribbons.
They were usually made in domestic workshops often by family
labour; piecework rates by a standard 'list' were the traditional
method of payment. A chronic surplus of labour threatened to
disrupt the list-system and depress earnings. Before 1835 the
list-system was several times generally abandoned; moreover, each
successive list was lower than the last, and real earnings fell
more rapidly than prices for those continuing on the same type of
loom. On the other hand, many weavers turned to more productive
looms and so increased their earnings. The home market for ribbons
expanded, Warwickshire had little competition from other domestic
producers, and much continental competition was effectively excluded
by the statutory prohibition of imports until 1826. Although the
tariff that then replaced it proved an inadequate barrier against
continental producers between 1828 and 1832 - and those years were
disastrous for Coventry as a result - it did suffice to guard and
preserve for Warwickshire a growing market for cheap ribbons from
the early 1830s onwards. Standard prices were not lowered after
1835, and were generally abandoned only once, from 1840 to 1842;
the continued adoption of more productive looms further increased
earnings.
Throughout the period, there was a strong tradition of support
for the list system from 'honourable’ manufacturers and citizens at
large, anxious for the prosperity of the weavers and the town itself.
The same tradition sustained a lavish system of statutory poor
relief until 1830; and though it became more frugal thereafter,
the fortunate exemption of Coventry from the close control of the
Poor Law Commission until 1844, owing to the autonomy conferred
by a local act, helped to preserve outdoor relief for the unemployed.
At times of distress relief funds were collected: but a far greater
amount of money was disbursed to the poor from the dole charities,
with which the city was exceptionally well endowed. Some charities
were a special preserve of the city's freemen, who also enjoyed
rights of pasture on land near the city. The freemen, a large and
growing group, were determined to retain their privileges or
convert them into rights as substantial. With the city’s
assistance or acquiescence, they did so.
Many weavers were freemen. Their common good fortune
helped to create complaisance and a pervasive moderation of conduct.
Although the city had a popular electorate because of its freeman
franchise, it was never predominantly radical; radical electors had
to coalesce with moderate liberals to return their candidates.
Radical movements that disavowed middle-class prescriptions were
numerically weak: and even these minorities were distinguished by
their constitutionality. There were scarcely any violent clashes
with authority. Industrially, the record is similar: of militant
yet disciplined conduct. Even in the one act of Luddism that
occurred there was little violence to person.
The weavers were always characterised by a preference for
the outwork system. Steam factories were few in Coventry until
the 1850s. They then threatened through superior productivity to
displace the outwork system. The outdoor weavers competed with them
by the installation of larger looms in their domestic topshops: and
then, in a movement in which they were supported by the factory
weavers and the city, compelled upon the factory proprietors a system
of remuneration which removed the superior productivity of their
looms. By 1859 the outwork system seemed more secure than ever.
But the free trade measures of 1860, by removing the tariff which
had long shielded the city, led to an influx of continental ribbons,
a great excess of labour in Coventry, and the end of both support
for the weavers from the city - now mindful of the need to cheapen
labour-costs - and also the list-system which paternalism had long
sustained
A TALE OF TWO CITIES: DIET, HEALTH AND MIGRATION IN POST-MEDIEVAL COVENTRY AND CHELSEA THROUGH BIOGRAPHICAL RECONSTRUCTION, OSTEOARCHAEOLOGY AND ISOTOPE BIOGEOCHEMISTRY
No full textBiogeochemical research has over the past four-and-a-half decades improved our understanding of human interaction with past environments. The application of different isotope systems has allowed archaeologists to interpret ancient diet, migration and pollution. Although well established in archaeology, biogeochemical interpretations are burdened with questions not only as to the methodology employed but also whether the data presents a consistent picture of past human activity. The use of biographically identifiable individuals offers a means by which the isotope systems may be tested against extent documentary evidence. A sample of forty-five individuals, almost half of which were named individuals, were obtained from the sites of Holy Trinity (Coventry) and St. Luke's (Old Street, Chelsea) and the stable isotopes of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, strontium and lead analysed. The biographies ofthe named individuals were reconstructed through analysis ofextant historical documentation and' used to provide a framework of interpretation for the biogeochemical teclmiques applied. Comparisons are made between the two sites in relation to the biogeochemical techniques employed, biographical reconstruction and osteoarchaeological evidence for disease, migration and diet to address methodological issues and broader questions on 'i,ndustrialisation' during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The osteoarchaeological evidence suggests separation of the two groups into discrete' populations, one that is characterised by occupationally-derived osteoarthropathies (Coventry), and the second, Chelsea, which has an absence of these pathologies. This supports the historical character of the t\VO cities: Coventry as an industrial city in contrast to Chelsea, a 'village of palaces' or pleasure resort. Biogeochemically, carbon and nitrogen isotopes revealed a picture of status-based access to protein resources in a diet that is particularly dominated by freshwater fish, terrestrial omnivores such as pig, or a combination of the two. There is, however, little evidence for a difference in access to such resources between the sexes. Likewise, strontium and oxygen isotopes are capable of differentiating between the two populations and therefore in identifying local and migrant individuals, though limitations in the sample prevent the full utilisation of this data. In one case (Milborough Maxwell) the isotopic techniques \vere able to reveal trans-Atlantic migration between England and the Caribbean. Analysis of lead isotopes of the two populations indicates that while there is little to differentiate the two sites, heavy metal exposure is greater for the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries than for previous periods.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo
Special school teachers in Coventry primary schools: an exploratory study of the special needs outreach project
No full textThe study looks at a project run by Coventry LEA in which teachers from special schools visit nearby ordinary schools to advise them on teaching methods and resources for pupils with special needs. Learning materials are provided for the schools from the LEA's Special Needs Support Centre. The "Outreach" teachers work with individual teachers or with the whole staff. Some teaching of individuals and small groups of pupils is under taken as part of the Outreach project, although the long term aim is to "leave the schools better able to cope". Much of the work supported the development of the LEA's Special Needs Action Programme, better-known as SNAP. Several teachers were involved from each of the LEA's three schools for children with moderate learning difficulties. Most schools visited were primary schools, but a few secondary schools were also included. The main method used to collect information was the unstructured interviewing of forty-eight people involved in the project. These were the advisers who had designed the project, the area support teachers (formerly called remedial teachers) with whom the Outreach teachers worked, the Outreach teachers themselves, teachers in ordinary schools and the head teachers of the special schools. The introductory chapter discusses the arguments for and against integrated provision for children with special educational needs. The findings are presented in two chapters. The first, Chapter three, considers the explanations given for the development of the project. Chapter four describes the project by looking at the roles of those involved. The conclusion is that although the Outreach project seems to be developing a useful role, too much is expected of some Outreach teachers who feel the pressures of having "two jobs". A comparison is made to similar projects, and possible changes discussed
Coventry Township 1, Range 11 map
No full textThis manuscript map is of Coventry Township 1, Range 11 in Summit County, Ohio, 1820. The title reads "A Map of Coventry - T 1 - 11 Range.
Food Stall at Coventry Fair
No full textT. Barker's hot dog and candy floss stall photographed at Coventry Fair, 2 August 1960
Amusement Arcade at Coventry August Fair
No full textPhotograph of T. Barker's Las Vegas Casino amusement arcade with slot machines, taken at Coventry August Fair,, Hearsall Common site, 2 August 1960
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