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A study of John Clare in his historical and political context
No full textAs the title indicates, the basis of the thesis is to set John Clare’s life and work within the context of the social and political history of his time. It is a study that is long overdue. The manner in which topical and political matters were mediated to him and were reflected in his work are analysed. His introduction to the literary and social worlds of Stamford and London is evaluated, and the advantages and disadvantages of patronage assessed. The active and complex political culture of Stamford has been taken into account as this may have affected his later political statements and a growing awareness of his audience. His antagonism to enclosure and the social changes that it engendered are considered. Three major questions that arise from this are addressed. The two local newspapers that Clare is known to have read are used throughout. His correspondence with friends, colleagues and casual correspondents has provided valuable insights as have his poetry and prose writings. Research in the Northamptonshire Record Office has revealed important new information in the form of one book of Enclosure Commissioners’ Minutes dated 1809-14, the first five years of the enclosure of Helpstone, Clare’s native village
Progress and Distress on the Stratford Estate in Clare during the Eighteen Forties
Get PDFIn the late 1980s and early 1990s, the author acquired about 30,000 letters written mainly in the 1840s. These pertained to estates throughout Ireland managed by James Robert Stewart and Joseph Kincaid, hereafter denoted SK. Until the letters - called the SK correspondence in what follows - became the author’s property, they had not seen light of day since the 1840s. Addressed mainly to the SK office in Dublin, they were written mainly by landlords, tenants, the partners in SK, local agents, etc. After about 200 years in operation as a land agency, the firm in which members of the Stewart family were the principal partners - Messrs J. R. Stewart & Son(s) from the mid-1880s onwards -- ceased business in the mid-1980s. Since 1994 the author has been researching the SK correspondence of the 1840s. It gives many new insights into economic and social conditions in Ireland during the decade of the great famine, and into the operation of Ireland’s most important land agency during those years. It is intended ultimately to publish details on several of the estates managed by SK in book form. The proposed title is Landlords, Tenants, Famine: Business of an Irish Land Agency in the 1840s, a draft of which has now been completed. A majority of the letters in the larger study from which the present article is drawn are on themes some of which one might expect - rents, distraint (seizure of assets in lieu of rent) ; ‘voluntary’ surrender of land in return for ‘compensation’ upon peacefully quitting; formal ejectment (a matter of last resort on estates managed by SK); landlord-assisted emigration (on a scale much more extensive than most historians of Ireland in the 1840s appear to believe); petitions from tenants; complaints by tenants, both about other tenants and local agents; major works of improvement (on almost all of the estates managed by SK); applications by SK, on behalf of proprietors, for government loans to finance improvements; recommendations of agricultural advisers hired by SK, ete. Thus, most of the SK correspondence is about aspects of estate management. It seems, in the 1840s, that the only estate in Clare managed by SK was that of the elderly Col. Stratford. Although the files on the relatively small Stratford estate are much less extensive than those on some of the estates investigated in detail in the draft of Landlords, Tenants, Famine, they do refer to most of the core aspects of estate management mentioned above. But in the case of the Clare estate, the material on some of those themes is extremely thin.
The life and works of Osbert of Clare
No full textOsbert of Clare was an English monastic writer, whose works extended from
the mid-1120s to the mid-1150s. His Latin hagiography reflects a deep admiration for
Anglo-Saxon saints and spirituality, while his letters provide a personal perspective
on his turbulent career. As prior of Westminster Abbey, Osbert of Clare worked to
strengthen the rights and prestige of his monastery. His production of forged or
altered charters makes him one of England's most prolific medieval forgers. At times
his passion for reform put him at odds with his abbots, and he was sent into exile
under both Abbot Herbert (1121-c.1136) and Abbot Gervase (1138-c.1157). Also
Osbert, as one of the first proponents of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, wrote
about the feast, worked to legitimize its celebration, and provided us with the only
significant narration of its introduction to England.
This thesis is divided into two sections. The first section is principally
historical and the second is principally literary. In the first section, I provide an
overview of Osbert of Clare's career and examine in greater detail two of his most
significant undertaking: his promotion of Westminster Abbey and his attempted
canonization of Edward the Confessor. In the second section, I give a philological
study of Osbert Latin style and examine themes that nm throughout his writings, such
as virginity, exile and kingship. Osbert's promotion of the feast of the Immaculate
Conception is included in the second section of the thesis because of its ties to the
themes of virginity and femininity within his writings. There are also two appendices:
the first is a survey of the extant manuscripts of Osbert's writings, and the second is
an edition of Osbert's unpublished Life of St Ethelbert from Gotha,
Forschungsbibliothek MS Memb. i. 8l
Dry sliding friction and wear behaviour of an electron beam melted hypereutectic Al–Si alloy
No full textThe economic and environmental benefits of using light-weighting technology in automotive applications continue to attract attention for feasible commercial solutions. This study investigates the use of pulsed electron beam melting of a hypereutectic Al–Si alloy as a possible modification procedure for cylinder crankcase bore facing surfaces. Machined surfaces of an A390 alloy were subjected to five pulsed electron doses with an applied cathode potential between 16.5 and 36 kV. It was found that increasing beam accelerating voltages led to an initial decrease (1.4 ?m R a) but subsequent increase (4.0 ?m R a) in average surface roughness values associated with surface crater formation due to sub-surface melting and eruption. Surfaces were tested under dry sliding tribological conditions against 52100 bearing steel in a reciprocating geometry. Average dynamic friction coefficients were higher (0.9) compared to the untreated alloy surface (0.6) as a result of a greater degree of adhesion to the counterface. However, FIB cross sections of worn surfaces indicated that this activated an oxidative type wear process which ultimately led to the formation of a beneficial surface tribo-film on the EBM-treated surfaces, improving the specific wear rates by up to 66%
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Identity, authenticity, class: John Clare and the mask of Chatterton
No full textPulsed electron beam surface melting of CoCrMo alloy for biomedical applications
No full textThe use of CoCrMo alloys in biomedical applications has come under scrutiny recently due to unacceptable revision rates of certain hip resurfacing and total hip arthroplasty designs. Failure analysis has demonstrated that solid and soluble wear debris and corrosion products, released from the joints have resulted in adverse local tissue reactions (ALTR), pseudo-tumour formation and ultimately implant retrieval and replacement. In order to improve the surface properties of a wrought CoCrMo alloy, a low energy high current pulsed electron beam surface treatment process was investigated. Samples were irradiated at two cathode voltages of 15 and 35 kV at pulse numbers of 1, 15 and 25. At low beam energies a polishing effect was observed as a result of surface melting. At higher beam energies a higher Ra value was the result of the formation of surface craters. Nano-indentation and scratch testing of the treated surface were carried out using a nano-indenter. Depth profiling nano-indentation was performed using a Berkovich tip in load control. Loading was performed in 8 mN increments up to 160 mN at a rate of 3.5 mN/s, with a 60 s dwell period and 40% unloading. The results demonstrated that the surface treatment process reduced both the modulus and the hardness of the surface in comparison to the control. Scratching was performed with a 20 ?m radius spherical diamond and loading rate of 2 mN/s up to a maximum of 100 mN, over a 1 mm scratch length. Similar scratch depths for both control and treated surfaces were observed. However, an improvement in the dynamic friction coefficient was observed at certain beam energies. These results are discussed in the light of XRD evidence that suggested rapid cooling of the surface induced preferential formation of an ?-martensite HCP phase which may be beneficial for biomedical applications.<br/
Architecture of fluvio-deltaic sandbodies: the Namurian of Co. Clare, Ireland, as an analogue for the Plio-Pleistocene of the Nile Delta
Get PDFUnderstanding and predicting the size, shape and internal architecture of sandbodies is of fundamental importance in hydrocarbon exploration. High quality hydrocarbon reservoirs are often formed in deltaic environments where there is a complex interplay between changes in relative sea level, sediment input and climate. When combined with the intrinsic sedimentary variability of deltas, this makes prediction of the internal facies distributions and architectures of deltaic sandbodies a challenging task. The aim of this thesis is to conduct a detailed qualitative and quantitative field study of fluvial and deltaic sandbody architecture and facies distribution, and to assess the usefulness of the data thus obtained in predicting the
architecture and sedimentary characteristics of reservoir sandstones in the subsurface.
The El Wastani Formation of the Nile Delta, Egypt, has previously been identified as an interval of reservoir quality sandstones within the Plio-Pleistocene deltaic succession. Limited core data, and poor seismic imaging due to gas seepage effects, hindered past attempts to assess the internal architecture and facies of the sandbodies. Therefore it was considered appropriate to use an outcrop analogue to aid understanding of the El Wastani Formation reservoir characteristics. From a review of literature, the Upper Carboniferous fluvial and deltaic sandstones of the Central Clare Group, County Clare, western Ireland,
were found to be suitable analogues for the El Wastani Formation sandstones. Controls on the two sedimentary systems were similar; both were fluvial-dominated and wave-influenced, and both show evidence for fluctuating relative sea-level. Comparisons of facies observed in outcrop (Co. Clare) and interpreted from image logs (Nile Delta) show similar facies and sedimentary successions in the two systems, improving confidence in the choice of analogue.
Fieldwork carried out on the Upper Carboniferous (Namurian) coastal outcrops of Co. Clare produced detailed measurements of facies distributions and bed geometries, which, together with sedimentary logs, palaeocurrent studies and outcrop-scale photomontages, enabled
interpretation and quantification of channel dimensions, internal architectures and stacking patterns. Based on these data, the Tullig Sandstone, a major sandbody within the Central Clare Group, is interpreted to be a low-sinuosity, braided fluvial system that flowed to the
north-northeast. This sandbody shows decreasing amounts of erosion and conglomeratic facies in both downstream and vertical directions, interpreted to reflect the combined effects of delta subsidence and sea-level rise over time, influencing the downstream reaches of the system first. The mean sand to non-sand ratio for the Tullig Sandstone is 97% by area, and connectivity of sandstone facies within this sandbody is 93%. In contrast, mouthbar sandbodies that were studied have a mean sand to non-sand ratio of 90%, and greatly reduced sandstone connectivity, at 65%. The data that characterise the field outcrops can be taken as
indicative of the probable characteristics of the El Wastani sandbodies.
The data generated from the quantitative field studies were used to construct computer models of the outcrops, in order to see how well the modelling software was able to reproduce the outcrop architectures and facies distributions, and also to test the sensitivity of the models to different scales of data. One large-scale model was built to include all the Tullig Sandstone outcrops along the coastline, with a vertical resolution (cell height) of 1m. A second smaller model was constructed to cover just the Trusklieve outcrop, and was built using a vertical cell height of O.1m. Each model was designed to fit the sedimentary log data, and was conditioned to reflect the facies percentages and channel dimensions measured and calculated respectively from the outcrops. The results showed that although the larger modelling grid,
with lower vertical and horizontal data resolution, showed significant differences in finegrained facies distribution from the outcrops, it was reasonably successful at reproducing the channel shapes and stacking patterns seen in outcrop. In addition, the high sand to non-sand
ratio meant that sandstone connectivity was not reduced compared with either the outcrops or the small, high-resolution model. The small model was better at reproducing the geometries of beds of fine-grained facies, but lacked the ability to accurately simulate the channel architectures and stacking patterns
Corrosion resistance enhancement of Ti-6Al-4V Alloy by pulsed electron irradiation for biomedical applications
No full textMetallic materials are commonly used in biomedical applications, especially with the increased use of artificial hip and knee joints in recent years. Ti-6Al-4V alloy is a widely used biomaterial for orthopaedic and dentistry applications, due to its excellent mechanical properties and corrosion resistance. However, the in-vivo environment in which it operates is aggressive in terms of mechanical loading cycles and corrosive activity of bodily fluids. Therefore, metal ions may be released from these alloys due to corrosion and wear, which may cause adverse long-term health effects. Preserving the integrity of component surfaces made from these alloys is critical to ensuring they perform correctly over the required life-cycle and do not generate excessive levels of ion release or wear particles. In this work a large-area pulsed electron beam irradiation technique was investigated to improve corrosion performance of an orthopaedic Ti-6Al-4V alloy. The alloy samples had a lapped surface finish prior to electron beam irradiation using a Sodick PF-32A EBM machine. The process uses an argon plasma as a source of electrons which are accelerated towards and bombard the sample surface, causing surface melting and extremely rapid solidification rates of up to 109 K s-1. For this study, samples were irradiated using a range of acceleration voltages (15-35kV) and numbers of pulses (1-25). The corrosion behaviour of the alloy treated with different acceleration voltages and pulses was investigated by electrochemical techniques including open-circuit potential measurements, polarization tests and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy in a 3.5 wt.% NaCl solution. The corrosion resistance of the titanium alloy treated by e-beam surface melting was enhanced by two orders of magnitude compared to the untreated sample. The enhancement was evaluated by assessing surface topography and microstructure from the treatment as observed by XRD, SEM and TEM characterization
Defect-free TiC/Si multi-layer electrical discharge coatings
No full textThe process of electrical discharge coating (EDC) may be used to deposit hard materials on conformal substrate surfaces. Next generation EDM'd components may exploit attachment phenomena to enhance recast layer properties, to avoid the need for recast layer removal. Here, a ceramic based composite layer was developed without cracking and porosity for the first time, using sequential coating using sacrificial TiC and Si electrodes. Attenuation of the discharge process by gap widening using Si debris in the gap explained improved layer properties. Composite coatings combining WC and TiC were also demonstrated, with good elemental intermixing. Attachment level was correlated strongly with melting point, with high melting point materials resisting ejection due to more rapid solidification. Nanoindentation showed the TiC and WC/TiC layers possessed the highest mean hardness values, approximately double that of the Cu based machined layer which itself yielded a much higher hardness of 11.0 GPa compared to 1.9 GPa of the substrate
Robert Buchanan 1841-1901: an assessment of his career.
No full textPhDRobert Buchanan was widely regarded during his
lifetime as a poet of distinction, a capable and powerful
novelist, and a critic of some perception, yet his name is
now associated only with one regrettable episode, while
those of lesser men and women continue to be remembered for
work inferior to his. A man possessing large reserves of
energy, and pressed to write for a living at an early age,
he produced much work that deserves the oblivion it has
found; but his early verse, expressing his profound compassion
for the sufferings of the unfortunate in the simplest
language, some of his ballads, and not a little of his
later more vatic verse, is still worthy of study. As a
novelist his work is provocative and readable, but too
often descends to the level of the sentimental melodrama
which earned him, for a while, a very good income from the
stage. As a critic he was not profound, but was quick to
detect and praise expression of his own sympathy for humanity
that came to represent for him art's highest aspiration;
Dickens, Browning and Whitman were his heroes, and for the
last two he did sterling work in helping them to gain widespread
recognition. As a polemist he rushed into several
arenas, for some of which his talents were not especially
suited; but he publicly supported C. S. Parnell and Oscar
Wilde when few found the courage to do so. An interesting
man of impressive variety and undoubted talent has found an
undeserved neglect, and a full-scale critical biography of
Robert Buchanan is long overdue
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