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‘As a sudden revolution – an unprecedented case – the independence of America has encouraged the wildest sallies of imagination.’ Today, few Americans have heard of Lord Sheffield, the Anglo-Irish peer who wrote these words in 1783, and even fewer, it is probably safe to assume, have read the work that they introduce. Yet for a time, Sheffield’s Observations on the Commerce of the American States was one of the most influential British statements on the American Revolution. 1 For readers in the former colonies (of whom there were quite a few), much of what
This article explores the production of an edition of John Foxes Acts and Monuments (more popularly known as the ‘Book of Martyrs’), printed by Adam & Co. in 1873. The edition was prefaced by an Irish cleric, Rev. S.G. Potter, who, at the time of production, was vicar of St Lukes parish in Sheffield. This article investigates Potters career as a Protestant cleric and Orangeman, examining why he might have been chosen to preface a new edition of Foxes martyrology. Consideration is then given to the illustrations contained within the 1873 edition and what relation they bare to the woodcut illustrations in the editions of the Acts and Monuments printed during Foxes lifetime. This reveals a markedly different agenda behind the choice of illustration in the Elizabethan and Victorian editions.
, Manchester, Milan, Oslo, Ottawa and Sheffield. The result was a growing conversation about humanitarianism’s past and its potential to shape our understanding of the present. Those discussions have centred on three themes. The first is an insistence on moving beyond what David Lewis termed the aid sector’s ‘perpetual present’: ‘a state characterised by an abundance of frequently changing language and “buzzwords”’ ( Lewis, 2009: 33 ; see also
In 1997 The Full Monty brought Sheffield's unemployed steelworkers to the attention of the world. The comedy, which was nominated for four Academy Awards and beat Titanic to win a British Academy of Film and Television Arts award for ‘Best Film’, tells the story of six unemployed men who, in need of money and a sense of purpose, form a striptease act to rival the Chippendales. The film is a study of complex and changing masculinities, touching on topics such as body image, impotence, fatherhood and depression, as well as unemployment
This book argues that punk and post-punk, whatever their respective internal stylistic heterogeneity, enjoyed 'sociological reality' in Samuel Gilmore's and Howard Becker's sense. It elaborates the concept of 'music worlds', contrasting it with alternatives from the sociological literature. In particular it contrasts it with the concepts 'subculture', 'scene' and 'field'. The book then outlines a number of concepts which allow us to explore the localised process in which punk took shape in a sociologically rigorous manner. In particular it discusses the concepts of 'critical mass' and 'social networks'. The book also applies these concepts to the London punk world of 1976. It considers how talk about punk migrated from face-to-face networks to mass media networks and the effects of that shift. Continuing the discussion of punk's diffusion and growth, the book considers how punk worlds took shape in Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield. In addition, however, the book offers a more technical analysis of the network structures of the post-punk worlds of the three cities. Furthermore, extending this analysis, and combining qualitative and quantitative forms of analysis, the book considers how activities in different local post-punk worlds were themselves linked in a network, constituting a national post-punk world.
8 ‘You have to start where you’re at’ Politics and reputation in 1980s Sheffield Daisy Payling In 1981 Sheffield City Council’s May Day celebrations splashed onto the front page of the Sheffield Star under the headline: ‘Uproar … as the red flag flies from Town Hall’.1 The flag, hoisted to celebrate International Labour Day, was taken by some as a sign of allegiance to the Soviet Union. Protestors draped a coffin with the Union Jack and brandished placards reading ‘Better Dead Than Red’.2 Five days later, the Sheffield Star published letters calling for the
In the summer of 1980 the Sheffield Resources Association set up the Commonground Resources Centre. Commonground included a community print shop, photography darkroom, radio workshop, meeting rooms, café, exhibition space, baby-feeding and nappy-changing facilities, playroom and a room that acted as a base for activities organised by local women's groups. Different ‘collectives’ were responsible for the resource areas and were there to offer their skills and active co-operation to community groups, voluntary organisations and individuals who
In 1981 Cathy Burke saw amateur singer and violinist Pete Stewart perform ‘You Can Always Sell a War’ at Sheffield's Hefts and Blades Folk and Dance Club. A few months later she overheard Sally Goldsmith playing the saxophone at the Lifespan Educational Trust, a co-operative community in nearby Penistone also frequented by Pete Stewart and his French-horn-playing friend Sam Paetcher. 1 Burke was studying for a PhD, researching the history of working-class politics in Sheffield. Spending days in
On 7 March 1985 fifteen thousand people joined a demonstration against rate-capping in Sheffield. 1 Protestors packed into Holly Street and around City Hall, spilling down to Barker's Pool and Division Street. Photographs from the event show members of trade unions, women's groups, a Pakistani community organisation, parents’ groups, youth clubs and pensioners coming out against rate-capping. 2 Many carried banners and placards calling for the