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University of Huddersfield Repository Morrell, Vanessa Ice, Sea, Coal - Uncommon Subjects, Common Themes: Interpreting the Cultural Representations of Scott, Dunkirk and Durham Coal Miners in the Context of Decline Original Citation Morrell, Vanessa (2017) Ice, Sea, Coal - Uncommon Subjects, Common Themes: Interpreting the Cultural Representations of Scott, Dunkirk and Durham Coal Miners in the Context of Decline. Doctoral thesis, University of Huddersfield. This version is available at http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/34113/ The University Repository is a digital collection of the research output of the University, available on Open Access. Copyright and Moral Rights for the items on this site are retained by the individual author and/or other copyright owners. 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For more information, including our policy and submission procedure, please contact the Repository Team at: [email protected]. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/ ICE, SEA, COAL – UNCOMMON SUBJECTS, COMMON THEMES: INTERPRETING THE CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS OF SCOTT, DUNKIRK AND DURHAM COAL MINERS IN THE CONTEXT OF DECLINE VANESSA MORRELL A thesis submitted to the University of Huddersfield in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Huddersfield June 2017 Copyright statement i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns any copyright in it (the “Copyright”) and she has given The University of Huddersfield the right to use such copyright for any administrative, promotional, educational and/or teaching purposes. ii. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts, may be made only in accordance with the regulations of the University Library. Details of these regulations may be obtained from the Librarian. This page must form part of any such copies made. iii. The ownership of any patents, designs, trademarks and any and all other intellectual property rights except for the Copyright (the “Intellectual Property Rights”) and any reproductions of copyright works, for example graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property Rights and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property Rights and/or Reproductions. 2 Abstract Ice, Sea, Coal - Uncommon Subjects: Common Themes: interpreting the cultural representations of Scott, Dunkirk and coal miners in Durham in the context of declinism. This thesis will test the hypothesis: ‘To what extent do twentieth century cultural representations in Britain reflect prevalent ideas and experiences of decline and declinism?’ The concept behind this thesis is that the cultural representations of the case studies illustrate reflections of their contemporary times, which have altered as social and cultural circumstances have changed. One of the key components to recognising this change in the cultural representations is to understand how the narratives of the case studies have changed to reflect contemporary Britain, which in this thesis is described as their myth. The relationship all of the cultural representations to the case studies will be considered in the context of decline. In order to fully appreciate this relationship the themes of gender, class and community and science and progress will also be considered for their relationships to the case studies and decline. All of the cultural representations for each of the case studies will be considered which will comprise not only of monuments but also of films and television programmes, museums, anniversary celebrations and fiction and non-fiction books. This is an area of original research not only in its use of three diverse case studies with their ‘uncommon themes’, but its addition to the limited empirical research of declinism in cultural history and furthermore has specific notable new ideas presented in the research chapters. The research presented shows the common themes of the cultural representations to the case studies, not only in the context of decline but in the broader themes of gender, class and community and science and progress. 3 Table of Contents Abstract 3 Table of Contents 4 List of Figures 6 Chapter 1 – Introduction 7 Myths as Research 26 Methodology 33 Chapter 2 – The Myths 42 Scott 45 Dunkirk 54 The Changing Cultural Representation of the Durham Coal Miner 62 Conclusion 76 Chapter 3 – Decline 77 Scott and Quasi-Declinism 79 Declinism 86 Representations of the Decline of an Industry 93 The Case of Durham City 98 Decline, Nostalgia and Heritage 104 Conclusion 113 Chapter 4 – Gender 116 Assertions of Male Hegemony Before the Intellectual Moment of Decline 119 Assertions of Masculinity in Reaction to Decline – Dunkirk 137 Assertions of Masculinity in Reaction to Decline – Coal Mining in Durham 142 Diminishing Perceptions of Decline and Greater Gender Inclusion 149 Conclusion 157 Chapter 5 – Class and Community 160 The Relevance of the Maritime Industry to Quasi-Declinist and Declinist Times 162 Loss of Community and Declinism 167 Fishburn 173 Ryhope 175 4 Washington 176 The Relevance of the Church in Coal Mining Communities 178 Inclusion of the Social Classes in a Post-Declinist Age 187 Conclusion 196 Chapter 6 – Science and Progress 199 Suppression of Images of Modernity and Mechanisation 202 The Continuing Theme of Progress 213 The Role of Science in Declinist and Post-Declinist Britain 222 Conclusion 234 Chapter 7 – Conclusion 237 Appendix 248 Bibliography 257 Word count including footnotes: 86,104 5 List of Figures Figure 1: Statue of Miner on Stephenson’s Statue, Newcastle 66 Figure 2: ‘Going Home,’ Ralph Hedley, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle 68 Figure 3: ‘Idris,’ Big Pit Mining Museum, Blaenavon 71 Figure 4: Angel of the North, Gateshead 72 Figure 5: Graph showing increase in mining memorials to closures of coal mines 95 Figure 6: Millennium Window, Durham Cathedral 103 Figure 7: Binton Church Window, Warwickshire 128 Figure 8: Emmanuel Church Window, Exeter 130 Figure 9: Admiral Ramsay Window, Portsmouth Cathedral 132 Figure 10: ‘The Putter’, Durham Miners Association. Durham City 145 Figure 11: ‘King Coal’, Pelton Fell, Durham 147 Figure 12: ‘The Miner’, Annfield Plain, Durham 148 Figure 13: 25th Anniversary of the Miners’ Strike Window, Sunderland Civic Centre 151 Figure 14: Fishburn Mining Memorial, Durham 174 Figure 15: Washington Miners’ Memorial, Tyne and Wear 183 Figure 16: Devonport Memorial to Captain Scott, Plymouth 193 Figure 17: Wearmouth Colliery, Sunderland 206 Figure 18: Easington Disaster Memorial, Durham 209 Figure 19: Easington Disaster Memorial, Durham 209 Figure 20: Scott Memorial, Cardiff Bay 226 Figure 21: Supplement to Scott’s memorials 248 Figure 22: Dunkirk – main memorials 250 Figure 23: Mining – figurative memorials 252 Figure 24: Mining – other notable memorials 255 6 Chapter 1 - Introduction Like Elgar’s Enigma, the theme of British economic decline possesses a haunting resonance which has inspired many variations. It remains inescapable in current debates about Britain’s economic performance and sense of national identity.1 Britain was preoccupied with concerns of decline throughout the twentieth century and while the nuances of this decline have had many ‘variations’, it has remained a ‘haunting’ influence on all aspects of British life. At the beginning of the period this anxiety manifested itself in the debates on tariff reform to protect British trade, while as the period progressed it expanded to include fears of Britain’s relative economic failure. By the 1960s, the pivotal moment for decline was reached and declinism – ‘a belief in a prolonged (extending over decades), but avoidable, period of British failure to perform as well as relevant comparators (some combination of the set of current rich countries), ranked by some aggregate measure of economic performance’ was born.2 Yet as the century came to a close, and the post- industrial age emerged, favour for declinism ebbed and a period of what can now be termed as post-declinism was reached. Perceptions of decline in all of these periods were not limited to Britain’s economic progress but also its military power and international standing and as such ensured that the broad idea of decline has remained a popular national topic.3 This thesis seeks to examine these ideas by analysing a range of cultural representations of three case studies - Robert Falcon Scott, the evacuation from Dunkirk and the Durham coal 1 Clarke, P. & Trebilcock, C. (eds.) (1997). Understanding Decline: Perceptions and Realities of British Economic Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 28. 2 Tomlinson, J. (2000). Politics of Decline: Understanding Post War Britain. Harlow: Pearson. p. 28. 3 A detailed analysis of decline will be undertaken later in Chapter 3 of this thesis, at this juncture however it is necessary to add that following key texts on decline that have been deployed: Tomlinson. Politics of Decline. Clarke and Trebilcock. Understanding Decline. Wiener, M. (1981). English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit 1850-1980. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Edgerton, D. Science, Technology and British Industrial Decline: 1870-1970. (1996). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rubinstein, W.D. Capitalism, Culture and Decline in Britain, 1750-1990. (1993). London: Routledge. Freidberg, A. (1988). The Weary Titan: Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline 1895-1905. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Tomlinson, J. (2009). Thrice Denied: ‘Declinism’ as a Recurrent Theme in British History in the Long Twentieth Century.