Taking Liberties

and history came to a.

History, of course, doesn't come to a 'full stop', but exhibitions do.  While the debate about Britain's 'rights and freedoms' continues, it's probably time to wind up this blog.  Thanks for reading; I'll still be posting on the Americas Collections and the Growing Knowledge blogs.

And, if you are interested, this was the most popular post of the blog.

Democracy on Trial

There is a timely series on Radio 4 at the moment by Michael Portillo, including, in the second episode, an interesting run through the idea of democracy over the past 2,000 years.  The series also includes contributions from Taking Liberties' guest curator, Linda Colley, as well as Quentin Skinner and John Dunn, with a particularly historical take on political ideas.

Men in Smoke-Filled Rooms.. and Tights

I don't think so many constitutional experts have been gathered in TV studios than they have over the last week, nor have various voting systems (PR, STV, AV, etc.) been brought up at so many water coolers.  Clearly, the history of Britain's democratic system is still ongoing.

Not much has been said about the last national government, but I've had a few interesting chats with a fellow curator about the events of 1931, not least the role of the Liberal Walter Runciman.  I hope I can persuade him to do a post.

There is also a film out, Ridley Scott's Robin Hood, starring Russell Crowe.  Magna Carta and the Forest Charter form part of the historical backdrop for this mythical figure, so it was interesting to have a colleague mention that Crowe discussed these charters on Kermode and Mayo's film show (6 May from 9 mins in and from 26 mins).  Apparently, he was talking about Magna Carta with Billy Bragg, who said that the actor should also know about the Charter of the Forests (1217).  Bragg 'sent him a link... and suggested he went to the British Library... and see Taking Liberties'. 

Here's said link: 

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/takingliberties/staritems/28lawsofforests.html. 

Glad to have been of service (although we shouldn't forget that the Charter of the Forests was as much about underlining the barons' property rights as it may have been a proto-charter of liberties).

Taking Liberties Talks

The exhibition lives on (and not just on the web).  On Monday I was invited to give a talk to some UCL MA students on the process of putting on the exhibition and to provide a summary of the British constitution (and whether or not it is written, codified, or uncodified).  I'm not sure what they made of it.

Meanwhile, the General Election is upon us, and Anna Tims in the Guardian has produced a list of the "Ten Best Political documents".  Interesting to compare Taking Liberties' list of 'Star Items'.

Prerogative Powers

Some of the more confusing (and arguably confused) aspects of the British Constitution are those relating to executive (or royal) prerogative.  Those with an interest in such matters may be pleased to know that the Ministry of Justice has just published a Final Report on these powers.  It will appear in the Library's collections, of course, but it's also online as a .pdf.

The report is full of fascinating detail, not least that the most comprehensive legal textbook on the matter is now 'nearly 200 years old' (Joseph Chitty, A Treatise on the Law of the Prerogatives of the Crown (1820)).   As well as the right to declare war, and so on, future and current monarchs' prerogatives include the sole right to the "printing or licensing the printing of the Authorised Version of the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, state papers and Acts of Parliament" and also various "powers connected with prepaid postage stamps".

The MoJ is also seeking comments by 8 Jan 2010: RoyalPrerogativeReview@justice.gsi.gov.uk

Hashtags & Libel

Imagine if I couldn't say what this blog post is about, to what I am referring, who said it, or even if they said it.

As many of you will know, the Guardian newspaper was in exactly this position yesterday.  The internet, and in particular, Twitter, soon made this particular application of the law something of an ass, and the injunction was lifted.   A good day for freedom of speech, then, even if Wilkes would no doubt have been very surprised that such libel actions were in place in the twenty-first century.  The legal ramifications will no doubt take some time to sink in.  There is also more about the Bill of Rights, and parliamentary privilege, on the Taking Liberties website. 

Nobelled

Yesterday I promised more America and less politics.  I misspoke.  Today we have both.

After an interesting talk about how Euston Road might develop over the night few decades, the Americas Collections section returned to their desks to the news that President Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (despite some aides at first thinking at first it was a joke).  The citation praised Obama for creating a 'created a new climate in international politics', and seems to be as much a hope for the future direction of international diplomacy and the 'strengthening of democracy and human rights' as an endorsement of what has happened in the last nine months.  Good stuff, of course, but has created something of a debate online about the timing.

More prosaically, I am looking to see what this means in terms of materials to be added to the collections for future generations of researchers (and spending a little bit of time to see if we have anything on Kissinger and his gong).

P.S., a prize for anyone who can name the Peace Prize winners who made an appearance in Taking Liberties.

Poetry and Politics

The public have voted, and to some surprise perhaps, TS Eliot has triumphed as the 'nation's favourite poet'(for this year at least). The modernist from Missouri saw off Wilfred Owen, Philip Larkin, William Blake, William Butler Yeats, John Betjeman, John Keats, Dylan Thomas and, further down the list as the highest female poet, Wendy Cope, in a BBC poll marking the centenary of the Poetry Society.

The Poetry Society also celebrated this milestone by unveiling a massive, knitted poem on the British Library's piazza, above four buried storeys of books. It was an apposite place to unveil the blanket, as the knitters and poets could then head away from the rain, and take in the free exhibition inside the British Library - 'In a Bloomsbury Square' - which offers unseen materials from the Faber archive and Eliot estate. My current favourite item is the record of editorial decisions. On one page, WH Auden gets green-lighted, while poor RS Thomas gets a polite rejection.

The unveiling of the blanket happily married two crafts - knitting and poetry - that perhaps harks back to the 'make do and mend' of the 1930s and 40s, and which seems to be in vogue at the moment (there's a fun interview related to the return of craft as part of the 32nd Monocle Weekly, by the way). But to me, the recollection of this era also brought to mind the problems of politics at a time of extremes. I think that Eliot wanted to do away with politics, believing in something organic that lies underneath the clamour of party and ideology. This led him towards some very difficult territory: not something I feel qualified to comment on. Terry Eagleton's 2002 piece in the London Review of Books is as good a place as any to start thinking about this, though.

One of Eliot's central concerns was also the passage of time. I am aware that this blog has been running for over a year now, and the exhibition opened nearly 12 months ago. (The online exhibition, of course, continues.)  With this in mind, the focus may shift away from the concerns of the exhibition and how they may relate to current events, and towards the work of the Americas Collections here at the Library (as well as Eliot, we were pleased to see Plath on the list).  But for now, thank you for reading.

Fog in Channel...

I went to a lecture last night at Birkbeck with my colleague Jerry (who has an interesting BL Twittter feed on the Library's vast international organisations collections).  Richard J. Evans, the Regius Professor of Modern History, University of Cambridge, was giving a public lecture to mark the European History Quarterly's 40th anniversary, and his subject was 'What is European History?'.

As the title suggested, much of the lecture was historiographical (e.g, Lord Acton's doomed plans for a cosmopolitan, non-national Cambridge History of Europe, A. J. P. Taylor's 1986 remarks in History Today - "European history is whatever the historian wants it to be").  The thrust of the lecture was that, in the UK, European history has in fact traditionally been 'Continental History', but that this has changed, not least because of the influence of the demands of publishing for a US audience and the welcome influx of scholars from the Continent to British universities.  Books purporting to be about Europe and sold in New York or Portland cannot not have a chapter about Britain.  Intellectual currents have also changed, and the Whiggish view that Britain stands alone from Europe, offering the benefits of liberal democracy, freedom and civil rights to those that would listen, has been replaced by ideological uncertainty, a greater sense of the complexity of whatever the historian wants Europe to be and, most recently, an alertness to the global.  These older, eddies, of course, may still be visible in recent work.

Some of the questions also revealed how Evan's contribution to Penguin's History of Europe series may be shaping up (and how it's word-count may compare with other, usually rather epic, European histories).  There was a hint of a return to social history; the role of poverty and wealth, even the importance of food and death should not be forgotten. Many of these things were connected to the wider world (the atmospheric dust from a volcanic eruption in Indonesia might, for example, lead to failed crops in France). 

These interconnections - the global, the social, Britain, Europe and the world - reminded me of the fact that this blog is now over a year old and its first post (16 September) wondered about what the collapse of the banks might mean for the political and social consensus in Britain.  We're just getting a sense of that now.

Breaking the Rules

My boss inherited many of the papers of the former superintendents of the Round Reading Room; these include a list of items displayed at an exhibition celebrating the bicentenary of the British Museum, which we happened to look at today. 

Following an item on the first 'keeper' of the Reading Room, Dr. Templeman (which revealed how he found that the 'six hours' daily attendance enjoined upon him by the Trustees affected his health adversely and he resigned in December 1760, to become the secretary of the newly founded Society of Arts), I was intrigued by a note (Add. MS. 45868) on William Blackstone, who was'engaged on his edition of the Great Charter and the Charter of the Forest'.  This monumental work was one of the first items on display in Taking Liberties (in the Rule of Law section).

The manuscript reveals that part of the materials which Blackstone 'wished to consult was adorned with Pictures or Illuminations'.  The regulations of the day meant that the great legal scholar would have to wait until the following day.  However, he was 'obliged to set out for Oxford the next day'.  Dr. Templeman, clearly not too adversely affected at that time, 'permitted him the use of the Manuscript without waiting for the authority of the Committee'.  Templeman, it seems, in his 'zeal in the cause of Readers', often transgressed this statute, leading to 'complaints from the several officers and servants'.

Rules, it seems, are sometimes made to be broken.

Doo-wop?

The new Supreme Courtwill open in October, taking over what was once Middlesex Guildhall, overlooking Parliament (but in a different postcode).  The move is symbolic of an attempt to separate the judiciary from the legislature, since the Law Lords used to meet in the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords and the devolution jurisdiction of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.  And those names might also suggest that the move is an attempt to simplify things and make access to the ultimate British court more straightforward.

This, I think is the idea, and the move is largely symbolic, rather than being about new powers.  Such symbolism is, of course, highly important, and as the Court gets a sense of itself and its authority (or perhaps even its lack of) its role and place in the constitution may change.  This said, apart from a documentary by Joshua Rozenberg on Radio 4 yesterday, the airwaves, printing presses and internet have hardly been ablaze with discussion.  A long review of two recent books in the current Times Literary Supplement is a notable exception - although it's by Rozenberg again, which may prove my point about the current lack of debate about the place where 'cases of the greatest public
or constitutional importance' will be heard.

There should also be an interesting exhibition for those who do want to visit.