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The commemoration of the World Wars has frequently attracted controversy and widespread debate, revealing tensions and divergence between politicians, academics and other commentators with regards to the thematic justification, tone and narratives of commemorative events. Within the United Kingdom these debates have been complicated by the multi-national nature of the state. Here, commemoration can simultaneously draw on shared experiences of past conflicts involving all nations within the state as well as highlight divergent sub-state national forms of remembrance. In the UK, war commemoration has predominantly been based on widespread political and popular subscription to mutually inclusive narratives, rituals and symbols of remembrance involving all the nations of the UK. This, however, obscures the presence of multi-national asymmetries in ‘national’ forms of history, memory and identity. It also overlooks the existence of distinctive experiences and legacies of war that inform commemoration in England, Scotland, Wales and the island of Ireland. Additionally, since 1994 the UK has undergone a series of socio-economic, cultural and political changes, which have created different dynamics for the politics of national remembering. The advent of devolution in Scotland and Wales in 1998, the Northern Ireland Peace Process and resultant Good Friday Agreement, the election of the SNP in Scotland and subsequent referendum on Scottish independence, for example, all contributed to the creation of a new political climate in which the representation and commemoration of the World Wars took place. Through the adoption of a ‘Four Nations’ framework, then, this thesis seeks to contextualise changing patterns of remembrance. It considers how far this shifting political climate impacted upon the tone and focus of World War commemoration from 1994 to June 2016, prior to the ‘Brexit’ vote. In this, it not only highlights the complexities arising from the multi-national nature of the state, but also adds a new dimension to our knowledge of official commemorative practices across the UK and its links to and interactions with the politics of the Union. This thesis is formed of two parts, consisting of five chapters in total. Part One focuses on ‘state’ approaches to and involvement in commemoration with Chapters One and Two analysing the Westminster Government and institution of the monarchy respectively. Following that, Part Two explores the approaches to commemoration adopted by the Northern Irish, Scottish and Welsh devolved governments in turn. It will also analyse World War commemoration in the Republic of Ireland where it relates to the UK. This is due, in no small part, to the intertwined nature of the history and politics of these two states.

Tower-houses are the most common type of lordly residence in Late Medieval Britain and Ireland (c.1300-1600). They are identifiable as a stone-built, multi-storeyed tower containing a cellar, hall, residential accommodation, and a range of subsidiary chambers. This thesis aims to produce the first comparative analysis of tower-house design across Britain and Ireland, with the secondary target of producing the first national study for England and Scotland. The objective is to establish whether or not there are any shared spatio-functional characteristics between the tower-houses of Britain and Ireland. Spatial analysis is the principal methodology, focusing on examining the organisational properties of each tower-house. A quantitative analysis will then interpret the spatial attributes of each tower-house in order to determine the complexity of their design. The final analysis consists of a functional analysis, comparing the defensive and domestic architecture of the tower-houses to determine whether they were fit for purpose as lordly residences. The spatial analysis reveals that the same basic spatial format is found across Britain and Ireland, though there are clearly regional variations that are influenced by the architectural package provided by the masonic school and the funds available for construction. The quantitative analysis shows that the Irish tower-houses are equally as complex as the English and Scottish examples. The functional analysis suggests that the Irish tower-houses have a more extensive defensive package than their English or Scottish counterparts, though the dining analysis reveals similar levels of hospitality and associated structures such as kitchens and great halls. In summation, the thesis has highlighted the shared basic spatial and functional characteristics of tower-house design across Britain and Ireland, with the regionality of some of the values showing the potential for further research.

Climatic fluctuations over the last 120 years have been well described in northern Europe, showing alternation of colder (1910s to 1920s, 1960s to 1980s) and warmer (1930s to 1950s) periods upon which recent anthropogenic warming has been superimposed. Biological manifestation of such changes in climate may be determined by examination of shifts in species distribution and performance traits. In Britain, shifts in biogeographic ranges of species have been well documented because of the biogeographical boundary, which crosses the British Isles featuring the overlapping geographical distributions of cold- and warmwater species. Patellid limpets have been proposed as climatic indicators and they are considered a keystone species on exposed- and semi-exposed rocky shores in the British Isles. Changes in demographic attributes across the distributional range will therefore have consequences on intertidal communities. This PhD thesis has studied two patellid species: the warm-water species Patella depressa, which reaches its northern limit in Britain and its congener, and putative competitor, the cold-water species Patella vulgata. The overall question was addressed towards what processes at individual and population levels are setting both poleward range limits of P. depressa distribution. Thus, in order to determine how geographical distribution in relation to range edge affects individual and population traits, the southern limpet P. depressa was studied in detail at two poleward range limits in Britain (North Wales [N-Wales] and South-east [S-East] England) and at more central populations in South-west (S-West) England. Comparisons based on both historical and current abundances, size, growth, mortality and competition were made with its sibling species P. vulgata, which is at its centre of distribution in Britain. Results showed that shifts in the two-poleward limits of P. depressa have occurred in different ways over the past decades, evidenced by historical records in Britain (1950s). The current range edge of P. depressa in N-Wales has not fully recovered to that occupied in the warm 1950s after the cooler 1960s to early 1980s. Nowadays, breeding populations reach the northern edge of Cardigan Bay and have not reextended around the Lleyn Peninsula. Scattered individuals are no longer found on Anglesey as in the early 1980s. In contrast, in the English Channel, its abundance was higher in the warm 1950s than the cooler early 1980s, but its range has now extended to the east of the Isle of Wight, forming a breeding population at Southsea. Further, long-term comparisons (1980-2016) have indicated that P. depressa has different abundance patterns towards the two leading edges in Britain. P. depressa has been much less abundant in N-Wales when compared with populations in S-East England in the last 35 years. Furthermore, a significant fraction of individuals of juvenile P. depressa (less than 15 mm in length) were found in S-East England, indicating much more consistent recruitment when compared to N-Wales. Based on Brown (1984), I have explored the Abundant-Centre Hypothesis (ACH) to understand the mechanisms that determine patterns of growth and mortality rates across a species range. I found that growth and mortality - both variables measured by marking limpets in the field - do not differ substantially between P. depressa and P. vulgata across regions in Britain. However, growth and mortality rates of both limpet species were higher at the range edge of P. depressa in S-East England, when compared with populations in the range edge in N-Wales and in central populations in S-West England. Surprisingly, P. vulgata, which may be considered at the centre of its range of distribution in the British Isles, showed patterns very similar to P. depressa. Hence, these patterns of growth and mortality of both Patella species do not support the ACH. Further investigation of growth patterns through analysis of inner growth lines visible in shell sections have showed that populations of P. depressa nearer to their poleward edge in N-Wales are characterized by older individuals, when compared to populations in S-East England. Growth performance calculated by using annual lines on shells supported the results of limpet growth obtained by marking limpets; similar growth performance values were obtained by using both approaches. Furthermore, I also found that P. depressa growth patterns were influenced by density-dependent effects over different spatial scales. Thus, across locations, high limpet density does not necessarily lead to a reduction in growth rates in Patella species. In contrast, at a local quadrat-scale, I found a localised effect of limpet density on growth performance of P. depressa. These patterns suggest that growth rates in limpet species are highly variable, subject to drivers and limitations at various levels of geographical scale, with local processes being important. Competitive interactions between both limpet species were explored by determining the biological and physical factors, which are setting the leading edges of P. depressa at poleward populations. Individuals of P. depressa were strongly affected by inter-specific competition at its range edge in N-Wales, particularly in mixed plots with P. vulgata under shading treatments. By contrast, P. vulgata was affected by intra-specific competition in no-shading plots, particularly in central populations in S-West England. These results suggest that both biological and physical factors are modulating the poleward range of P. depressa in populations in N-Wales. Therefore, a better understanding of the differences in competitive ability between Patella species over a large spatial scale will improve our understanding of the role of competition in determining the performance of range edge individuals and hence range limits of populations. Finally, as the British Isles are affected by different weather conditions, limpets performance traits may be vary leading to regional variations irrespective of the species. Limpet competitive interactions and local physical conditions must be considered as important local drivers within a large geographical scale. My results do not support the ACH in populations at the northern fraction of P. depressa distribution. As Patella species have been proposed as climate indicator species, the effects of climate must be considered in terms of both limpet life-history traits and the interaction between the ultimate and a multitude of local proximate factors.

The Icelandic mantle plume has had a profound influence on the development of the North Atlantic region over its 64 Myr existence. Long-wavelength free-air gravity anomalies and full waveform tomographic studies suggest that the planform of the plume is highly irregular, with up to five fingers of hot asthenosphere radiating away from Iceland beneath the lithospheric plates. Two of these fingers extend beneath the British Isles and southern Scandinavia, where departures from crustal isostatic equilibrium and anomalous uplift have been identified. In this study, the spatial extent of present-day dynamic support associated with the Icelandic plume is investigated using receiver function analysis. Teleseismic events recorded at nine temporary and 59 permanent broadband, three-component seismometer stations are used to calculate 3864 P-to-S crustal receiver functions. The amplitude and arrival time of particular converted phases are assessed, and H-k stacking is applied to estimate bulk crustal properties. Sub-selections of receiver functions are jointly inverted with Rayleigh wave dispersion data to obtain crustal VS profiles at each station. Both inverse- and guided forward modelling techniques are employed, as well as a Bayesian, trans-dimensional algorithm. Moho depths thus obtained are combined with seismic wide-angle and deep reflection data to produce a comprehensive crustal thickness map of northwestern Europe. Moho depth is found to decrease from southeast (37 km) to northwest (26 km) in the British Isles and from northeast (46 km) to southwest (29 km) in Scandinavia, and does not positively correlate with surface elevation. Using an empirical relationship, crustal shear wave velocity profiles are converted to density profiles. Isostatic balances are then used to estimate residual topography at each station, taking into account these novel constraints on crustal density. Areas of significant residual topography are found in the northwestern British Isles (1400 m), southwestern Scandinavia (464 m) and Denmark (620 m), with convective support from the Icelandic plume as its most likely source. Finally, the irregular planform of the Icelandic plume is proposed to be a manifestation of radial viscous fingering due to a Saffman-Taylor instability. This fluid dynamical phenomenon occurs when less viscous fluid is injected into a layer of more viscous fluid. By comparing the thermal and convective characteristics of the plume with experimental and theoretical results, it is shown that viscous fingering could well explain the present-day distribution of plume material.

Understanding the abrupt climatic oscillations that characterised the Last Glacial to Interglacial Transition (LGIT, ca. 16-8 ka) requires an ability to precisely correlate the archives within which such transitions are recorded. One way in which to scrutinise the timing of abrupt events in the LGIT is tephrochronology, a technique which exploits the isochronous potential of tephra horizons derived from the geologically 'instantaneous' settlement of volcanic ash. In NW Europe, macro- and crypto-tephra layers of varying age and provenance have become increasing utilised as a means to correlate palaeoclimate records, and to test the spatial and temporal synchronicity of key climatic transitions. At present, however, tephrostratigraphies in NW Europe are limited by: 1) the number of horizons that have robust chronological constraint, and 2) our abilities to trace these tephras across multiple sites. As a result, the potential of generating continental-scale tephra lattices is greatly restricted, and a spatial disparity in the number and type of tephras has emerged. It is hypothesised that part of this disparity may relate to the resolution at which sequences are studied and the inconsistent manner in which methodologies are applied. In order to test this hypothesis, five terrestrial basins from western Scotland were examined in detail for tephra content. Four of the sites were examined contiguously at high resolutions, whilst the fifth was examined using traditional 'scan and resample' strategies. Three new tephras for the LGIT are identified, and several existing tephras previously unknown in the British Isles were also detected. The results from this tephrostratigraphic study suggest that the series of eruptive episodes impacting Northern Britain through the LGIT is richer than appreciated hitherto. Results also indicate that tephras may have been missed in previous tephrostratigraphic investigations due to: 1) incomplete stratigraphic refinement, 2) a propensity to focus on tephras of greatest concentration, and 3) a conflation of horizons. Using the high-resolution site-tephrostratigraphies, a composite tephrochronological age model was developed. The purpose of this exercise was to establish whether age models constructed exclusively from tephra horizons could provide a viable means to constrain abrupt climatic oscillations in sites which traditionally are difficult to date e.g. carbonate basins. The resulting age model achieves centennial-decadal scale precision through the early Holocene, and is used to accurately constrain the first record incidence of the 10.3 ka event in the British Isles. This study emphasises the importance of contiguous high resolution refinement, and demonstrates that this approach is essential if the true tephrostratigraphic complexity of NW Europe is to be fully understood, and if tephras are to be used successfully in constraining abrupt climatic events.

Seismic records contain information that allows geoscientists to make inferences about the structure and properties of the Earth’s interior. Traditionally, seismic imaging and tomography methods require wavefields to be generated and recorded by identifiable sources and receivers, and use these directly-recorded signals to create models of the Earth’s subsurface. However, in recent years the method of seismic interferometry has revolutionised earthquake seismology by allowing unrecorded signals between pairs of receivers, pairs of sources, and source-receiver pairs to be constructed as Green’s functions using either cross-correlation, convolution or deconvolution of wavefields. In all of these formulations, seismic energy is recorded and emitted by surrounding boundaries of receivers and sources, which need not be active and impulsive but may even constitute continuous, naturally-occurring seismic ambient noise. In the first part of this thesis, I provide a comprehensive overview of seismic interferometry, its background theory, and examples of its application. I then test the theory and evaluate the effects of approximations that are commonly made when the interferometric formulae are applied to real datasets. Since errors resulting from some approximations can be subtle, these tests must be performed using almost error-free synthetic data produced with an exact waveform modelling method. To make such tests challenging the method and associated code must be applicable to multiply-scattering media. I developed such a modelling code specifically for interferometric tests and applications. Since virtually no errors are introduced into the results from modelling, any difference between the true and interferometric waveforms can safely be attributed to specific origins in interferometric theory. I show that this is not possible when using other, previously available methods: for example, the errors introduced into waveforms synthesised by finite-difference methods due to the modelling method itself, are larger than the errors incurred due to some (still significant) interferometric approximations; hence that modelling method can not be used to test these commonly-applied approximations. I then discuss the ability of interferometry to redatum seismic energy in both space and time, allowing virtual seismograms to be constructed at new locations where receivers may not have been present at the time of occurrence of the associated seismic source. I present the first successful application of this method to real datasets at multiple length scales. Although the results are restricted to limited bandwidths, this study demonstrates that the technique is a powerful tool in seismologists’ arsenal, paving the way for a new type of ‘retrospective’ seismology where sensors may be installed at any desired location at any time, and recordings of seismic events occurring at any other time can be constructed retrospectively – even long after their energy has dissipated. Within crustal seismology, a very common application of seismic interferometry is ambient-noise tomography (ANT). ANT is an Earth imaging method which makes use of inter-station Green’s functions constructed from cross-correlation of seismic ambient noise records. It is particularly useful in seismically quiescent areas where traditional tomography methods that rely on local earthquake sources would fail to produce interpretable results due to the lack of available data. Once constructed, interferometric Green’s functions can be analysed using standard waveform analysis techniques, and inverted for subsurface structure using more or less traditional imaging methods. In the second part of this thesis, I discuss the development and implementation of a fully non-linear inversion method which I use to perform Love-wave ANT across the British Isles. Full non-linearity is achieved by allowing both raypaths and model parametrisation to vary freely during inversion in Bayesian, Markov chain Monte Carlo tomography, the first time that this has been attempted. Since the inversion produces not only one, but a large ensemble of models, all of which fit the data to within the noise level, statistical moments of different order such as the mean or average model, or the standard deviation of seismic velocity structures across the ensemble, may be calculated: while the ensemble average map provides a smooth representation of the velocity field, a measure of model uncertainty can be obtained from the standard deviation map. In a number of real-data and synthetic examples, I show that the combination of variable raypaths and model parametrisation is key to the emergence of previously-unobserved, loop-like uncertainty topologies in the standard deviation maps. These uncertainty loops surround low- or high-velocity anomalies. They indicate that, while the velocity of each anomaly may be fairly well reconstructed, its exact location and size tend to remain uncertain; loops parametrise this location uncertainty, and hence constitute a fully non-linearised, Bayesian measure of spatial resolution. The uncertainty in anomaly location is shown to be due mainly to the location of the raypaths that were used to constrain the anomaly also only being known approximately. The emergence of loops is therefore related to the variation in raypaths with velocity structure, and hence to 2nd and higher order wave-physics. Thus, loops can only be observed using non-linear inversion methods such as the one described herein, explaining why these topologies have never been observed previously. I then present the results of fully non-linearised Love-wave group-velocity tomography of the British Isles in different frequency bands. At all of the analysed periods, the group-velocity maps show a good correlation with known geology of the region, and also robustly detect novel features. The shear-velocity structure with depth across the Irish Sea sedimentary basin is then investigated by inverting the Love-wave group-velocity maps, again fully non-linearly using Markov chain Monte Carlo inversion, showing an approximate depth to basement of 5 km. Finally, I discuss the advantages and current limitations of the fully non-linear tomography method implemented in this project, and provide guidelines and suggestions for its improvement.

This thesis presents a new analysis of British naval policy before and during the First World War which challenges both orthodox and revisionist interpretations of the period and highlights a highly significant yet much neglected facet of Admiralty planning. It argues that safeguarding the British Isles from invasion was one of the Admiralty’s prime concerns between 1888 and 1918 and that these defensive considerations played a hitherto unappreciated role in shaping British naval strategy. By exploiting source material generally overlooked by previous writers, it demonstrates that, contrary to popular historical belief, Britain’s naval leadership planned extensively to ensure the inviolability of the British coastline during this period. Before 1900, these plans were characterized by relying upon an extensive flotilla of small vessels, supported by a small number of old armoured warships, to secure the position in the Channel and North Sea, while the Navy’s most modern warships focused upon the main French Fleet in the Mediterranean. The Admiralty’s willingness to rely primarily upon flotilla craft for home defence ended after 1900, however, when German displaced France as Britain’s primary naval rival. Germany posed a very different threat to Britain than had previously been the case with France, since it possessed a merchant marine large enough to transport a significant military force without major disruption to the normal operation of its commerce and had her naval forces concentrated in northern waters. Despite the paucity of German planning for the invasion of the United Kingdom, the Admiralty became haunted by the possibility of a ‘surprise’ German invasion attempt, launched before the outset of war and escorted by a strong German Fleet. The Admiralty identified the danger of a surprise German raid or invasion by early 1907 and formed a series of highly secretive plans to deploy the Navy’s most modern armoured warships into the North Sea at the outset of war to meet this danger. These plans were updated constantly between 1910 and 1918 as perceptions of the German threat developed. The nature and extent of these plans has highly significant implications for our understanding of naval policy throughout the period, and for our appreciation of the role of sea power during the First World War.

The political situation of the British Isles changed from a uniting monarchy to a military-run, vaguely representative government over the course of a very short time during the 17th century. The Scottish and English populace overthrew their monarch for a majority of reasons, including economic and political ones, many of which have been studied extensively. This thesis addresses the less-emphasized religious reasonings that allowed for such a disruptive event supported by so many people, which can trace their roots to the Thirty Years War that began a few decades before these overarching changes in British society.This thesis will investigate the impact the Thirty Years War had on the British populace. I argue that both English and Scottish subjects of the Stuarts felt for their fellow Protestants suffering in the Holy Roman Empire, and out of shared grief, religious passion, and devotion to other “members of one and the same mystical body, whereof Christ is head,” developed a sense of general Protestant community through their near obsession with the European conflict. It was this communal religious identity that gave them the foundations to begin imagining themselves as a people united behind their shared religion more than anything else, like a bishop or a royal government or even a monarch. From the study of a number of treatises, sermons, pamphlets, and newsbooks published about the war, I posit that the British understood the Continental religious conflict to be creeping into the British Isles in the guise of King Charles I Stuart’s unpopular Arminian Church policies in the 1630s, and that the common Protestant identity forged in the hearts and minds of the British through the Thirty Years War took on a new, more urgent, British flavor. With their religion threatened, the British people overcame confessional differences and geographical prejudices to stand together as a Protestant community defending their religion. While the need to defend their fellows that began to wash out the threads of English and Scottish religious variance was forged through the violence of the Thirty Years War, it was the specifically British side of the new religious threat that pushed the populace from its lingering religious and political difference into a common British Protestant identity and spurred them into a place where they could contemplate outright rebellion against a religiously hostile monarch.

Through the analysis of the primary sources of Saint Patrick, Gildas, and Bede I will show how the different communities living within the British Isles utilized Christianity, as well as their Roman pasts, to formulate ethnic and cultural identities during the early Middle Ages for the purposes of differentiation and unification.

A Gentleman's Burden is a comparative analysis of state-funded primary education in Britain, Ireland, West Africa, and India during the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Starting with early-nineteenth century theories on primary education, this dissertation traces the evolution of state-funded educational ideology alongside Britain's domestic and imperial development. Key innovations in educational ideology are considered alongside the core moments of educational change during this period, specifically the major policies and reforms that shaped British state-funded education at home and abroad. Through this lens, education is shown to be a central component in how British officials and educationists perceived, categorized, and ruled the disparate populations and cultures of Britain and its empire. These themes and arguments stress the interconnectivity of British domestic and imperial narratives during the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, as well as the impact of state-funded education on the formation of both British national identity and anti-imperial identities in the British Empire.