Martinalia
Welcome to Martinalia. An academic career generates material which for one reason or another does not get into print. There are public lectures and keynote addresses. Some are never intended for publication. Others are commissioned for projects which never get off the ground. There is material prepared for teaching, which may be useful to colleagues and students involved in similar courses. Some projects seem worth sharing with interested readers even though they remain unfinished, lacking the final polish needed for conventional academic publication. Since 2014 I have used Martinalia to publish essays and research reports.
The term "Martinalia" was coined by my friend Jim Sturgis.
Doncaster Races and the downfall of a Victorian clerical pluralist
Although legislation passed in 1838 severely limited the capacity of Anglican clergymen to hold more than one benefice, nothing was done to disturb those who already enjoyed multiple livings. These pluralists proved to be embarrassingly durable, some of them surviving to draw what was in effect a sinecure income into the eighteen-seventies. There was a rare exception in 1874, when the eighty-one year-old Reverend J.W. King was pressured into resigning both his parishes in the diocese of Lincoln. However, what had angered Bishop Christopher Wordsworth was not King's pluralism, but the fact that he bred racehorses. King was seriously ill at the time and died a few months later.
Evolution and discussion of the Presidential power of pardon in the United States, 1787-88
This Note collects comments and opinions from 1787-8 on the proposal to give the President of the United States (a newly invented office) the authority to grant reprieves and pardons.
Parnell and the Registrar 1891: Parnell's last words on politics and personalities?
Shortly before his death in 1891, Charles Stewart Parnell had a wide-ranging conversation about British politics and Irish personalities with Edward Cripps, the Superintendent Registrar in the small Sussex town who had recently conducted his civil wedding to Katharine O'Shea. The Registrar's account of their talk, in a previously overlooked newspaper report, offers what may be the last opportunity to hear Parnell in private conversation on public issues.
The intention of Charles Stewart Parnell to marry Katharine O'Shea in an Anglican church, 1891
The expressed wish of Charles Stewart Parnell to marry Katharine O'Shea in an Anglican church ceremony has been generally ignored by his biographers. Given the opposition of the Church of England to the remarriage of divorcees throughout the twentieth century, his intention – presumably shared by his bride – merits investigation.
From Poblacht to Saorstát: describing the Irish State, 1916-1949
The Proclamation issued by the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin used the phrase "Poblacht na hÉireann" to describe their Irish Republic. However, three years later, the First Dáil switched to "Saorstát Éireann". Why was this change made, and what were its implications?
The uses and abuses of advowsons: private patronage in the Church of England, 1780-1931
Appointments to more than half the parishes in the Anglican Church in England and Wales were in the hands of private patrons, through a device – now almost forgotten – called the advowson. Since advowsons were a form of private property, they could be bought and sold, and an extensive and blatantly commercial market culture grew up around their trade. Historians either ignore this fundamental career element in the Church of England, or treat it as a minor and marginal problem. In fact, advowsons copper-bottomed the class nature of the Anglican clergy. Indeed, the system, with or without the scandals associated with it, goes far to explain why so many people in England and Wales rejected the Established Church as a hypocritical racket.
William Howard Taft on the Presidential pardoning power in the United States
Three years after he left the White House, William Howard Taft published his thoughts on the Presidential pardoning power.
Henry Harrison on Charles Stewart Parnell, 1951
In a BBC radio talk broadcast in 1951, Henry Harrison recalled his memories of Charles Stewart Parnell.
John A. Macdonald: graveside oration, Kingston 6 June 2009
On 6 June 2009, the anniversary of the death of Canada's first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, I had the honour of delivering the annual graveside oration in his memory at Kingston's Cataraqui Cemetery.
Gidea Park: a suburb and its syllables
For six and a half centuries, a mansion at Romford in Essex was known (under various spellings) as 'Giddy Hall'. In the early twentieth century, the estate was developed for housing, and the resulting suburb acquired the trisyllabic name 'Gidea Park'. Because English spelling is often approximate and sometimes arbitrary, it is difficult to trace the process by which the pronunciation changed, and harder still to explain it.
More Articles …
- The Colchester Excavations Appeal, 1938
- Snoreham: a sad loss to the map of Essex
- Dedications of Essex churches to St Peter: a glacial hypothesis
- Corporal Alfred Wheel, died 14 March 1945
- Empire Federalism and Imperial Parliamentary Union, 1820-1870
- Archbishop Davidson, the General Strike and the Revised Prayer Book, 1926-1928: a Victorian stranded out of his time?
- Romford's Garden Suburb: the origins of Gidea Park
- The idealised homes of Gidea Park: some images from the 1911 Exhibition
- Queen Victoria defended, 1926
- Protestants, Presbyterians and Partition: a discussion of Ulster terminology
- The death of Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, November 1944: a conjectural explanation
- Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven – or was it Hivven?
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