Timeline Magazine 2024

TIMELINE

HABERDASHERS’ HISTORY MAGAZINE

VOLUME 15 - 2024

‘CORRUPTION’ Lead Editors - Gavriella Epstein-Lightman and Esala Jayasuriya Staff - Dr Ian St John and Daniel Heyman Deputy Editors - Anoushka Pathak and Nikhil Dewan

Editor’s Note History, at its core, is more than a chronicle of past events. As Benjamin Walter reminds us, history gains meaning through its meaningful relationship to the present. It is not a static record but a living dialogue between what was and what is. When we examine history through the lens of corruption, this truth becomes even more apparent. Corruption is not simply a relic of bygone eras; it persists as a force we must continually grapple with today. It has shaped our world, but more crucially, it continues to shape it—demanding that we reckon with its presence not just in distant regimes or ancient systems, but in the power structures and institutions we live under now.

In reading these stories, we invite you to see how history’s enduring dialogue with corruption can illuminate both the battles fought and those yet to be won. Malversation may be timeless, but the fight against it is as urgent now as ever.

It has been an absolute pleasure working on Timeline 2024. The sheer quality and variety of submissions this year has been astounding, and I truly believe there is something hidden within these pages for everyone. Whilst the main focus within this magazine is the theme of corruption, we have also received a strong range of quality articles from other areas. I really hope you relish the inexhaustible variety of intellectual curiosity this magazine has to offer in the same way I did. My final words are a quote from Mark Twain, denoting the importance of studying History.

‘History never repeats itself, but it often does rhyme.’

- Esala Jayasuriya THE TIMELINE 2024 TEAM Lead Editors - Gavriella Epstein-Lightman and Esala Jayasuriya Staff - Dr Ian St John and Daniel Heyman Deputy Editors - Anoushka Pathak and Nikhil Dewan Editorial Team - Lanre Pratt, Ameya Barot. Amar Malde, Pranavi Shah

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Contents INFORMATION 1 2

Editor’s note - Esala Jayasuriya Contents

CORRUPTION 4 6 9 14 15 17

The Most Corrupt Judge in US History - Francesca Notarianni The Role and Influence of Women in a Corrupt Roman Empire - Marisa Toms Family Dynasties in Third-World Country Politics - Shakir Moledina Review: ‘Conspiracy of Cataline’ by Sallust - Marisa Toms Gaius Verres and Marcus Tullius Cicero: Revealing Corruption in Ancient Rome - Delilah Smith Robber Barons: “Political Or Market Entrepreneurs” - Pranavi Shah

BRITISH HISTORY 20 27 29

Charles Grey, Second Earl of Howick, 1764-1845 - Dr Ian StJohn The Forgotten Queen - Ashleigh Teper Who was the better war-financier – Pitt or Gladstone? - Ameya Barot

LEADERS IN HISTORY 34 40 41 43 47

To what extent was Mao Zedong a disastrous leader? - Richard Zhou Review: ‘Dictators’ by Frank Dikötter - Amelie Bruce Review: ‘William Pitt the Younger’ by William Hague - Marisa Toms Without the leadership of Otto von Bismarck, would Prussia have unified the German states in 1871? - Lucas Argent Is Mao Zedong’s leadership viewed in a negative light? - Ria Shah

MISCELLANEOUS 51 54 57 60 64 67

The Lewis Chesspieces - Lawrence StJohn The Catastrophe of Counterfeiting - Elodine Levine The Forgotten Genocide - Ebele Ezeuko How Effective was Fear as a Tool used by the Soviet Union to Maintain Order? Lucas Argent My Family in Uganda - Veer Gill Review: ‘Why Ireland Starved: A Quantitative and Analytical History of the Irish Economy’ - Nikhil Dewan

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CORRUPTION “Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.”

- George Bernard Shaw

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The Most Corrupt Judge in US History

By Francesca Notarianni

Martin T. Manton could be considered an embodiment of the American dream. From being born into a poor Irish immigrant family in 1880s Brooklyn, to becoming king of the American courts and even being short-listed for a seat on the American supreme court. However, it all came crashing down when the federal judge was forced to leave the bench in disgrace in the most shocking case of judicial corruption of the 20th century.

Martin T. Manton worked his way through the education system and into private law practice where he combined the two practice areas of personal injury and criminal defence, specialising in murder defence. One of his most notable cases was his representation of a NYC police officer accused of orchestrating the murder of a small-time gambler who had the officer on his payroll. This was an especially prevalent trial, as at the time there was growing attention on corruption in the NYC police department. This gained Manton publicity, and it was only 3 years later in 1918 when he was appointed

by President Woodrow Wilson to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Due to New York’s commercial, financial, cultural, and political influence over the rest of the country, the Second Circuit handled a disproportionate share of the USA’s most consequential lawsuits. Manton served on the Second Circuit for over two decades, and during his time he earnt the title of the court’s senior judge, a position second to only the nine judiciaries of the supreme court.

During the Great Depression of 1929, Manton suffered severe financial losses. His fortune earnt from being a lawyer was invested in real estate and businesses, so when the stock markets crashed Manton’s fortune was gravely depleted. It could be these losses that caused Manton to begin accepting gifts and loans from the litigants who appeared before his court in return for ruling in their favour. Manton was not selective in his customers of justice, his litigants ranged from commercial companies such as the Fox Theatre Company and Warner Brothers, and evidence showed that Manton often held stock in companies that were litigants in whose favour he decided. Rather disturbingly, among the many litigants who appealed to Manton were the two most notorious New York gangsters of the era, Louis ‘Lepke’ Buchalter and Jacob ‘Gurrah’ Shapiro. The outlaws had arranged a payoff to Manton in order to

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secure their release on bail and went on to assassinate the witnesses against them. It was also well known in New York prisons which housed federal defendants that Manton was corrupt. In one instance, an inmate who was cooperating with federal government in a drug case told the other inmates who were suspicious of him that he was paying off Manton.

Although in reality this was not true, the other inmates stopped bothering him as they believed him. The fact the inmates believed him emphasises how well-known Manton’s corruption really was among litigants. Manton’s gifts came in a number of different forms. It was sometimes cash, sometimes money given directly to his family, and on one occasion a litigant financed Manton’s summer holiday on a transatlantic voyage. Manton was ultimately selling justice to build his private fortune, and it is estimated that he earnt $823,000 which equates to $17 million in today’s dollars. By 1939 rumours of corruption began to spread and Manton was pressured into resignation due to investigations and recommendations of impeachment. Following his resignation, Manton was indicted and brought in front of his previous colleagues at the court where he once sat as a judge. He faced charges for conspiracy to obstruct the administration of justice and to defraud the United States. Manton was found guilty and given the maximum sentence of 2 years and a $10,000 fine.

Even recently Manton has caused controversy. In 2009 an oil painting of the disgraced judge was discovered and posed the question if it should be displayed or hidden. Although it is not an easy question to answer, the story of Manton serves as a reminder that judges are not sealed off from worldly temptations and are human too.

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The Role and Influence of Women in a Corrupt Roman Empire

By Marisa Toms

Corruption was at the core of the Roman Empire. From its senators to its merchants and finally, to its Emperors and Empresses. The majority of the Roman population at the time was greedy and had resorted to bribing people to extend their powers and gain more wealth and land. They only thought of themselves and did everything and anything they could to ensure that they lived a comfortable life, no matter the cost. However, these criminal acts weren’t only committed by men, but by women also. Two clear examples were Livia Drusilla and Agrippina the Younger, both wives of Emperors. However, what role and influence did these women have within the Roman empire?

Livia Drusilla was the daughter of Marcus Livius Drusus Claudianus and wife of both Tiberius Claudius Nero and Emperor Augustus. When she was married to Tiberius, Livia had a son, the future emperor Tiberius and was also pregnant with Nero Claudius Drusus. The Emperor Augustus, in 38 BC, forced her to divorce her husband so that they could marry. Although she didn’t give birth to any of his children or heirs, they were happily married for 51 years. Donna Hurley says how Livia was given the right to manage her affairs without a guardian and a grant of ‘sacrosancitas’. The meaning of ‘Sacrosancitas’ in English, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is something that is deemed too important to question or change. Therefore, when Livia was given this huge honour, which mainly only tribunes enjoyed, she became more powerful and was able to have a greater influence over the entirety of the Roman Empire without her actions being questioned. With this power, Livia was able to have a major influence over state affairs. She was also involved in many political decisions and appointments of various individuals. However, she almost always directed the policies in ways that served her interests and those of her family. The amount of unchecked influence Livia had, although it was common for powerful political figures during the time, could be seen as corrupt since it bypassed the traditional structures of governance.

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Furthermore, not only was Livia able to manipulate political decisions, but both Tacitus and Cassius Dio, Roman historians, wrote about the various rumours on how Livia gained her newfound power after she married Emperor Augustus. One of the most popular rumours was that she murdered many of Augustus’ relatives to ensure that her son, Tiberius, became the next Emperor, and she, therefore, maintained her power. One of these relatives was Emperor Augustus’ grandson, Agrippa Postumus. Moreover, both writers further mention that there was a possibility that Livia killed Augustus herself by poisoning some fresh figs which he then ate so that her son could become Emperor right away. Although this may have happened, many people nowadays think that this was very unlikely. Livia was further said to have corrupted Julia the younger, Emperor Augustus’ daughter, and Agrippa Postumus. Julia the younger was exiled due to her leading a promiscuous life and Agrippa, her son, was exiled and killed since he openly opposed Livia and was a potential candidate for Emperor after Augustus’ death, therefore being a double threat. Even though Livia is rumoured to have committed these murders for her son to become Emperor and for her to maintain her power and influence, in I Claudia II: Women in Roman Art and Society (which is a gathering of essays about women in Roman society based off evidence we have, such as art and texts by Diana E. E. Kleiner and Susan B. Matheson) she is described as serving as a public image for the idealisation of Roman female qualities, a motherly figure and god-like virtues. Therefore, although Livia had a strong image and was a role model to many women during those times, she did anything, no matter the consequence, to secure her and her son’s power from assassinations to manipulating important political decisions.

Agrippina the younger was another upper-class woman. She was the daughter of Germanicus Caesar, mother of the Emperor Nero and wife of the Emperor Claudius. When Agrippina married Emperor Claudius, he already had a son which was going to be his heir, Britannicus. However, Agrippina was able to convince her husband, Emperor Claudius, to adopt Nero and make him his heir. To ensure that her son became Emperor, she involved herself in many plots that resulted in the deaths of several individuals, one of which was her husband Emperor Claudius. Ancient sources say that she had poisoned the emperor with a plate of deadly mushrooms at a banquet on October 13 54 AD. Even when Nero had become Emperor, she continued to manipulate the political alliances she had obtained over the years and created many plots to eliminate any threats to her son and his succession. Due to her powerful position, she abused her power by using her relationships and connections within the Roman elite to achieve whatever she wanted. This included using her position as Emperor Claudius’ wife to influence political decisions and appointments. Furthermore, she used her power and position to accumulate a lot of wealth, sometimes through questionable ways. This was mainly done through bribery and coercion and could be said to be corrupt enrichment. In Roman society, Agrippina the Younger was viewed as a caring and vulnerable woman, mother, and wife, but at the same time was seen as

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ruthless and cunning, quite different from the way that Livia was viewed as a motherly figure with God-like virtues even with the various rumours which surround her. Therefore, Agrippina was corrupt in several ways since she used her power and position to eliminate threats to the son’s succession and also to manipulate important political decisions and increase the amount of wealth and land she had.

In conclusion, the lives of Livia and Agrippina the Younger emphasise the influential roles women had within the corrupt Roman Empire even though politics and power were only accessible to males. Both women used their power and influence to manipulate political decisions and their connections with the Roman elite to achieve what they wanted. Both assassinated individuals to eliminate threats, coerced and bribed to ensure that their power increased and that their families were safe and comfortable. Agrippina went to such an extent to ensure that her son Nero became Emperor since she thought she would be able to control him and possess all that power for herself. Therefore, Livia and Agrippina demonstrate how women in the Roman Empire could have considerable influence even though they faced many gender barriers. Both these women serve as examples of how women were able to navigate corruption in the Roman Empire and manipulate it to serve their purposes and help them gain the power they were so greedy for.

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Family Dynasties in Third-World Country Politics

By Shakir Moledina

Politics is the art of making your selfish desires seem like the national interest” - Thomas Sowell The issue of family dynasties in third-world country politics is a complex and prevalent issue that plagues many countries in the world today. In this article, I will explore the political landscapes of Kenya and Pakistan, examining the influence of the Kenyatta and Sharif families. I will also explore the implications of the Panama Papers scandal that exposed years of political corruption and offshore funds. This article will analyse the family-dominated political landscapes of Pakistan and Kenya.

It is first important to understand and define what is meant by a political family dynasty.

A political dynasty is a family in which multiple members are involved in politics. Members may be related by blood or marriage. A third world country is defined as countries that are poor or developing. Countries that are part of the “third world” generally have high rates of poverty, economic and/or political instability, and high mortality rates.

However, what is the issue with political dynasties? Well, the concentration of political power in one family alone for years gives it massive influence and gradually turns political rule in a country into a monarchical system. Eventually this family will use their power and influence for personal use and gain. This isn’t the case with every political dynast, however in truth it is more so than not. This article will cover two prime examples of corrupt political dynasties manipulating their influential roles for personal gain.

There are many reasons for political dynasties, one of those reasons is that most of those families have amassed a lot of money and personal benefit through illegal means, resultantly, such leaders fear the consequences of leaving office and facing accountability, so they will do all they can to protect themselves by keeping like-minded family members in power. For example, when Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan lost the election in 2018, he fled Pakistan in self-exile to London after the Supreme Court charged him and provided him with bail to avoid the accountability.

Secondly, political families would have made a lot of investments so they want somebody who can either continue that particular process that they have started or somebody who can protect the investment interest of the family.

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Nawaz Sharif

It seems to be a pattern that, where a political dynasty thrives, so does political instability and economic mismanagement. Such families loot state funds in most cases, hurtling countries into economic crises and political tensions.

The Kenyatta family has played a pivotal role in Kenyan politics, with Jomo Kenyatta, the country’s first President, leading his nation to independence from British rule in 1963. His son, Uhuru Kenyatta, continued the family’s political legacy, serving as President in 2013 and getting re-elected in 2017 with his tenure ending in 2022. During Daniel arap Moi’s presidency (1978-2002), the Kenyatta family-maintained influence within the ruling party. The family’s presence has continually persisted in Kenya’s political landscape, with Uhuru Kenyatta’s presidency one of controversy and monetary gain for the Kenyatta dynasty.

From the start of the Kenyatta family’s influence Jomo Kenyatta misused his role for personal gain as well as gain for his family and close aides. A United Nations-backed commission found that in two years, one-sixth of all properties previously held by Europeans, including “vast farms” and valuable coastal real estate, were “cheaply sold” to Kenyatta, his family and his allies. These properties were cheaply sold to people such as his son Uhuru, and Moi, a former president and close aide of the Kenyatta family.

Although the Kenyatta family has consistently denied any wrongdoing, the Panama Papers leak appears to prove the opposite. “Every public servant’s assets must be declared publicly so that people can question and ask: what is legitimate?” Uhuru Kenyatta said to the BBC in 2018. Years of previously undisclosed political corruption and offshore wealth were made public by the Panama and Pandora papers. The Pandora Papers is the largest known data leak in history (12 million files). Because of the Pandora papers leak, Uhuru Kenyatta and six members of his family have been connected to 13 offshore companies.

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The Pandora papers served as a window into the years of offshore companies the Kenyatta family owned. In particular a notorious case called ‘client 13173.’ This is when the Kenyatta’s tried to create a company that wouldn’t be traced back to them while using this company to purchase offshore properties for the Kenyatta family. The Pandora Papers reveal that in 1999, Mrs Ngina Kenyatta and her two daughters, Kristina and Anna, set up an offshore company - Milrun International Limited. Invoices from a law firm to the bank show that the Kenyattas were named with the code ‘client 13173’. This company was used by Mrs Kenyatta and her daughters to buy an apartment in central London, which they still own.

The Kenyattas’ offshore investments included a company with stocks and bonds worth 30 million dollars (£22m). Although, it’s not illegal to run secret companies, some have been used as a front to divert money, avoid taxes and for money laundering. Furthermore, the Kenyattas’ offshore wealth, revealed in the Pandora papers, reveals an estimated half-billion-dollar family fortune amassed despite Kenya’s average salary being less than $8,000 a year.

Furthermore, it seems suspicious that the family began to accumulate much of its offshore wealth while Uhuru Kenyatta was a rising political star. This may allude to the family using state money to grow their offshore wealth; however, nothing has been proved in this regard.

Conclusively, there is much significant evidence to prove the corruption of not only Jomo Kenyatta but his predecessors in his political dynasty. His dynasty benefitted from his power and influence and used it to rise to the top of Kenyan politics again and in the process fund many offshore companies to help build their own secret business empire in the light of their leadership which was used to support this corrupt practise.

Pakistan since its conception in 1947 has been riddled by corrupt politicians, an over-involved army and political dynasties. Two of the three most popular political parties in Pakistan are political dynasties and both parties have had multiple terms as the leading party. The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has been the breeding ground for the Bhutto Family’s dynasty while the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) has been the party ruled by potentially the most corrupt political dynasty in modern times: the Sharif family.

Nawaz Sharif is the longest-serving prime minister of Pakistan, having served a total of more than 9 years across three terms. Each term has ended in his ousting. His brother Shehbaz Sharif has also served as Prime minister after former cricketer Imran Khan was ousted as Prime minister in a plan allegedly schemed by an American government official. Pakistan’s then-ambassador to the US, Asad Majeed, and Donald Lu, the Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs had a conversation that was later leaked in which Lu was worried by Imran Khan’s ‘aggressively neutral stance in the Russia-Ukraine war’ saying ‘all will be forgiven’ if Khan is sacked.

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Resultantly, Imran Khan claims the PML-N saw this as an opportunity to take to power.

Due to Nawaz Sharif being in self-exile his second-hand man and brother in his dynasty and former chief minister of Punjab, Shebhaz Sharif, took the spot in power. With recent elections Nawaz Sharif has returned to Pakistan to run in elections for his fourth term with all of the corruption cases against him dropped. Allegations of pre-poll rigging and vote-rigging which has caused an uproar globally with David Cameron even raising ‘serious concern over the fairness’ of the elections, and some human right groups even saying that ‘fair elections’ were not possible.

Nawaz Sharif has gone to unimaginable extents to hide his wealth. Nawaz Sharif has been accused of ordering the torture of Rehman Malik by placing his hands and feet on ice for up to an hour at a time at a ‘safe house’ in Islamabad. There were many orders for his release but he was repeatedly arrested on false pretences until the Pakistani Supreme Court declared his detention to be unlawful.

Well, why was Malik arrested? He served as the deputy director of Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), he investigated claims of widespread of the Sharif family.

Along with Malik’s investigation and the Panama papers leak it is undeniable that Sharif’s political dynasty is one of corruption in a third-world country where poverty is all too prevalent. The Guardian published an article on offshore wealth stashed abroad by politicians across the globe and Nawaz Sharif topped the list.

There are many examples of Nawaz Sharif misusing his power for personal gain such as when he made import duties on luxury cars drop from 325 per cent to 125 per cent.

A week later they were restored. In between a friend of Sharif imported 80 cars. Nawaz Sharif like Kenyatta has many offshore companies which he also used to the buy the infamous Avenfield flats in London worth in excess £7,000,000.

The Panama papers which were leaked in 2016 revealed that three of Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s children owned offshore companies and assets not shown on his family’s wealth statement. The companies included three British Virgin Islands-based companies. These companies have been used to channel funds to acquire foreign assets, including his flats in Mayfair. One of Sharif’s children that gained from these undeclared offshore companies was Maryam Sharif the now Vice-chairman of the PML party. Her role as his successor clearly to continue the corrupt political dynasty of Nawaz Sharif.

The family, whose empire grew hugely while Nawaz Sharif was in office, was also accused of defaulting on $120m of state bank loans. Furthermore, that was part of a series of transactions in which the Sharif family were lent up to $13.8 million to three of their companies, with their London properties as collateral. It appears Nawaz Sharif wants to keep his family in power at the PML to sustain the Sharif empire. Keeping his family in power will mean the interests of his family will always be fostered whereas if it wasn’t someone from the family him and his dynasty wouldn’t be able to put their personal gain at the forefront.

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Nawaz Sharif’s name wasn’t directly mentioned in the Panama papers rather all the companies were put in his children’s names. However, he has been accused of corruption, ownership of illegal assets, tax avoidance and money laundering. When put in court after the leak of the Panama papers he was accused of corruption, Sharif failed to provide a satisfactory explanation for the offshore holdings. The Panama Papers scandals eventually played a pivotal role in his disqualification as Prime Minister by the Supreme Court of Pakistan in July 2017. Him and his family claimed the properties had been acquired through investments in middle eastern countries such as Qatar. In July 2017, the Supreme Court of Pakistan disqualified Nawaz Sharif from office, citing his failure to disclose a source of income that could explain his ownership of the luxury flats. However, this was recently mysteriously reversed in time for Pakistani elections.

In conclusion, family dynasties in third-world country politics, as shown by the Kenyatta family in Kenya and the Sharif family in Pakistan, use their dynasty for corruption and personal gain. The Panama Papers exposed the questionable offshore dealings of both families, revealing an abundance of wealth gained through suspicious means.

The Kenyatta family’s offshore investments, highlighted in the Pandora Papers, raised concerns about political justice in a country plagued by widespread poverty. Similarly, the Sharif family’s involvement in offshore companies led to widespread anger and his self-exile. These examples emphasis the need for increased transparency and accountability. Ongoing political rivalries and concerns over censorship and poll rigging in Pakistan highlight the challenges in breaking the cycle of political dynasties in third world countries.

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Review: ‘Conspiracy of Cataline’ by Sallust

By Marisa Toms

The Roman Republic was a time when the Roman Kings had been removed and democracy was ruling Rome. In his book ‘Conspiracy of Cataline’, Sallust, an Ancient Roman writer, delves into the political history of the Roman Republic and its greatest conspiracy and betrayal: that of Cataline.

Sallust bases his story around Cataline, someone whom he describes as being intimate friends with ‘all assassins or sacrilegious persons from every quarter’ and ‘shameless, libertine, and profligate characters’. He is portrayed as a power thirsty senator as he used all his money, as well as others, in order to help him run for a Consulship, which he then lost three times. Sallust also conveys him as being immoral and ‘guilty of crimes against nature’. However, Sallust’s opinion is limited as it is the opinion of only one man.

Cataline wasn’t alone in the conspiracy, he had many fellow conspirators which helped him to set out his plans. Sallust lists them, all of which wanted to remove the current Consuls, Marcus Tullius Cicero and Gaius Antonius Hybrida, and gain control of the Consulship. Cataline was driven to do this since he was in a lot of debt and if he was able to overthrow the Consuls, he would clear everyone’s debt, including his own. Sallust wrote how he schemed to burn down buildings and paid others to start hostilities in order to cause chaos.

Sallust uses many techniques to intricately portray the corruption within the Roman elite. Although there are various editions due to different translations, they all capture Sallust’s clever writing style and his engaging narrative style. This impacts the reader’s experience and allows them to fully engage with Sallust’s writing.

In conclusion, although, Sallust may exaggerate certain aspects in his book, it is still a valuable source for historians to read and anyone interested in the Late Roman Republic, politics, power, ambition, and betrayal in the ancient world. It is a captivating read and Sallust uses Cataline in order to show the reader about the erosion of traditional values within the Roman society and the rise of greedy, power-hungry individuals, in the Roman elite.

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Gaius Verres and Marcus Tullius Cicero: Revealing Corruption in Ancient Rome

By Delilah Smith Ancient Rome: the backdrop to some of the most scandalous stories of bribery, greed and corruption in all of history. However, even in such company, there is one particular figure who stands out – a figure whose dubious and disreputable rise to the top shows the degree to which the Roman empire was built upon the hunger for power and wealth. This man was Gaius Verres [figure 1] – quaestor to the consul Gnaeus Carbo; praetor of Rome; and most notoriously, governor of Sicily. Leaving a trail of newly filled pockets and scandalous secrets wherever he went, Verres was at the heart of the most significant corruption case of his time. Yet, one of the most remarkable things about this revealing journey through Roman politics is its dramatic end, which is also the reason why we are able to reconstruct the scale and significance of Verres’ corruption. The legal case against Verres was ultimately put forward by the legendary statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero. The speech in question was called ‘In Verrum’ (against Verres) and was a merciless exposé of not only Verres’ avarice, but that of the Roman government as a whole.

The story of the criminal career of Gaius Verres (115BCE-43BCE) can be traced to his relationship with a general named Gnaeus Carbo. Verres took over responsibility for Gneaus Carbo’s financial activities – activities which, while not quite as audacious as Verres’ dishonest dealings, were also far from honest. This brought Verres access to a certain degree of power and wealth, but the partnership didn’t last long. Verres took advantage of an 83BCE Civil War and used it as an opportunity to embezzle Carbo’s military funds shortly before fleeing and becoming a senior officer to Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella, the governor of Cilicia (a Roman province in what is now Turkey). These two, it seems, were both motivated by their greed and thirst for power. Together, the kindred spirits laid waste to the provinces of Asia and Pamphylia (the “land of many tribes” located between the modern day Turkish cities of Side and Attaleia), stealing from and ransacking peoples’ homes. According to Cicero’s “In Verrum”, “not one single sanctuary escaped his depredations.” In typical style, however, once Verres had finished with these lands, and the two men had no reason to remain allied, he turned on Dolabella. When the authorities finally caught wind of Dolabella’s illicit activities, he needed someone to defend him. Surely Verres, his trusted friend, his “partner in crime,” would step forward to defend him? Apparently not. Verres’ vicious nature shone through once again, as he not only abandoned Dolabella, but was a key source of evidence for his crimes. The same crimes that he himself had helped to carry out. As Cicero put it, “not merely failing to support him in the hour of danger, but deliberately attacking and betraying him.”

Verres was not finished here, though. He returned to what he was best at: bribery, this time successfully aiming for the praetorship of Rome – a position in which he “behaved like a pirate.”

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Still, all of these twists and turns were only a prelude to his most damaging actions when, a year later, Verres gained the position of Governor of Sicily. Cicero compares Verres to “a destroying pestilence in his province of Sicily.” It was laughably simple to find a corrupt or suspicious governor anywhere in the Roman empire; however Verres’ behavior was shocking even for this period of history. Between the years 73 and 71 BCE, Verres managed to steal several works of art while, in a seemingly random fashion, calling for the execution of innocent locals, and accepting bribes all the while.

Sicilian farmers were left destitute due to extortionately high taxes put into place by Verres, and under his governance Roman citizens were stripped of their rights. The list of crimes that Verres committed whilst stationed in Sicily nearly runs longer than the list of people that he bribed to secure the position. Cicero comments that “nowhere did he multiply and magnify the memorials and the proofs of all his evil qualities so thoroughly as in his governorship of Sicily,” and accuses Verres of leaving Sicily, “ruined so effectually that nothing can restore it to its former condition.” After three long years of misgovernment of the island, Verres left Sicily a shadow of the place it had once been, returning to Rome only to be met with the man who would finally act as a dam in the stream of bribes constantly flowing towards the corrupt governor.

Marcus Tullius Cicero [figure 2] was sent to prosecute Verres, who knew that his case was hopeless. Nevertheless, Verres was not going to leave without putting up a fight. He chose to be represented by Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, a highly respected speaker in his field. Little did Hortalus know this case would be the one which caused him to lose his credibility in court. Verres and Hortalus repeatedly tried to push the trial back until the next year when Verres’ friend Metellus would be the judge, but the trial went ahead regardless. Cicero condemned Verres with just one speech. It was devastating, to the extent that Hortalus allegedly refused to respond, as any effort against Cicero would be in vain. But Cicero had a wider point to make in this condemnatory speech. “In Verrum” used Verres’ case as a chance to highlight the corruption of the Roman courts more broadly, stating that, “A belief has by this time established itself, as harmful to the whole nation as it is perilous to yourselves, and everywhere expressed not merely by our own people but by foreigners as well: the belief that these Courts, constituted as they now are, will never convict any man, however guilty, if only he has money.” Cicero went on to argue that Verres had practically already been “acquitted [...] by his vast fortune.”

Still, with any chance of regaining his old lifestyle gone, it was agreed that Verres would go into exile in Massilia. While this trial had delivered some justice to the Sicilians affected by Verres’ severe misgovernment of their island, the damage had still been done.

Because of Verres’ actions, Sicily had lost its title as Rome’s main source of grain; and Verres remained in possession of those stolen artworks.

If there was a personification of corruption in ancient Rome, in my opinion, it was certainly Gaius Verres, the little known but highly harmful scourge of Sicily.

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Robber Barons: “Political Or Market Entrepreneurs”

By Pranavi Shah

‘Robber Baron’ is a term that was coined in the late 19th century to describe wealthy capitalists who were thought to have acquired their wealth through corrupt, economic practices. It was first attributed to Cornelius Vanderbilt who, after providing extremely low prices on shipping routes of government-subsidized shippers, was then paid by them to stop competing on their routes. The term was first coined to express the public discontent with their practices and was a direct descendant of the title attributed to German Lords who charged illegal tolls on rivers.

This is where Folsom attributed the description of “Political Entrepreneur”, to the Barons like Henry Villard who took advantage of government patronage to run unethical business practices. From the 1890s citizens began to use the term as a form of social criticism against the industrialists. They were seen as an elite that preyed on the vulnerable working class to become wealthy and monopolise the markets. Not only Villard but industrialists such as Vanderbilt, J.P Morgan and Rockefeller were all grouped into this category. Much of the public scorned their seeming corrupt practices which allowed no other business to compete against them. An example is J.P Morgan who sought to create a monopoly by reducing his workforce to maximise the profits that he made. The workers were paid as little as $1 a day and the company has been proven to have owned over 1,000 slaves.

Political corruption was another tool exercised by robber barons to ensure that the government was on their side and they could continue to control their business as they wished. A famous example is the Credit Mobilier Scandal which revealed many politicians had taken bribes from a fraudulent construction company. The company was set up to build the Union Pacific Railroad that was overfinanced so shareholders could receive greater profits. Government officials including the vice president were scrutinized and were involved in this scandal, having accepted stocks in exchange for their silence.

This was not the only case of political corruption and was repeated over the duration of many years. Individual barons also participated in political corruption when they backed candidates who were inclined to support their business and contributed funding so that the candidates would

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have the best opportunity to be elected. Political corruption did not exist only to bribe those who already held seats in Congress but to also ensure that Congressmen were elected who favoured the exploitive economic practices of these Robber Barons.

These economic and political practices are the reason as to why most historians consider Robber Barons solely “Political Entrepreneurs” but Folsom in his book The Myth of the Robber Barons suggests the term is only applicable to some Barons, such as Henry Villard, and others, such as Vanderbilt and Rockefeller, were “Market Entrepreneurs”. Although Robber Barons were largely involved in monopolization, their philanthropy in their later lives is often forgotten. For example, Rockefeller donated 10% of every pay check that he earned and many other Barons donated to education centres, technological research and other organizations which would go on to help the public.

Their impact on the American economy cannot be diminished. The investments in large railway companies and infrastructure meant that the railway coverage grew from 35,000 to 200,000 miles by the close of the 1800s and transport between the West and East was made extremely easy. Their role in industrialization did not stop there and the creation of largescale companies which provided the model for the new business corporations is what earned the 1870s-90s the title of the Golden Age. Robber Barons were key for industrialization and expanding the economy, and providing the groundwork for the future American economy.

Although the term “Market Entrepreneur” is not applicable to all capitalists of the Gilded Age, many of them were not defined by the corrupt practices which marked the political few. There is no doubt that corruption reigned in the wealthiest percentile of the population but this did not reduce the philanthropy of other Barons. Perhaps the corrupt lens through which the Barons are usually viewed is outdated and they should instead be noted as the great industrialists of their age instead of corrupt feudal Lords.

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BRITISH HISTORY “The more you know of your history, the more liberated you are.”

- Maya Angelou

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Charles Grey, Second Earl of Howick 1764-1845

By Dr Ian St John

Although contesting with Lord John Russell the title of the most famous Whig of the nineteenth century, Earl Grey was not born a Whig – and he didn’t die one either. He was not born into the Whig aristocracy. His father, Sir Charles Grey, was a soldier who supported the King’s government, and this meant, in the 1780s and 1790s, serving under William Pitt the Younger – a man whom his son, Charles, despised. Only in 1801 did General Grey become a Baron in recognition of his military services (especially against the French in the West Indies) and only in 1806 was he made an Earl – due to the benefaction of the ‘Ministry of All the Talents’, in which his son was First Lord of the Admiralty. So only when he was 42 did Charles Grey become the heir to an Earldom at all.

Grey became a Whig, not by birth, but by association. After being educated at Eton and Cambridge, Grey headed to the continent for his Grand Tour. In his absence his uncle secured him, in 1786, election to parliament for the County of Northumberland. Aged just 22, Grey quickly fell under the spell of the charismatic Whig, Charles James Fox. He socialised with Fox and his friends; became a lover of Fox’s close friend, the Duchess of Devonshire; and imbibed Foxite doctrine. This essentially revolved around the belief that Britain’s ills were attributable to the excessive power of King George III, who had used corrupt patronage networks to unbalance the constitution at the expense of the House of Commons, British liberties, and British interests – as revealed in the mishandling of American policy and the loss of the American colonies.

Fox had every reason to feel sore at his handling by the King, who had engineered the dismissal of the Fox-North coalition government in 1783, installing William Pitt the Younger as Prime Minister, who proceeded to trounce Fox and his allies in the 1784 election. Fox thus found himself in opposition, where he and his dwindling band of followers would remain until 1806, when he had a few brief months back in office before his death. This was the context Grey encountered when he entered parliament. What is central to understanding Grey’s career is the resolution with which he stood by Fox through all Fox’s years in the wilderness and how, after Fox’s death, he struggled to keep the Foxite connection alive. It was only in 1830 that events conspired to offer him the chance to realise some, at least, of the Foxite ideals of the 1780s and 1790s.

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Grey was remarkably loyal to Fox and generally endorsed his initiatives – even when he was sceptical of their wisdom. This was notably so during the Regency Crisis of 1788, when George III fell ill with incapacitating delusions. With the King unable to reign, the Regency of his son, George Prince of Wales, seemed inevitable. But the Regency question was not simply a constitutional one: it was profoundly political. George III had placed Pitt in power him and resolutely supported him, determined to prevent any prospect of Fox returning to government. The Prince was personally drawn to Fox, the two sharing a love for high living, socialising, and gambling; but he patronised him politically too, knowing how much it would infuriate his father. If the Prince were to secure the levers of power he would certainly dismiss Pitt and instal Fox in his place.

The stakes were thus high and Fox seemed to hold the winning hand. Yet he played it clumsily. Although Fox is often labelled a Whig and Pitt a Tory, this is a mistake. If Fox were a Whig, so were most leading politicians, including Pitt – who always called himself an ‘independent Whig’. To be a ‘Whig’ politically meant to accept the Revolutionary Settlement of 1689 and to hold that the King was King in Parliament and ruled with and through parliament. It was this doctrine that allowed Pitt to turn the tables on Fox. For Fox (and Burke too) proclaimed that with the King incapacitated the Prince of Wales had a constitutional right to be appointed Regent with the power to appoint whatever government he wished. Pitt rejoined that the Prince had no such right; that parliament needed to agree and that it was proper that parliament should decide if and on what terms a Regency be instituted. Although Pitt was primarily playing for time, his interpretation of the constitution found more favour with the House of Commons than did Fox’s – and here it did not help that neither Fox nor the Prince were much liked or trusted. Fox’s call for a Regency appeared as opportunistic and self-serving as his alliance with North in 1783. Although Grey regretted Fox’s rash support for a Regency, he stood by him. The House of Commons, though, rallied around Pitt and agreed with him on the need to explore past-precedents for the establishment of Regencies – and then the entire issue was rendered academic as the King recovered his senses. What is so ironic about the entire episode is that Fox and Grey, who were usually so critical of the excessive powers of the King against Parliament, looked in 1788 to those very royal powers to catapult Fox into the premiership over the heads of MPs and the electorate. It is a reminder (in case one were needed) that we should be wary of looking to politicians for principled conduct – the scent of power is too alluring.

Charles James Fox

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Grey was at one with Fox, too, in welcoming the French Revolution, believing that events in France would yield the kind of balanced ‘Whig’ constitution that Britain had long enjoyed. Indeed, they hoped the example of revolution in France would awaken calls for reform in Britain to curb the absolutist tendencies of King George. Fox and Grey clung doggedly to the virtues of the French Revolution despite mounting evidence of its cruelties and capriciousness, Grey blaming the excesses of the Revolution on the intervention in French affairs of the monarchies of Prussia and Austria. Not all Whigs were so indulgent towards the French revolutionaries. Edmund Burke detested the Revolution from its beginning and denounced it in extravagant and emotionally-charged terms, predicting violence and disaster. Burke had already been growing apart from his erstwhile ally Fox, but now their contrasting reactions to the Revolution and the discovery that Burke was actively seeking to persuade Fox’s more moderate allies like the Duke of Portland to break with him and join a National Anti-Revolution government with Pitt, brought a final schism. Grey could never forgive Burke’s intrigue. He disliked Burke and doubted his judgement, blaming him for many of the Whig’s misfortunes since the Fox-North coalition. Grey was in fact, for all his apparent equanimity of character, a great hater and more than capable of harbouring an indefinite grudge against someone. He disliked the Whig politician and playwright Sheridan, who he saw as his rival on the opposition benches and for being too close to the Prince of Wales, whom he also grew to hate. In later years he harboured deep-rooted animosity towards the Irish leader, Daniel O’Connell, and Radical leaders like Hunt and Cobbett. Above all, he detested Pitt, whom he always viewed as a manipulative and mendacious tool of George III’s absolutist ambitions. Dislike of Pitt was probably Grey’s defining political principle, and following Pitt’s death in 1806 he transferred that hatred to Pitt’s younger disciples, Canning, Castlereagh, and Lord Liverpool.

There were, however, two main ways Grey departed from the leadership of Fox. One was his willingness to reach out to Radicals in the country to advance the demand for political reform; the second was a growing disenchantment with political activity as such, which caused him to retreat from Westminster to family life in his Northumberland estate of Howick.

Fox was never a strong advocate of electoral reform. Yes, he used liberal and democratic language, but in practical terms his traditional Whiggism focused more on ‘economical reform’ to limit the patronage powers of the King, leaving the complex mediaeval electoral system alone. Grey, by contrast, saw the French Revolution and upsurge of demands for reform outside parliament as a means to re-build opposition to Pitt – seeking to use Radical calls for reform in the country as a lever to shift opinion within parliament towards accepting moderate change so as to head-off unrest and threats to property. To this end he joined with several other younger Whigs to form, in 1792, The Society of the Friends of the People – an upper-class organisation hoping to provide a bridge between Radicals in the country and reforming MPs to bring about change to the electoral system. Fox was sceptical and never joined the Society. In this he was more perspicacious.

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Within months events moved against Grey’s plan. First, Tom Paine published the second part of his The Rights of Man. In this book he provided Radicals with powerful and principled arguments for democracy and the need to sweep away hereditary power in favour of a republic. Radicalism became more Radical in ways Grey, himself a member of the landed class, could not countenance. Grey was no believer in abstract human rights and shared the propertied-classes horror of democracy. As a result, his patrician Whig agenda appeared irrelevant to Paine’s followers in the Corresponding Societies that were spreading through the kingdom. At the same time, the French Revolution lurched further away from Whiggish constitutionalism towards chaos and violence, culminating, in January 1793, in the execution of King Louis XVI. The vast majority of MPs looked aghast at events in France. Burke, it seemed, not Fox or Grey, had read the Revolution correctly and his predictions of bloodshed were being played out before their eyes. Now was not the time to dally with French-inspired Radicalism within Britain. Worst followed in February 1793 when Britain was drawn into war with France. How could people like Grey advocate reform under the inspiration of ideas emanating from the country’s avowed enemy?

With Radicals moving to the Left, and moderates within Parliament moving to the Right, Grey’s projected bridge between the two groups collapsed. When he pushed on with his promise to raise the topic of parliamentary reform in May 1793 his motion was defeated by 282 to 41. Half his own side deserted him. When Grey tried again in 1797, this time with a more detailed set of proposals including giving the vote to all male householders paying rates in the boroughs, he was defeated again by 256 to 91. This defeat was the signal for Grey to abandon active politics altogether. He withdrew to Howick and did not appear in parliament for three years.

From this point on Grey was very reluctant to become engaged in politics at all. When Fox urged him to come south to join him in the Commons, Grey invariably declined, citing the difficulties of the journey and the needs of his frequently-pregnant wife. He even said he couldn’t leave his wife in case Napoleon invaded. For the next thirty years Grey took little direct part in Westminster politics, especially from 1807 when the death of his father saw him leave the Commons for the more stilted atmosphere of the House of Lords. He briefly took office as First Lord of the Admiralty and then Foreign Secretary when Grenville and Fox formed the ‘Ministry of All the Talents’ following Pitt’s death in 1806. But Fox died within months and not long after the government broke up after it offended George III with some confused proposals for allowing Catholics to hold officerships in the armed forces.

For the next 23 years Grey did barely enough to keep a parliamentary opposition in existence. There was little chance of a return to government. Hope flickered briefly in 1810 when the final madness of King George meant that the Prince at last became Regent on his behalf. But, with Fox dead, there were few links between the Prince and the Whigs,

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and George was now more conservative and determined to see the war with France driven home to a victorious conclusion. Even so, Grey and his opposition ally, William Grenville, expected to be called upon to form a ministry and, when no call came, they indicated to the Regent their frustration. The Prince was in no mood to be dictated to and declared he would keep faith with his father’s appointment as Prime Minister, Spencer Percival. Fox’s old hope that the Prince would break the hold of the Pittites on power was over and the Grenvillites gradually abandoned the opposition and allied with the government.

Grey was thus left to observe as a bystander the government of Spencer Percival and then, following his assassination in 1812, the administration of Lord Liverpool. True to form, Grey hated Liverpool, who he saw as another agent of executive despotism. The government’s stringent response to the resurgence of popular unrest in the wake of the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815 only confirmed Grey’s belief in Liverpool’s dictatorial tendencies – but then he hated the Radicals too and had no wish to be associated with their agitation. He labelled their calls for universal suffrage and annual parliaments extravagant and delusional. ‘Can you have’, he asked a friend in 1819, ‘I will not say any confidence in their opinions and principles, but any doubt of the wickedness of their intentions? Look at the men, at their characters, at their conduct. What is more base, more detestable, more at variance with all taste and decency, as well as all morality, truth, and honour? A cause so supported cannot be a good cause.’1 As in the 1790s, Grey hoped the antidote to Radicalism without parliament was moderate reform within, but few were listening and once the crisis years of 1815-19 had passed Liverpool’s government settled down to a programme of economic reform and national revival. It appeared that Grey’s career would gradually subside with nothing tangible to show for it.

But then the Tories do what the insist upon doing every few decades – they imploded into civil war. It began when Liverpool was forced by a stroke to retire as Prime Minister in 1827. Canning was appointed his successor – only to be abandoned by several leading figures such as Wellington and Peel. It mattered little for within a few weeks Canning was dead. Lord Goderich attempted to form a government but resigned before ever facing parliament. The Duke of Wellington stepped up to the mark, but was soon confronted with a crisis in Ireland over O’Connell’s agitation for Catholic Emancipation.

Despite its flaunted opposition to Catholic Emancipation, Wellington’s government gave way and lifted the remaining disabilities relating to Roman Catholics, including allowing them to sit in the House of Commons. High Tories denounced Wellington as a traitor and his position weakened. It weakened still further with the general election of 1830 called upon the death of George IV. Attempting to re-secure support from the Right of the party, Wellington unequivocally rejected any suggestion of parliamentary reform.

But this only led Liberal Tories to abandon him as well. Haemorrhaging support to Right and Left, Wellington’s Tory government collapsed. The new King, William IV (who like his brother George had thought of himself as Whig in his younger days), had no hesitation in calling upon the now sixty-six year-old Earl Grey to form an administration. Grey was Prime Minister for the first time.

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When Grey assumed office in 1830 he did so with the clear intention to pursue a measure of parliamentary reform. He had, of course, been personally committed to parliamentary reform since the early 1790s, and since then the case for reform had only grown with the blatant corruption in over one hundred small, sometimes Rotten, boroughs in the rural south of England, while new industrial centres like Manchester and Birmingham had not a single MP. The rapidly expanding middle class was under-represented, and Grey feared that they might yet make common cause with working class Radicals to challenge the pre-eminence of the landed elite and the monarchical order. Catholic Emancipation showed reform was possible. Now it was time for parliament to reform itself on its own terms.

Grey’s role in the reform process was threefold. First, he assembled and led a government committed to reform. This was not easy as the Whig opposition had been out of power for nearly fifty years. As an aristocrat and patrician, he was able to reassure doubters in parliament that he would proceed cautiously, forming a coalition government that included liberal Tories like Palmerston, Melbourne, and Graham. Although he delegated the drawing up of the details of the measure to a committee, he himself kept a firm hand on the proposals, steering a course between excessive timidity or radicalism.

Second, Grey oversaw the presentation to parliament of a Reform Bill that was thoroughgoing yet did not fundamentally break with the British parliamentary tradition.

Grey rejected calls for universal suffrage, annual parliaments, or secret voting. He drew back from the idea of a household rate-payer franchise that he had floated in 1797, opting instead to give the vote in boroughs to heads of households paying £10 per annum in rates. In this way only those with significant property would get the vote. Nearly all constituencies with less than 2000 voters were to lose their MPs, while boroughs with 2,000 to 4,000 voters were to be reduced from two to one MP each. The 168 seats thus freed up would be given to London and the Counties, while seven of the new industrial towns were to get MPs for the first time. While Tories like Peel were initially shocked at the extent of the changes, in truth the substance of the old electoral system remained.

The traditional conception that parliament reflected the interests of the nation was retained – there no attempt to mathematically relate population to representation. The County franchise changed little and the south was still significantly over-represented

by MPs compared to the north. The working class were largely excluded from the vote.

Even the existing electorate supported the proposals, and when a general election was called in 1831 after the initial proposals were blocked by the House of Commons the government’s majority increased from just one to 136. There was increasing recognition that Grey was true to his word: he was reforming to preserve.

Third, Grey held his nerve throughout the tortuous and sometimes tempestuous process of guiding the reform proposals through parliament. The most dangerous point of controversy arose over the attempts of the House of Lords to block the measure. There were calls for the King to create a sufficient number of Whig peers to break the Lord’s resistance and vote the measure through. But Grey, a Whig peer himself, had no wish to dilute the Lords and compromise its position within the constitution.

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He delayed as long as he could from approaching the King to suggest this last resort and when, he could no longer avoid doing so, he did so in as cautious and reassuring manner as possible. His patience was rewarded. William agreed to create a sufficient numbers of Peers to pass the Bill but only if the Lords rejected it once more. The threat alone was sufficient: the Lords backed down and passed the Bill, with the result that the Reform Act became law in 1832.

With the passing of the Reform Act Grey realised his vision of strengthening the House of Commons by placing its electoral arrangements on a defensible basis and incorporating the bulk of the middle class into the political nation while firmly excluding the working class and Radical demands for democracy. The Reform Act was soon accepted as a wise measure by both sides of the House of Commons: in 1834 Robert Peel publicly avowed that the Conservative party had no wish to reverse it.

Grey’s premiership lasted for two more years and included such foundational measures as the abolition of slavery in the British Empire and the passage of the first serious Factory Act regulating the hours of work of children. But Grey’s energy and authority ebbed now his chief work was done and relations within the Cabinet became more fractious.

Inevitably it was Ireland that brought down Grey’s government – as it has brought down so many governments over the last two hundred years. Despite Catholic Emancipation, unrest in Ireland continued, with O’Connell now raising demands for Irish independence from the UK. Grey saw the need to maintain the Coercion Acts that were used to strengthen law and order measures in Ireland, and when he found out that members of his government were secretly conspiring to water-down the measures and had been liaising with O’Connell (who figured prominently on Grey’s hate list) Grey resigned as Prime Minister in July 1834.

Grey had never sought office with enthusiasm. Even during the prime of his political life he had preferred to reside at his country house in Northumberland and live privately with his wife and family, and so to Howick Hall he returned in 1834. Just as Grey had not entered the world as a Whig, now in his final years he drifted away from the Whig government and its Radical, Irish, and utilitarian allies. He was less in sympathy with the Whigs and more often found himself agreeing with Peel and Wellington. Disraeli once described Peel’s Conservatism as ‘Tory men and Whig measures’. By the time of his death in 1845 Grey found that formula very much to his taste.

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The Forgotten Queen

By Ashleigh Teper

Lady Jane Grey was only 16 years old when her dying cousin (Edward V1) requested the throne to be passed to her. She is the shortest reigning monarch is British history, with her reign lasting only 9 days. Highly unpopular and uncredited, Lady Jane Grey’s story has remained in the shadows of British history and her contribution has stayed hidden.

Lady Jane Grey was born in autumn 1537 (her actual birthday is unknown) and died only 16 years later on February 12th 1554. Her great uncle (Henry V111) left the throne to his only male heir Edward V1, who passed away at only 15 years old from tuberculosis. Having always been a sick child, Edward feared the throne may eventually end up passing to his oldest sister Mary 1 if he were to pass away, and this consequently would mean the country may became Catholic as Mary and her mother Catherine of Aragon were strong Catholics (while Edward and his other sister Elizabeth were protestant as well as the rest of the country). For this reason, Edward chose to request for his younger cousin Lady Jane Grey to be crowned after him instead of Mary. At 16 years old, Lady Jane Grey was crowned Queen of England following Edward’s abrupt death, enraging Mary and leading her to the decision (despite her father and brother’s wish’s) to pursue her right to the throne.

Before the passing of Edward V1, Lady Jane Grey had led her own life, without the knowledge of her cousin Edward’s intentions. On 25th May 1553 (aged 16), Lady Jane Grey married her husband – 18-year-old Guildford Dudley.

Lady Jane Grey was crowned only 4 days after Edwards V1 death, with her reign starting on the 10th July until the 19th July. On the 10th July, Lady Jane Grey is introduced to life as queen while she awaits her coronation, which is on the 3rd day of her reign. After her coronation, Lady Jane Grey was encouraged to meet the public, however she was met with masses of hate and little support, as the public expected someone else as their queen and she became very disliked. On the 4th day, she wrote a letter to Mary 1, asking her approval and acceptance as the queen, but on the 5th day she received Mary’s reply in which she denied the acceptance and instead began to plan her overtake of the throne against Lady Jane Grey. Mary 1 had been building an army to declare battle against Lady Jane Grey and have her removed as queen.

The following days, Mary’s army was successful in defeating Lady Jane Grey’s attempt to stop her. Gradually, all remaining supporters of Lady Jane Grey fled or supported Mary out of fear in an attempt to save themselves. Left with no support from the public, Mary easily defeated Lady Jane Grey by accusing her of treason and having her arrested, limiting her reign to 9 days.

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On 12th February 1554, Lady Jane Grey and her husband were executed. In the morning, Lady Jane Grey watched her husband being carried from the tower but denied his request to see him one last time. Two hours later, Lady Jane Grey was carried from the tower and led to be executed. She was only sixteen years old. It was noted that she was blindfolded and instructed to place her head on the block. However, out of fear, she struggled to find the box and started to panic, requiring help to find the block. Her final words were said with her arms stretched up to the sky ‘Lord, into thy hands I commit my soul’.

As such a disregarded and short reigning queen, Lady Jane Grey is often forgotten in today’s modern world. Ranging from school curriculum to politics, the memory of Lady Jane Grey is often left out, resulting in our future generations total disregard of her life.

As an accomplished young women, who had to instantly fill the shoes of her cousin at only sixteen years old, she shouldn’t be forgotten, but celebrated. Lady Jane Grey fought until the very end of her life and tried her best to provide her country with support and a worthy queen. Today’s society will have us believe she was an unpopular and worthless monarch, but underneath the hatred and lack of support is a young teenager who was frightened and given an overwhelming responsibility. As a key monarch in British history, Lady Jane Grey should be displayed as an inspiring queen, who fought till the end of her life.

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Who was the better war-financier – Pitt or Gladstone?

By Ameya Barot

Pitt the Younger and Gladstone were two prime ministers who were strong believers of free trade. Pitt was prime minister during the Napoleonic Wars until his death in 1806 and Gladstone was the chancellor of Exchequer during the Crimean War 1853-56. Both prime ministers adopted similar tactics, such as raising income tax, but ultimately Pitt was the better war financier, because Gladstone was able to use his ideas and learn from his mistakes.

One way in which Pitt was a good war financier was him introducing income tax. The government needed more money to pay for weapons and allies. This was better than borrowing money, because it did not contribute to the increase in the national debt. It is also a direct tax, so does not rely on spending, which means that the government is guaranteed to receive revenue through it. Furthermore, income tax ensures that the rich pay more than the poor, so it does not increase starvation and suffering and it reduced income inequality. Income tax was 10% for those with an income between £60 and £200, and 20% for people with an income over £200. The poor are more likely to resort to radicalism, so income tax reduced the likelihood of there being mass amounts of unrest.

The income tax raised over £6million in 1799, which proves how effective the measure was. However, the tax was very unpopular, especially with the middle classes. It was seen as an invasion of privacy as it allowed state interference in private affairs. However, it did help the country’s financial recovery significantly and it was meant to be a wartime measure, so was not fought against that much.

Another reason why Pitt was the better war finance is he invested in the navy. Before the war, his administrative reform ensured that money was used more wisely to strengthen the military and the navy in particular. This was very important, because since Britain is an island, these adjustments resulted in Britain having a better chance during the war. By 1790, the Royal Navy had 33 new ships. Pitt investing in the Navy was very successful, because Naval supremacy protected Britain during the war with France. For example, in 1797, in the Battle of Cape St Vincent, the British navy defeated the Spanish navy, which prevented Spain from supporting France at sea until 1803. This significantly increased Britain’s chances in the war. Additionally, Admiral Horatio Nelson defeated France’s naval force in 1798 on the Nile, which encouraged Austria and Russia to form the Second Coalition with Britain. This means that Pitt’s investment in the British navy was also important, because it ensured Britain had allies later on. France was unable to defeat British naval power, making it impossible to invade Britain. Because the navy was strong, Pitt’s war time policy of the Blue Water strategy was also successful.

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This strategy ensured Britain’s economic interests were protected, so Britain could carry on fighting in the war. Britain’s navy captured the Cape of Good Hope and Ceylon, which became important trading posts and by the 1800s over half of British exports went to the Americas. Although Napoleon attempted to destroy British trade through blockades, Pitt’s forward thinking enabled Britain to trade with the Americas instead, making him the better war financier.

On the other hand, Pitt was a bad war-financier, because he continued using the sinking fund during the war, which made things worse. When Pitt initially attempted to reduce the national debt using the sinking fund in 1786, it was successful as it reduced the national debt by £10million. The sinking fund involved the government putting extra money into a separate fund and this money was used to buy government bonds on the stock market. The profits from these bonds were used to reduce the size of the national debt, which made Britain more stable and resulted in more nations trusting Britain’s financial status enough to trade with Britain and markets become more willing to lend to the UK government. However, although Pitt’s introduction of the sinking fund proved he was a good financier, it provides evidence that Pitt was a bad war-financier. The war increased government spending and borrowing significantly, as there was high demand for weapons and uniforms, which also resulted in demand pull inflation. The national debt was rising so fast that the sinking fund could not keep up with it. This meant that the government had to borrow money to pay for the sinking fund. Interest rates were high, because there was inflation. Since interest rates were high, borrowing money to fund the sinking fund cost more money than was gained in using the sinking fund. By 1801, the national debt had increased by 87% to £456 million, which proves how damaging Pitt’s policy turned out to be.

Another reason why Pitt was not a good war-financier is that the Industrial Revolution was happening during the French war, so Britain’s financial success was ultimately due to the Industrial Revolution, not Pitt. The annual growth of industrial output increased to 3 to 4 % from the long term level of 2% in 1780. This ensured that Britain was still undergoing positive economic growth during the war. A consequence of the Industrial Revolution was that in 1800 one farmer was producing enough to feed 2.5 people, whereas a century earlier the average was 1.7. This meant that when resources were pulled away from agriculture because of the war, a sufficient amount of food was still able to be produced because of the advanced farming techniques and machinery created during the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution was not caused by Pitt; it resulted from Britain running out of wood and being forced to switch to coal as its main source of energy, as well as Britain having high literacy rates, inflation and pressure of war finance.

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William Gladstone

A final reason in which Pitt was a bad war-financier is that he abolished the gold standard, enabling the Bank of England to print too many bank notes, as he lifted the restriction on printing paper money. This led to high and unstable prices, which was negative as it increased income inequality and reduced investment and economic growth as the instability resulted in negative animal spirits. Income inequality increased, because the landed classes benefitted from the higher prices as they could charge higher rents as the farmers earned more money. However, the working class suffered from these high prices; in 1793 the price of wheat was 47 shillings a quarter.

On the other hand, Gladstone was a good war financier, because he made an effort to cover a large portion of the cost of the war with increased taxation, as opposed to borrowing, like Pitt did. He said in a speech in March 1854 that he would learn from Pitt’s experience and attempt to raise money through taxation, so the national debt would not increase too much. Gladstone wanted to maintain national credit and imposed new and heavy taxation as a result. Most of the burden of the war was placed on Income tax, which was increased from 7d to 10.5d and then to 14d and the tax would continue at the increased rate while the war lasted. Indirect taxation was also raised; spirits, malt and sugar were additionally taxed. Indirect taxation would produce around £3,200,000. The overall cost of the Crimean War came to around £70 million, of which £38million was paid for with immediate taxation and £32million was added to the debt. This proves that Gladstone was a better war financier than Pitt, because he paid for the majority of the war with taxation, as opposed to borrowing vast amounts of money and adding to the national debt.

However, ultimately Gladstone was a champion of free trade and took any excuse to cut taxation when he could. This made him a bad war financier, because after the war taxation should have been held high, so the national debt could be cut. The public wanted a reduction of taxation instead of a repayment of debt, so in 1860 Gladstone applied two million to cutting taxes, which previously had been applied, and should have been reapplied, to the annual reduction of the national dent. The economy was not predictable, and if the Crimean war debt was not met immediately, it was unlikely that any government would be able to reduce it afterwards. The suspension of the double sinking fund also resulted in finances being in a much worse position. Therefore, Gladstone was not a good war financier, as he did not focus on paying off the national debt after the war.

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Another reason why Gladstone was a bad war financier, is that he did in fact borrow money. He just refused to label this borrowing of money as a loan. On the 21st April, the treasury offered for sale £6million of Exchequer bonds, repayable in three series of £2million each in 1858, 1859 and 1860. He was attacked for inconsistency, as Gladstone made it clear he wanted to finance the war through taxation, but he still accepted the bonds. Gladstone claimed the bonds were ‘no loan, but a provision for the temporary raising of money’ and evaded the subject, which makes him a bad war financier, as he did not keep the people properly informed. These exchequer bonds later added to the national debt, because they were not paid off. His use of Exchequer Bills are another example of where Gladstone added to the national debt. In 1855 the Exchequer Bills Bill for that year added the £1,750,000 of Exchequer Bills to the Exchequer Bills annually renewed, although Gladstone had said they would be paid off as soon as taxes came in. This meant that these Exchequer Bills became permanent debt, although Gladstone never announced the change in the nature of these bills. This proves that, although Gladstone might have planned to fund the war through taxation, he did borrow money and tried to conceal this fact as much as possible.

Gladstone was also a bad war financier, because a deficit of £2million had accumulated by the time Gladstone left the office in February 1855. This proved that Gladstone was not a great financier, because his decisions resulted in a deficit. Gladstone also did not have any innovative strategies for financing the war, whereas Pitt invested in the navy, which proved to be very useful and Pitt also introduced income tax as a concept, whereas Gladstone only raised it. Gladstone’s main strategy was to raise taxes, which Pitt did too.

After the Crimean War, there was an increased funded and unfunded debt of £40,000, whereas the Napoleonic War increased national debt by £850,000,000. This implies that Gladstone did a much better job at financing the war than Pitt did, although it is important to take into account that the Crimean War lasted for less than three years, whereas the Napoleonic Wars lasted for 20 years. However, £850,000,000 is still much more than five times £40,000, so it is still safe to say that Gladstone was better at controlling debt than Pitt was. The image provides further evidence of how the Napoleonic War which ended in 1815 resulted in a far higher national debt as percentage of GDP (270) than the Crimean war which ended in 1856 and resulted in a national debt as a percentage of GDP of 110.

Overall, Pitt was the better war financier. Pitt was more innovative and introduced income tax in the first place, as well as making reforms to the navy. Gladstone’s main strategy was raising income tax and direct taxes, which is what Pitt did already. The main thing that Gladstone did that was better than Pitt was being careful not to borrow and increase the national debt as much, but the only reason why he knew to be cautious with borrowing is that he had the luxury of being able to learn from Pitt’s mistakes. Furthermore, Gladstone did still borrow money in the form of bonds and Exchequer bills, so he did not even really learn from Pitt’s wrongdoings. Pitt also had to organise finances for a longer and more intense war; the Napoleonic wars lasted for twenty years, whereas the Crimean War lasted for less than three years. This also makes me conclude that Pitt was the better war financier.

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LEADERS OF HISTORY “A leader is a dealer in hope.”

- Napoleon Bonaparte

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To what extent was Mao Zedong a disastrous leader?

By Richard Zhou

The legacy of Mao Zedong is one of history’s most contested. Pro-Maoists claim that his profound social reforms for women and peasants and strengthening of national security show Mao’s leadership as a golden era for China. However, critics claim that his disastrous policies in the Great Leap Forward (GLF) costing tens of millions of lives, and his initiation of sociopsychological destruction in the Cultural Revolution unmask Mao as a disastrous leader. This essay aims to evaluate Mao’s overall effect on the Chinese people by assessing the GLF, Mao’s policies on women’s rights, the Cultural Revolution, and Mao’s land reform era, and show that ultimately the benefits from Mao’s social reforms are simply dwarfed by the sheer scale of destruction his GLF and Cultural Revolution caused.

Mao’s economic modernization, the GLF, caused detrimental socioeconomic disaster in the countryside. Mao was unrealistically over-ambitious. The first five-year plan, 1953-57, had seen huge success, producing double China’s combined steel production between 1900-48. Mao claimed that “eventually [steel production] would overtake Britain” in a mere 15 years. By May 1958, Mao’s ministers (such as Wang Heshou) assured him steel production could easily be doubled, and Mao further called for the steel production target to be doubled to 10.7 million tonnes annually, to overtake Britain in only two years. This sparked the “steel fever” which saw huge numbers abandon farming to endorse Mao’s dream, using backyard furnaces. Children as young as primary students were working on the furnaces. Fortunate weather brought an exceptional 1958 harvest, and a grain surplus. Mao encouraged communes to increase meals to five a day. Food reserves began diminishing. The peasants believed that food was still abundant, so nobody acknowledged this growing issue. This demonstrates how Mao’s over-ambitious leadership underpromoted agricultural importance, and bled out food supplies, which set-up the famine to come.

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Mao’s policies lacked understanding of agricultural science, leading to further destruction of food production. Mao followed Trofin Lysenko, a soviet agricultural scientist who devised a set of guidelines which could allegedly increase crop yield by sixteen-fold.

Mao made these his eight-point plan in 1958. Individually, these guidelines were not completely invalid, but Mao’s insistence on working them together resulted in poor crop growth as they were not implemented correctly. Additionally, Mao supported “sparrowcide,” which encouraged peasants to bang pots loudly to deter sparrows from landing to eat crops. The death of thousands of sparrows caused an ecological disaster and a dramatic increase in crop-eating pests which farmers could not deal with. In 1959, successive floods occurred, and Mao’s policies only worsened food production. From 1958-60, grain production fell by 30%. This demonstrates how Mao’s leadership in agrarian policies made food production even worse, when he had a chance to make things better.

Furthermore, Mao created a culture of fear, which deterred people from speaking out to warn of the impending disaster. In the 1959 Lushan Conference, Peng Dehuai (Mao’s defence minister) privately warned Mao that there were likely exaggerations in the reports, and they should perform “earnest analysis” before it was too late. Peng was publicly denounced for attempting to “personally attack Mao.” This silenced any doubt which had grown in the upper party ranks. To remain in Mao’s favour, commune cadres exaggerated grain output figures. By 1959, Mao raised grain tax to 28%6, and to satisfy the façade of inflated figures, cadres paid almost all the remaining grain away. The peasants were left with little food. Estimates range between 15-55 million deaths from countryside famine. Starvation reached such an inhumane point that people resorted to cannibalism and filicide. Furthermore, the furnace steel produced was low-grade and useless. The failure of the GLF was estimated to have delayed economic development by at least a quarter of a century. This demonstrates how as a leader, Mao’s culture of fear silenced any voice of reason, letting the disaster unfold to the point of no return, and how Mao’s shortsightedness caused an economic failure which further set-back the Chinese people.

Whilst his economic policy was extremely disastrous, Mao drastically improved the gender equality for Chinese women. From the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Mao saw the liberation of women as an essential part of building a new socialist society.

He famously stated, “These four authorities – political, class, religious and masculine are the four thick ropes binding the Chinese people.” Mao’s slogan “women hold up half the sky” propagandized the message of gender equality. The creation of the All-China Women’s Federation in 1949 allowed cohesive action of women’s affairs, such as closing brothels. Mao’s 1950 Marriage Law outlawed concubine and arranged marriages, banned having mistresses, and elevated women to equal ground with men on divorce and property rights. Furthermore, Mao provided Chinese women with more economic opportunities. The establishment of land allocation in the 1950s saw rural women as the owners of land and means of production. Deployment of national labour policy in the 1960s opened more gaps for more women to enrol in the urban workforce,

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and the party encouraged them to take managerial positions, like officials or managers.

Female employment rate reached over 90%. This shows that Mao was not a disastrous leader in all respects, as he significantly improved gender equality and gave women substantial self-confidence.

Whilst Mao did not achieve complete gender equality, the lives of women under Mao were comparatively better than at any other point. Before Mao, women were treated like livestock or and had limited options in life: as a wife, concubine, or prostitute. Forced foot-binding to marry-off daughters was extremely prevalent. Women were condemned to work at home and had little socio-economic independence or divorce rights. Spouses and concubines were violently abused under the feudal family structure.

After Mao’s death in 1976, China’s gender equality took a dramatic reversal under Deng Xiaoping’s open market economy. The Marriage Law had banned female infanticide, however, the emergence of ultrasound scanners and private doctors into China in the early 1990’s, alongside the one-child policy gave incentive for families to prefer a boy to continue the lineage. Female infanticide increased dramatically. Deng’s economy opened China to Western advertisement, giving rise to pornography. Bosses began hiring young, attractive women as “ornaments.” Furthermore, con-men would lure women into secluded areas, rape them, then claim they were impure and hence could not marry. They were then taken to a remote town and sold in auctions. The women were trapped and heavily abused. From 1989-90, over 10,000 women had to be rescued by the authorities. This shows how Mao’s leadership uniquely institutionalized and applied the implementation of women’s affairs and gave women equal opportunities and self-confidence that every other regime took away. However, the tens of millions of women’s lives lost, and families destroyed in the GLF heavily outweighs the benefits Mao brought.

Mao’s attempt to reclaim power by initiating the Cultural Revolution caused a sociopsychological catastrophe. Mao had been sidelined by the failures of his GLF, causing him to fade into the background of politics. In 1966, he began the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” attempting to regain public recognition by rooting out the “four old” bourgeoisie elements lingering in China. This led to the formation of “red guard” divisions in educational institutions, with students taking on the roles of revolutionaries carrying out Mao’s words. The resulting destruction was terrible. Red guard organizations ruthlessly persecuted intellectuals and anyone deemed “counter-revolutionary.”

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Fighting on the streets were bloodbaths. Psychological and physical abuse were extreme.

This was a direct result of Mao’s general vagueness as to the intention of the revolution, causing unwarranted violence. Furthermore, it was increasingly hard for the Cultural Revolution to be halted given the involvement of Jiang Qing (Mao’s wife) and her gang of four, whose rigid grasp on Chinese media distributed widespread propaganda, fuelling public uprisings and revolutionary fervour. Jiang’s group also formed the hard-line Maoist left-wing of the party, which created extreme internal polarization, making it hard for any cohesive solution to the pandemonium. As its figurehead, particularly in the creation of his cult of personality (little red book), Mao was certainly to blame for facilitating the destruction and ruthless persecution of millions of intellectuals and families.

Whilst this was not as directly damaging as the GLF, it further demonstrates that, as a leader, Mao brought disaster consecutively upon his people, through the agrarian disaster of the GLF, then the sociopsychological disaster of the Cultural Revolution.

However, Mao’s land reform era (1950-52) was the framework for economic rights for peasants and creating the narrative for intellectual awareness of class struggle. The system of land ownership before Mao was thoroughly unequal. A meeting of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference revealed the landlords (10% of rural population) owned 50% of the rural land, whereas the middle and poor peasants (90% of rural population) controlled the remaining 50% of land. The best quality land was taken by the landlords, leaving the middle and poor peasants with course land. Additionally, the previous system was inherently exploitative. In some provinces, only 10% out of 50% of land owned by landlords was cultivated by the landlords. In the remaining 40% of leased land, the landlords levied huge amounts of tax on working peasants. This ranged from half to even all the peasant’s gains. Peasants were also forced to work extra months without pay for landlords15. From 1929-32, approximately 17.7 million peasants were starved to death all over China. The landlords reaped their rewards.

Mao’s land reform fixed these problems and improved rural empowerment and the economy. Superfluous land and farming equipment were expropriated from landlords and given to the state, who then redistributed these to poor peasants. Middle peasants secured an economic safety net that prevented their property from facing encroachment, to preserve the median bracket of wealth equality. Over 115 million acres of quality farmland was handed to the peasantry. Families were overjoyed. For once, the cultivator could own his own produce, not have it leeched by landlords. From 1949-52, annual food production increased by 28.9% per annum, and cotton by 134.8% per annum. Food security improved for the peasants, so few starved. This shows how Mao’s leadership in the land reform created an economic boom which supported stable rural development and inspired a generation of previously oppressed peasants.

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Fighting on the streets were bloodbaths. Psychological and physical abuse were extreme.

This was a direct result of Mao’s general vagueness as to the intention of the revolution, causing unwarranted violence. Furthermore, it was increasingly hard for the Cultural Revolution to be halted given the involvement of Jiang Qing (Mao’s wife) and her gang of four, whose rigid grasp on Chinese media distributed widespread propaganda, fuelling public uprisings and revolutionary fervour. Jiang’s group also formed the hard-line Maoist left-wing of the party, which created extreme internal polarization, making it hard for any cohesive solution to the pandemonium. As its figurehead, particularly in the creation of his cult of personality (little red book), Mao was certainly to blame for facilitating the destruction and ruthless persecution of millions of intellectuals and families.

Whilst this was not as directly damaging as the GLF, it further demonstrates that, as a leader, Mao brought disaster consecutively upon his people, through the agrarian disaster of the GLF, then the sociopsychological disaster of the Cultural Revolution.

However, Mao’s land reform era (1950-52) was the framework for economic rights for peasants and creating the narrative for intellectual awareness of class struggle. The system of land ownership before Mao was thoroughly unequal. A meeting of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference revealed the landlords (10% of rural population) owned 50% of the rural land, whereas the middle and poor peasants (90% of rural population) controlled the remaining 50% of land. The best quality land was taken by the landlords, leaving the middle and poor peasants with course land. Additionally, the previous system was inherently exploitative. In some provinces, only 10% out of 50% of land owned by landlords was cultivated by the landlords. In the remaining 40% of leased land, the landlords levied huge amounts of tax on working peasants. This ranged from half to even all the peasant’s gains15. Peasants were also forced to work extra months without pay for landlords15. From 1929-32, approximately 17.7 million peasants were starved to death all over China. The landlords reaped their rewards.

Mao’s land reform fixed these problems and improved rural empowerment and the economy. Superfluous land and farming equipment were expropriated from landlords and given to the state, who then redistributed these to poor peasants. Middle peasants secured an economic safety net that prevented their property from facing encroachment, to preserve the median bracket of wealth equality. Over 115 million acres of quality farmland was handed to the peasantry. Families were overjoyed. For once, the cultivator could own his own produce, not have it leeched by landlords. From 1949-52, annual food production increased by 28.9% per annum, and cotton by 134.8% per annum. Food security improved for the peasants, so few starved. This shows how Mao’s leadership in the land reform created an economic boom which supported stable rural development and inspired a generation of previously oppressed peasants.

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The land reform produced awareness of social injustice amongst intellectuals. In 1949, Qian Ruijun, Mao’s deputy minister of education, spoke about the necessity for political education amongst intellectuals16. In 1950, 800 students and professors from urban centres participated in the land reform. They returned bearing morbid stories of the treatment of the peasants. Lin Yaohua (a leading Chinese sociologist) wrote: “before I participated in the land reform, I believed it was possible to have a peaceful land distribution process. However, I saw and understood the landlord’s terrifying actions to the peasants the peasants were only liberated through the class struggle to fight against the gentry landlord.” Whilst the revolution in the countryside cost the lives of an estimated two million landlords, some unnecessary, by public trial, humiliation and execution, the development of any social rights without resorting to conflict was difficult, and ultimately the socioeconomic benefit to a generation of peasants and increased advocation of social justice was more significant than the damage dealt to landlords. However, Mao’s GLF eroded much of this away, as the rural economy and workforce was shattered by the economic failure and abhorrent famine.

In conclusion, whilst Mao’s social reforms succeeded in lifting a generation of women and peasants from systemic oppression, Mao did bring disaster on his people through the overarching scale of the destruction of his GLF: with tens of millions of lives lost which can never be recovered and the economic set-back by a quarter of a century, coupled with the (smaller) sociopsychological turmoil created by the Cultural Revolution.

These events simply dwarf the social benefits Mao instigated. No number of reforms could ever absolve such a heavy loss of life and generation of psychological torment.

Hence, Mao did bring disaster on his people.

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Review: ‘Dictators’ by Frank Dikötter

By Amelie Bruce

In ‘Dictators’, Dikötter gives an extremely comprehensive insight into the impact of dictators across the globe throughout the 20th century. Already well known for his expertise in modern Chinese history, he explores the dictatorship of Mao Zedong, along with other famous dictators such as Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin and Kim Il-sung. One could consider his description of the lesser-known dictators (Ceausescu, Mengistu and Duvalier) particularly interesting, allowing the reader to envelope themselves in the history of dictatorship in Romania, Ethiopia and Haiti.

Dikötter focuses on the role of personality cults in sustaining the control of dictatorial regimes, which had an enormous impact on shaping public opinion and maintaining absolute power. The author investigates the ability of dictators to manipulate public perception via mannerisms and portrayal of their personality, each dictator taking a different approach, but each still able to maintain dictatorial rule for a period of time, some even sustaining their dictatorship until death. Mussolini characterised himself as ‘courteous and perfectly charming’ in order to disarm those who he interacted with and win over the Italian population. However, most of these dictators were not loved by their people; they controlled their subjects through fear, using a mix of propaganda and brute force to subdue the voices of those against the dictatorship. A sense of paranoia also developed within the minds of many of the dictators, such as Ceausescu, who purged his close governmental circle several times due to his belief that his closest subjects had been corrupted with opponents to his regime.

By intertwining historical narratives on a global scale, Dikötter skilfully illustrates the links between the dictators, despite them being distributed across continents and staggered in time. For example, the author describes Stalin’s relationship with other communist dictators such as Mao Zedong, but also his relationship with his ideological opponent: the fascist Hitler. Stalin also later influences Mengistu of Ethiopia, despite the Ethiopian dictatorship being over two decades after Stalin’s death. These narratives are carefully articulated allowing for the enjoyment of the novel from a wide audience, combining both detailed intellectual knowledge and a straightforward storytelling element for each dictator.

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However, Dikötter goes into much greater depth explaining the rise and downfall of the more famous dictators, with less of the book dedicated to the lesser-known men.

The reader would enjoy a more complex insight into the dictatorships of the more obscure leaders rather than the dictators that are already exceptionally prominent.

Another oversight of the book is the lack of a chapter devoted to Fidel Castro, a Cuban dictator, despite him being mentioned several times in both Duvalier and Mengistu’s narratives. Therefore, after reading the book the reader will only have an abridged version of the less famous dictatorships, such as that of Duvalier.

Overall, Dictators by Frank Dikötter gives a comprehensive perspective of a variety of recent dictatorships across the world, encompassing some of the darkest periods of societies under dictator rule. The novel expertly describes the structure and construction of a dictatorship and its lasting impact on the national societal culture. This book is essential for anyone interested in historical absolute power and understanding the complexities of a dictatorship.

Review: ‘William Pitt the Younger’ by William Hague

By Marisa Toms

In William Hague’s Biography of William Pitt, the Younger, he delves into the peaks and troughs of Pitt’s life from his childhood to his career and him becoming the youngest ever Prime Minister of Britain.

Born in Hayes, Kent on the 28th of May 1759, William Pitt the younger was the fourth child in five years in his family. Hague writes how at a young age Pitt was notably a bright child. He continues to say how, at only 7 years old, Pitt had a lot of interest in politics and was so clever that he was able to write letters to his father in Latin and also in English in a very wordy style, uncommon for a child of that age. Hague continues to discuss how remarkable young Pitt was by writing how he went to Pembroke Hall, Cambridge at the age of 14. When he arrived at Cambridge in 1773, Hague continues to convey young Pitt’s intelligence by saying how he could ‘read into English six to seven pages of Thucydides, without previous study of it and with barely a mistake’.

At University, he made friends with many people which marked the beginning of the lifelong friendships he would have with them. Some of these people were Edward Eliot, who becomes Pitt’s brother-in-law and also lived with him in Downing Street and was a member of the Board of the Treasury, and John Pratt, who later became Lord Camden and a member of Pitt’s government. Many other famous names are mentioned in the book throughout Pitt’s life, such as William Wilberforce, Lord Shelburne, Charles James Fox, Lord North and many more.

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William Hague also discusses the circumstances Britain was in when Pitt became Prime Minister at the young age of 24 and all the events he had to endure and had to deal with.

Pitt became Prime Minister in 1784, just after the American war of Independence was ending and the first major issue Pitt had to deal with was the country’s financial situation and he set up the Sinking Fund. Quite quickly he had many other issues to deal with, such as the French Revolution, Irish rebellion, the madness of King George III and trying to control more of the East India Company.

He died at the age of 46 from liver disease. Historians believe that it was due to the amount of Port which he drank. Despite dying at such a young age, he left his mark in British history as Britain’s youngest ever Prime Minister.

I found this book very interesting and enjoyable. However, some of Hague’s chapters could be a bit more concise. The overall writing is well structured and the style in which Hague wrote helped the reader to be able to follow the story as it progressed. Although it took me a little longer to understand the quotes, since they are written in 18th century English, which Hague added in. Hague added in some letters Pitt wrote to his mother which I found added to the context and I was able to understand how Pitt the Younger felt in the different situations he found himself in. Overall, it was a very interesting factual book, well written and structured and it gives the reader a greater understanding of the life of Britain’s youngest ever Prime Minister and the challenges he came up against.

William Pit the Younger

William Hague

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Without the leadership of Otto von Bismarck, would Prussia have unified the German states in 1871?

By Lucas Argent

Throughout the second half of the 1800s, Bismarck carried out the slow process of readying Prussia and creating the right international conditions for a unified Germany, formed under Prussia’s influence. Bismarck possessed the unique abilities to do so, and without his leadership, and in particular his vision and knowledge of the world, unification may not have occurred by 1871, and if it did, it would have been a very different country, and almost certainly not led by Prussia.

Bismarck always had a clear vision for German unification, one that was dominated by Prussia. At heart, Bismarck was always a Prussian nationalist. He had been born and educated in Prussia, and had always considered himself a Prussian first and a German second, if at all. In a speech he made on the 6th October 1849 he said “Prussian we are, and Prussian we wish to remain”, a sentiment furthered by his frequent references to “a specific Prussian Patriotism”. Through this, we can gather that Bismarck wanted not a Grand German Empire, but a Grand Prussian Empire, and he simply saw German unification as the easiest route to achieve Prussia’s, and his own, vast ambitions, and ensure it maintained a status as a major European power. Bismarck’s vision was clear from the beginning, which allowed it to be effectively achieved.

Not only did he have a clear vision, he knew exactly what would be necessary to achieve it and began readying Prussia’s internal affairs a long time in advance. He knew that both increased industrialisation and military reforms would be necessary in order to execute his vision. Bismarck understood that for a country to become a truly great power, it needs to have access to the newest technology and the ability to match other countries in their economic output. Throughout the 19th century, this came in the form of industrialisation, and Bismarck knew this, as seen through his insistence on reforms, seeking to utilise it to overtake surrounding states in its ability to mass produce weaponry and have the most efficient infrastructure. Prior to 1862, Prussia had had little industrialisation; its economy was only the 4th largest in Europe, just marginally larger than the Italian states. In 1862, Bismarck gave a famous speech in the Prussian parliament where he said “Not through speeches and majority decisions will the great questions of the day be decided but by Iron and Blood”. This began the process of industrialising and resulted in the mass production of bridges, ships, military equipment, railroads and other infrastructure. Bismarck’s commitment to a vision allowed the country to modernise, which readied it to unify Germany. In addition to this, the Prussian Army’s chief of staff, a man named Moltke, also began to reform the army, improving weaponry and introducing new tactics preparing for a new style of warfare.

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The most crucial revolution here, inspired by Bismarck, and unique in Europe, was the change in Generals from the aristocracy to the most capable commanders. Ultimately these reforms proved highly important; in the wars that Bismarck knew were to come Prussia’s use of newer technology, such as the needle guns, and more efficient rail transport, allowing for the quick movement of troops, ensured swift victory. This allowed for unification to occur as it established Prussia as a power in the area and allowed Bismarck to be assured of victory in the wars of unification.

Bismarck’s ruthlessness, willingness to be unpopular and refusal to compromise were crucial in the German unification. This is a hugely important aspect of Bismarck’s leadership that many other didn’t possess. His ability to ensure that the best policy was implemented regardless of what others thought allowed him to effectively ready Prussia and effect global affairs. The reforms that Bismarck knew he needed to implement necessitated increased taxation and were therefore deeply unpopular, especially in the liberal Prussian parliament. Henrik Bering said in ‘Being Bismarck’, that it “caused an uproar with the liberals” and that “the queen was keen on getting him fired”. However, he persuaded King William to allow him to stay on, and in doing so, was able to prepare the country to capitalise on the international situation he planned to create, allowing unity of the German states. Another example of this was following the Prussian victory in the Austro-Prussian war, many in the country wanted to annex Austria.

However, Bismarck, knowing what was to come, saw it as a necessity to keep Austria out of a union. To allow Austria to exist as a secondary state would prevent them from ever holding influence over Germany again; to include them only threatened Prussia’s new found status as the dominant German state. If they were included, they would never be happy under Prussian rule, and any vision of a German state would be deeply unstable.

This also showed his deep tactical understanding. However, this view was incredibly controversial, and it is said that Bismarck both threatened to resign, and even to defenestrate himself if Austria was annexed. Without this, Austria would have been absolved into Prussia, and the unification possibly never would have happened. Without Bismarck’s incredible commitment to fulfil his vision, and willingness to go to any length to do so, the unification wouldn’t have played out as it did.

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Bismarck possessed a deep understanding of the international stage and how other countries would act, allowing him to manipulate states to act in Prussia’s favour. This is seen in two key areas in the unification process. Firstly, he is able to isolate Austria, before creating the conditions to force the southern German states into a union by manipulating the French position. Austrias two main allies in 1850 were the Russians, who forced Prussia into signing a humiliating treaty after a skirmish in Hesse in 1850, and the Southern German States, with whom they shared their Catholicism. In 1853, Bismarck, who was then Prussia’s envoy in the Frankfurt parliament, made use of his ability to understand how other states would act to bend a situation that had arisen out of the Crimean war. Austria had decided to switch allegiance from Russia to the French and British alliance, which, although it cost them Russia an ally, would have allowed them to gain a further two, preserving their position in central Europe. As Austria was a member of the German Confederation, in order to join the war they needed approval from the Frankfurt Parliament, which they had been expecting to be a mere formality. However, Bismarck, making use of the Southern German states hatred of France, largely owing to the experiences of the Napoleonic war, warned that Austrias proposal would see French troops marching through their territory, and that there was no guarantee they would leave. This saw the vote fail. Austria had backstabbed Russia, failed to gain Britian and France and allies, and severely dented their trust from and influence over the Southern German states. This all came from how Bismarck understood how the states around him would act, and manipulated the situation to his advantage. As well as this, it also further demonstrated his ability to plan ahead, as he began the process of weakening Austria 13 years before the conflict began.

Bismarck’s international statecraft was also essential in turning the Franco-Prussian war into an opportunity for unification. He needed to be able to provoke France into a conflict, whilst making them seem the aggressors, as it would provide an incentive for Southern German states to enter into a union, in search of collective security, and provided a rallying course around which they could unite. Here, he was able to manipulate a succession crisis in Spain, by convincing the German contender to the throne, Leopold, the prince of Hohenzollern, to accept the offer from the Spanish despite his initial reluctance. This created an alliance with Spain, which saw France surrounded.

This led to a French retaliation, which Bismarck overexaggerated and used to get the Southern German States onside. He made the smaller German states wonder, if the French would have such an extreme reaction to Prussia merely forming an alliance, what was there to stop them invading the comparatively weaker southern German states? In 1870 they joined forces with Prussia and ultimately won victory easily, even though the war dragged on for a year. Again, Bismarck’s Blood and Iron reforms were vital in this.

Eventually, This lead to an internal French revolution, removing them as an obstacle to a unified Germany, which an organised French Government likely would have opposed.

In this way, Bismarck’s careful manipulation of international affairs and use of war had made Prussia, the country of his birth, the most powerful country in central Europe, and saw the remaining German states in need of collective security, which only Prussia could provide.

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However it can be argued that German unification was always inevitable to a certain degree. Throughout the course of History, the German states always had been unified to some extent through the means of the Holy Roman Empire (HRE). A shared language, and to a lesser extent, culture, along with a desire from many smaller states for collective security in the past had almost always lead to a unified nation. In the world today there are very few states as small as many of the principalities and duchies part of the German confederation for this reason, and it seems somewhat inevitable, especially given that they were historically associated and shared a common nationality. Regardless of the actions of the Bismarck, through the natural course of time, Germany eventually would have been united through one form or another.

One example of this is in the 1848 revolutions where ideas of unification were proposed even before Bismarck began to influence European affairs. This came in the form of the then king of Prussia being offered a potential crown of Germany by the Frankfurt parliament, after constant pressure from the common people to restructure the confederation. Bismarck himself likely would have been a proponent of this idea, saying that “The stream of time flows inexorably along. By plunging my hand into it, I am merely doing my duty. I do not expect thereby to change its course”. He didn’t believe that he himself had had a significant impact, and he simply shifted the inevitable course of events In addition to this, many would argue that Bismarck was incredibly lucky, and it was not his leadership that led to the unification. For example, the succession crisis in the Netherlands, the Crimean war and the Italian wars of independence, all played a pivotal role in isolating Austria on the international scene, which was arguably Bismarck’s most impressive feat. Had these wars not happened, or had resulted in different outcomes, many would say that Bismarck’s scheming would have been for nothing, and ultimately any vision of a unified Germany would not have come to fruition.

In conclusion, Bismarck’s leadership ensured that a carefully crafted vision was executed almost to perfection, both domestically and internationally. Even if it was inevitable to some extent, without Bismarck’s’ leadership, his vision, willingness to carry it out, and the international knowledge and ability to influence others that he possessed, German unification wouldn’t have happened in the way that it did; that is to say, Prussian dominated. Although he may have benefited from some degree of fortune, he could only effect what was happening around him, and should be judged accordingly. Even with that, reshaping central Europe from a position of Austrian dominance was an incredibly difficult task that he executed perfectly. When he was born, Germany was a collection of 39 states, when he died Germany was one large nation (excluding Austria) led by his home state of Prussia, and was one of the most powerful countries in the world.

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Is Mao Zedong’s leadership viewed in a negative light?

By Ria Shah

Mao Zedong became a figurehead of the Chinese Revolution. He was a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party and announced the formation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Mao’s leadership is hugely controversial, with some arguing that he had a negative impact on China both economically and politically, and others arguing that aspects of the Maoist legacy should be continued within the country. Although there are ‘neo-Maoists’, they are the minority, and ultimately the mainstream view is that Mao’s leadership marked one of the worst points in the country’s history. Mao was responsible for an estimated 70 million deaths in total, which is more than Hitler and Stalin combined.

Mao’s leadership is often viewed negatively because of his failed economic policy and the detrimental impact of this on the country’s citizens. Mao and the new Communist government launched the Great Leap Forward in 1958, an economic policy in which the government aimed to increase industrial production in China to achieve economies of scale. This was in the hope that Chinese production would eventually that of leading nations such as Great Britain and the United States. In order to achieve this, Mao favoured a socialist policy where China would move towards agricultural collectivisation.

Therefore, by 1958, private property had been confiscated and the countryside had been divided and organised into around 26,000 communes. However, the Great Leap Forward set overly ambitious production targets for the communes. These were unattainable, causing the misallocation of resources. This was worsened by local officials inflating production figures to please the central government. Mao also encouraged the development of new, radical agricultural practices. Most of these changes were unsuccessful and the peasants were inexperienced in the new practices, reducing productivity. Whilst the poor weather conditions that exasperated the crisis in 1959 were beyond Mao’s control, he is frequently criticised for his government’s failure to acknowledge the severity of this problem and the need for a change in government policy.

Overall, the Great Leap Forward caused serious economic problems, such as food shortages and famine. Grain production fell sharply, and hundreds of thousands died from forced labour. It is estimated that up to 40 million people died as a result of the widespread famine and it has been labelled as the mostly costly famine in human history.

Mao’s role in causing this, as well as his ignorance in recognising these problems, meant that he was directly blamed and was held accountable for the failing economic policies.

In addition, Mao attempted to reform industry in urban areas. He set up large-scale projects to implement backyard steel furnaces.

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His target was to double steel production in the first year of the Great Leap Forward and exceed Britain’s production within 15 years. This also proved a failure. It required huge amounts of fuel and officials continued to encourage its production even though the steel produced was unsuitable for use. The attempted growth of this industry increased urban population and put further strain on the agricultural industry because there was higher demand for food in urban areas. It is evident that Mao’s leadership was flawed, and his attempt to reform the country’s economic position was detrimental to its people.

Therefore, many people certainly do view his leadership negatively.

Evidence that Mao Zedong’s leadership is viewed negatively can also be seen through the Cultural Revolution. Mao launched the Cultural Revolution in August 1966 because he wanted to reassert his authority in government and wanted to remain firmly ideologically driven. He believed that the Chinese Communist Party was taking China in the wrong direction because some of its members were too bourgeois. In addition, Mao felt sidelined within the party and wanted radical change, particularly after the failure of the Great Leap Forward. Over the next few months he mobilised the younger population, who formed the Red Guards. The Red Guard movement began in Beijing. It was infamous for terrorising urban populations, and Mao famously said, ‘To rebel is justified’, encouraging young people to rebel against the ‘Four Olds’- old customs, culture, habits and ideas. Red Guards criticised and attacked members of authority, as well as anyone else perceived as a threat to Maoist ideology. The organisation of violence and mass riots resulted in the death of about 1.5 million people.

Mao failed to deal with the mass destruction caused by the Cultural Revolution and is therefore criticised for initiating the movement when he was not prepared to appropriately respond to the consequences of it. The revolution further worsened the country’s economic position. Schools and universities were closed, and the education system was disrupted. This led to a decline in the standard of education, preventing any significant economic development. It has also been suggested that industrial output in 1970 would have been 15% higher if the revolution had not taken place. Overall, the revolution had a long-lasting negative impact on the government. This is because for the decades that followed, there was a legacy of distrust and people lost faith in the government.

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The permanence of Mao’s negative impact is further supported by the fact that Deng Xiaoping, Mao’s successor, was forced to carry out a series of reforms to gradually lead China away from Maoist ideologies. It was from this point, when Mao’s policies were reversed, that China began to a take a more important role in the global market and became one of the world’s fastest growing economies. This highlights Mao’s responsibility in limiting China’s development economically and politically during his leadership. Ultimately, Mao’s responsibility in stifling China’s development has meant that many people certainly do view his leadership in a negative light.

However, some support for Maoism continues and there has been the emergence of ‘neo-Maoism’. Although Mao’s economic initiative was hugely unsuccessful, many people see it as a major step forward in moving China’s agrarian economy towards a more industrialised economy, arguing that Mao should be partially credited for China’s dominating role in manufacturing and industry today. This is evidenced by the fact that in the years after the Great Leap Forward ended, investment and construction in China increased. In addition, whilst Mao was responsible for causing devastating economic and social problems in China during the 1960s, some people also believe that his achievements are overlooked. During his leadership, life expectancy nearly doubled, literacy rates increased, and women’s rights significantly improved. This view is more common within China where a large proportion of people are unaware of Mao’s mistakes and see him as a symbol of a fairer society with less inequality, explaining the surprising increase in his popularity since his death in 1976 and 17 million people making pilgrimages to his hometown in 2015. This has meant that Mao continues to have an impact on present day politics in China. For example, President Xi has adopted some Maoist views and has proposed policies that align with this ideology.

In conclusion, whilst Mao’s leadership is viewed positively within China, ultimately the more accepted view is that his leadership was hugely damaging to the country as a result of him leading the country to economic disaster during the 1960s and leading a repressive regime that was destructive to society. The achievements during his leadership are overlooked due to the severity of his mistakes, particularly the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.

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MISCELLANEOUS “History is written by the victors.”

- Winston Churchill

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The Lewis Chessmen

By Lawrence St John

Chess, under the name of Chaturanga, originated in the 600s AD in what is today India.

The strategy board game spread quickly into neighbouring Persia and Arab North Africa, before entering Europe through Spain, much of which was under Arab occupation at the time. Chess in its earliest, Eastern form, whilst recognisably the same game we play today, nevertheless possessed some differences. According to the writings of Bozorghmer, a sixth century Persian nobleman and advisor to Sassanid King Khosrow I, this early form of chess possessed the following pieces: a king, the rooks, the counsellor, the elephant, the horse and the footsoldiers. As the game began to gain popularity, and due to the alien nature of many of these concepts (such as the elephant) to European players, adaptations were made to the pieces and their abilities. “Horse” was changed into the distinctly European “knight”, the “elephant” became the “bishop”, and the counsellor became the “queen”.

From Chess’s early days in Europe, few sets survive. One of the best-preserved sets is that of the Lewis Chessmen, which was unearthed in 1831 in Uig, Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. A total of 78 Chess pieces were found in the hoard. This article focuses upon two particular pieces from the set, the Queen and the Bishop.

Both pieces are made from walrus ivory, which is interesting on multiple layers. For one, it is in-line with, and suggests a precedence regarding, the material used for Chessmen, as many other surviving sets, including the oldest surviving set, from Persia, were also made of ivory. This could point towards a standardised practice regarding the production of Chessmen. On the other hand, this could merely be the result of survivorship bias, as sets made from other materials, such as wood, are unlikely to have survived.

Nevertheless, ivory seems to have been the material of choice for Chessmen amongst the upper echelons of society. The use of ivory also shows the complex logistics involved in producing the pieces. The walrus’s natural habitat is mostly located to lands above the Artic Circle and distant Greenland. The use of this relatively rare and difficult to access material demonstrates the high value that wealthy individuals at the time placed upon the game of Chess.

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The Lewis Chessmen are estimated to date from the 12th or 13th centuries AD, and were buried on the island of Lewis, which was under the control of Norsemen at the time, who operated as Vikings. This would point towards a Scandinavian origin. The indigenous inhabitants of the Isles would have been unlikely to possess the money needed to purchase such expensive items, along with the fact it was produced using walrus ivory, farmed from Viking territories such as Greenland. Additionally, militaristic board games had a long history amongst Scandinavian peoples. This, combined with the distinctive style of craftsmanship and the presence of “berserkers” (a uniquely Scandinavian concept), means it is almost certainly of Scandinavian origin. Due to the underdeveloped infrastructure in the Norse Western Isles, it is believed that the Chessmen were likely produced on the continent, with Trondheim in Norway being a prime candidate. However, close examination has revealed differences in the quality of craftsmanship for the various pieces, thus indicating that the Chessmen were likely produced by different craftsmen of varying competence.

Precisely why the horde was buried remains unknown. Numerous theories have been advanced, such as the suggestion that they could have been stored by a merchant, who had the intention to return and recover them at a later date, only to perish or forget about them. However, some historians, such as David Caldwell, reject this hypothesis, and instead contend that rather being a merchant’s stock, the Chessmen were the property of a powerful and influential Norseman who resided on Lewis, and that they were his personal property. Such an explanation would suggest that the game of chess was held in high esteem by local magnates, and that such an exquisite set may have been viewed as a status symbol by the Norsemen. This in turn would indicate that the relatively small and sparsely populated island was in fact home to a significant and important social scene.

Now, let us turn our attention to the pieces themselves, specifically the Queen and the Bishop. Like all the pieces, the Queen and Bishop can appear comical in their appearance. Their bulging eyes and glum expression can appear funny to modern audiences.

The Queen is placing her hand on her cheek as if she were resigned to boredom, while the berserker rooks can be seen biting their shields. It is believed, however, that the craftsmen intended their expressions and posture to be, or were perceived as, conveying strength or ferocity. Meanwhile, it has been said that the Queen’s posture was designed to suggest “contemplation.... or possibly wisdom”, according to James Robinson In the case of the Queen, her right hand pressed against her cheek was a relatively common posture for females in sculptures, with sculptures from as far away as the Arab lands of the Middle East also adopting a similar posture.

As mentioned earlier, the Queen was a European invention. Historian Emma Black has suggested that this could be due to queens having a more prevalent position in Medieval European society than they did in Eastern cultures, particularly at the Royal Court. The fact that the Queen replaced the original counsellor reinforces this hypothesis, and suggests that queens were widely viewed as royal advisors or counsellors in Europe.

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This notion is backed up by the fact that in this period of the game’s history the queen retained the same, limited, movement of the counsellor. That is to say, she could only move one square diagonally, making her one of the weakest pieces. This suggests that rather than an assertive piece in and of itself, Chess Queens, and by extension their real-life counterparts, were viewed as being advisors and counsellors to the king, whom they are located next to at the beginning of each game, and not as powerful rulers in their own right. It would not be until the 15th century, and in Southern Europe, that the role of the Queen on the Chessboard would change into the powerful one we recognise today. In the Lewis Chess set, the Queen is depicted as wearing a crown, which makes it clear to the audience that she is a royal figure, and thus it gives her an impression of authority. Yet this is contrasted with her head veil, which symbolises modesty and purity.

As Emma Black notes, this depiction is similar to how most women of noble birth were presented in sculptures, often in a deliberate attempt to draw comparisons with Mary, mother of Jesus. This not only shows a desire to portray women as virtuous, modest and chaste, but also highlights the prominence that Christianity had, even within Viking communities.

With regard to the Bishops, there are 16 in the set, of which nine are standing. They are depicted as wearing their mitres, the traditional headdress of bishops, and are also holding their croziers. The fact that their croziers are shown facing forwards, rather than held sideways, could help date the Chessmen, for it did not become common for bishops to hold them in such a manner until the 1150s. However, this could merely be a design choice, to ensure it was recognisable to audiences. Whilst the Lewis Chessmen contain the oldest surviving Bishop pieces, it is likely that the character of the bishop was already established before the Lewis Chessmen were made. Before the 13th century, the church was generally opposed to the practice of playing board games. Thus, it has been theorised that the addition of the Bishop as piece could have been a satirical jab at the church. However, seeing that bishops often played prominent roles in politics and society, and seeing as the game of chess was based around depicting a conflict between two European armies or nations, it could well be the case that the Bishop was included as a piece to make the game a more authentic and realistic depiction of medieval society.

To conclude, whilst it is difficult to compare the Lewis Chessmen to other contemporary chess sets, as it is one of the only sets to survive from that time period, it is clear that they fit within a larger category of Scandinavian sculptures made from ivory, and that they present a fascinating glimpse both into the development of chess, and Scandinavian culture in the 12th to 13th centuries.

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The Catastrophe of Counterfeiting

By Elodine Levine

Many people will know of the Charlie Hebdo shooting attack in which two terrorists, Said Kouachi and Chérif Kouachi, murdered 12 people and injured 11 others. The brothers were armed with rifles and other weapons and were targeting the employees of Charlie Hebdo- a satirical weekly magazine. This attack triggered a manhunt for the brothers and despite the aftermath still being felt, the lead-up to the attack is rarely spoken of, not just the moments before, but how years of counterfeiting, which has been engraved in our history since the Romans, funded this terrorism and how it continues today.

I listened to a Ted-Talk by Alastair Gray, head of Digital IP enforcement and global strategic operations at Tommy Hilfiger. However before this, he spent over 10 years as a counterfeit investigator. He has worked undercover and now advocates as to the damage that by buying a fake watch, you have not just by funding a terrorist organization, but costed someone’s life.

Only within the 21” century has the large network of selling counterfeits taken off, but it has cost so many preventable lives. The most common example being the tragedy of 2014 when two of the Charlie Hebdo magazine terrorist attackers counterfeited trainers to raise money for the assault in which 12 people died. French police had stopped monitoring communication between the Kouachi brothers after being on the terror watch list for 3 years due to believing they had moved away from extremist activity and solely onto counterfeiting as that summer they were only picking up that Cherif was buying fake trainers from China and therefore the threat had gone away. Just seven months later, it was these two brothers, who were not thought of as a threat and only committing low-level petty crimes, which walked into the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine and killed and injured many with guns from the proceeds of those low-level crimes.

Although now the most popular method of counterfeiting is through garments, counterfeiting has been around since the Roman Empire when Roman coins were often shaved or clipped around the edges and the precious metal would be melted down to create new coins, effectively devaluing the currency. Another method involved alloying cheaper metals into the precious ones used for coins. For example, adding a cheaper metal such as copper to gold increases the number of coins produced from a limited amount of precious metal. This resulted in a larger supply of coins with less intrinsic value. The Roman authorities took this counterfeiting very seriously and penalties were severe, including death. Counterfeiting contributed to economic instability in the empire, and it led to a decrease in the value of legitimate currency as well as distrust among the population regarding the authenticity of coins.

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In addition, Early paper banknotes were also counterfeited. Some of the first banknotes were known as ‘jiaozi” Initially, jiaozi were issued privately by all manner of entities but, in 1005, the right to issue jiaozi was restricted by the authorities to 16 merchant houses.

Complex designs, special colours, signatures, seals, and stamps on specially made paper were used to discourage counterfeiters. Those caught counterfeiting faced the death penalty. Despite this, counterfeiting increased over time. This, along with an oversupply of jiaozi, led to inflation and in 1024 the right to print and issue currency was restricted to the government.

Moreover, counterfeiting also played a large part in WWII where the Nazis initiated a sophisticated counterfeiting operation known as Operation Bernhard- one of the most significant instances of large-scale counterfeiting in history. The primary objective was to undermine the economies of the Allied nations by flooding them with counterfeit banknotes. The Nazis aimed to destabilize the economies of Britain, the United States, and other Allied countries by producing high-quality counterfeit banknotes and injecting them into circulation. This was seen as a form of economic warfare. The operation began in 1942 at Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Skilled Jewish prisoners were forced to work under brutal conditions to produce counterfeit banknotes. The forgers used original British pound notes as models and reproduced them meticulously.

The counterfeit notes created during Operation Bernhard were of exceptional quality, so much so that they were nearly Indistinguishable from genuine currency. The Nazis planned to inject the counterfeit notes into the economies of Allied nations through various means, including espionage networks, black markets, and other covert channels.

However, historians debate the actual impact of the operation. While substantial quantities of counterfeit notes were produced, the exact extent of their circulation and impact on the targeted economies remains uncertain. As the war drew to a close, the Nazis attempted to destroy evidence of the operation. However, Allied forces discovered the counterfeiting operation in 1945. The forgers were arrested, and vast quantities of counterfeit banknotes were seized.

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Furthermore, counterfeiting continued to evolve when Somalia descended into civil war in 1991 and, for the next two decades, had no government. The population still needed a means of exchange and so in the absence of a central government and functional banking system, various factions and warlords resorted to printing their own currency. These notes were often printed without authorization and lacked proper security features, leading to a proliferation of counterfeit money within the country. This led to a situation where various versions of Somali shilling notes were in circulation, some of which were counterfeit or unofficially printed. The proliferation of counterfeit and unregulated currency severely affected the economy. It led to hyperinflation, economic instability, and a loss of trust in the monetary system. Ordinary citizens faced difficulties determining the authenticity of the currency they received, leading to a decrease in its value. With no central authority to regulate or control currency issuance, combating counterfeiting became challenging. International organizations and neighbouring countries attempted to assist in restoring stability to the financial system by offering support and attempting to standardize currency.

Counterfeiting has a rich and varied history going back to the very earliest forms of money. It plays a part in today’s global corruption of abusing power for private gain.

Whether for convincing you to buy a fake handbag or the web of lies that is behind your purchase. It weakens society. It is up to us as a society to stop playing into the myth of counterfeiting because our actions can save lives.

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The Forgotten Genocide (The Impact of the Biafran War on Igbos)

By Ebele Ezeuko

‘The Igbos are convinced that they are fighting not only for independence but for their survival as people.’ (Time, 1968) Nigeria gained independence on 1st October 1960 and officially became a republic three years later. Fast forward another four years, and the country had dissolved into civil war.

This was partly due to economic imbalance and already existing ethnic conflict as Nigeria was largely divided. There were three main geographic regions, each controlled by an ethnic group. The west was controlled by Yoruba people, the east by Igbo people and the north by Hausa-Fulani people—and Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa are three of the biggest ethnic groups in Nigeria to this day. The south felt that the north had too much power and the north were worried that the south was going to try and take their power. Add the electional boycott of December 1964 and Nigeria was a recipe for disaster. The country dissolved into a civil war just three years later in July 1967, with the Nigerian federal government fighting against the Republic of Biafra—a secessionist state that had once been Eastern Nigeria.

The war was 30 months long and left long-lasting scars, with millions of people losing their lives and the Igbo people particularly being largely affected. In fact, some historians argue that the Biafran War was not just a Nigerian civil war but also a genocide of the Igbo people.

Genocide is defined as ‘the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group, with the intent of destroying that nation or group.’ It’s the latter part of this definition that is the source of the caution held by some historians to refer to the war as a genocide. It’s undeniable that the death toll among the Igbo people was high, and much of the blood spilled was on the hands of soldiers fighting on the side of federal Nigeria (whether through direct slaughter or starvation) but some question whether the Nigeria actually intended to completely destroy the Igbo nationality.

However, the war wasn’t the only time in Nigerian history that Igbo people had been targeted and slaughtered. Nigeria had, before gaining independence, been controlled by the British Empire and the British designed Nigeria to favour the north in an unbalanced hierarchy that placed the Igbos and other eastern Nigerians at the bottom. The North was more populated than both of the other two regions (East and West) put together and on this basis, they were given increased political power. This only worsened once Nigeria gained independence. There was constant disagreement and animosity between the regions, which only served to create tension and reduce the stability of the country as a whole.

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In January 1966, multiple northern Nigerian politicians were killed by a military coup led mostly by Igbo officers. This coup was opposed by other army officers and a military government was established, led by Igbo officer Johnson Thomas Umunnwake Aguiyi-Ironsi. The Northerners worried that the Igbo people had set out to take control of Nigeria so, in response to this, Northern officers carried out a countercoup. This was the July 1966 Anti-Igbo pogrom, during which 180 Igbo army members were killed. From the recount of Achebe, a Biafran who witnessed these events, ‘if it had ended there, the matter might have been seen as a very tragic interlude in nation building, a horrendous tit for tat.’ But the Northerners then turned on the Igbo civilians who lived in the North, killing several thousand women and children. Hundreds of thousands of Igbo were wounded, their homes burned, their property stolen. These massacres spread, peaking in May, July and September and October, ultimately resulting in the death of 30,000 Igbo people. More than a million Igbos returned to the eastern region because of these mass killings, and it was only a few months after this that Ojukwu—the military governor of Eastern Nigeria—declared Eastern Nigeria as an independent state named the Republic of Biafra.

Unfortunately, the federal government interpreted this as an act of rebellion and fighting broke out in early July. It took a matter of weeks for this fighting to turn into a full-scale war. The military government invaded Biafran territory in July 1967, kickstarting the 30 month long civil war. Hundreds of thousands of Easterners lost their lives, killed by starvation and federal soldiers. From July 1967, Nigeria Radio (based in Lagos, the capital city at the time) repeatedly broadcasted a war song in Hausa, the lyrics of which translated to, ‘Let us go and crush them. We will pillage their property, ravish their womenfolk, murder their menfolk, and complete the pogrom of 1966.’ These acts were indeed carried out by Nigerian soldiers when they reached Igbo villages and towns. In addition to this, a scrapbook recovered from a Nigerian soldier—Ganiyu Sodeinde Bori—detailed the orders his battalion commander would repeat to soldiers in his unit. ‘what all sons and daughters of Nigeria should do was not only to subjugate Biafra but at the same time to ensure that a new generation of Biafrans does not rise up to perpetuate their race. He commanded us to kill every Biafran we meet.’

The International Committee of the Red Cross reported that, in September 1968, 8,0000 to 10,000 people were starving to death daily as a result of the Biafran war.

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Nigerian federal leaders even admitted that they used starvation as a deliberate war tactic with one commander saying outright: ‘I want to prevent even one Igbo having one thing to eat before their capitulation.’ The Nigerian government prevented imports and barred food and medicine as well as other supplies civilians needed from entering Biafra, and many Biafran citizens suffered from kwashiorkor—a disease brought on by a severe lack of protein. Roughly one million people died as a direct consequence of this blockade but this, unfortunately, wasn’t the only way Igbo people were targeted. Mass Igbo killings took place in Benin and Asaba, the latter of which had federal troops ordering all male Igbos (including young boys) to be murdered. Biafrans were also rounded up and killed in the open by machine guns in both towns. As recalled by a survivor of this mass slaughter: ‘There was hardly any family in Asaba that was not touched.’

In the midst of the civil war, in December 1968, the American Jewish Congress wrote a memo titled ‘The Tragedy of Biafra’ which concluded with: ‘...these speeches, which are all recorded in the Parliamentary pamphlets of the Northern Government, and also the formation of the Sardauna Bridge in the region of incitement... I find it difficult to believe that the acts of atrocities directed against peoples of Biafra origin were not premeditated, centrally directed, and did not contain motives such as the extermination of these people, or the denial of their right of existence, or the intention to physically destroy them.’

The deliberate starvation of the Biafran population, the brutal murders that took place in the region and the bombing of civilian areas clearly shows the intent of the Nigerian government at destroying the Igbo people. The Igbo people were victims of genocide and not talking about it isn’t going to make that go away. They are still dealing with the scars of the war to this day. We cannot change the past, but we can change the future, and I can only hope the suffering of the Igbos is given the recognition in history that it deserves. The surviving Igbo people do not have the luxury of simply discounting and forgetting this genocide—they have no choice but to remember. I implore you to do the same.

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How Effective was Fear as a Tool used by the Soviet Union to Maintain Order?

By Lucas Argent

John F Kennedy famously said, “Democracy may not be perfect, but at least I don’t have to build a wall to keep my people in”, and in doing so, he raised the question of how the Soviet Union controlled their population, and alluded that fear was their only way to do so. This essay will explore that claim and look at what life was like in the Soviet Union and whether the average person was only subordinate to the regime because of a fear to do anything else, or if the Soviet Union was successfully able to use propaganda and convince their population to fall into line.

The Soviet Union in the 1980s was a system of variated Marxism. This meant that it was a one-party state, the communist party, and there were no private companies, meaning that everyone was employed by the state. This gave the government a large degree of economic control more so than in the West. As an average Soviet, this meant that you would be employed by the state, and there wouldn’t be much freedom of job opportunity, with many people often being forced into certain areas. It is also important to establish the fears of an average Soviet person so that we can see how the Soviet Union exploited these fears to control the population. The main two fears of an average Soviet citizen can be identified as the threat of prison, due to the appalling conditions, and loss or change of employment, as this could send individuals or families already struggling to get by over the brink and into poverty.

The threat of imprisonment was one of the main tools used by the Soviet Union to maintain power, more so than in most other countries, due to the prison system. One of the most prevalent ways in which we can see this is the use of prison camps in the form of Gulags. These Gulags were heavy labour camps, and it is estimated that there were more than 30,000 camps, each with up to 10,000 people in them. According to Atlantic 2020, Conditions in these camps were appalling and many prisoners died from overwork and malnutrition, and they estimated the death rate to be around 5%. Vera Golubeva, referenced as having spent 6 years in gulag camps said, “The KGB was openly committing crimes against humanity”. More than 18,000,000 people, according to History.com 2022, went through the gulag system and they were notorious throughout the Soviet Union and much of the western world for their inhumane conditions.

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This created mass fear within the Soviet Union and played a key role in suppressing the Soviet population. This is as common people in Russia could very easily be sent to the gulags without a fair trial for being disloyal to the communist party or protesting. Most people, faced with such harsh punishments for the smallest crimes, or simply expressing their freedoms, would rather live in an oppressive system than work 14-hour days of hard labour, with their acts likely having no change. Because of this, people were far less likely to commit crimes, because they would gain almost nothing and would stand to lose a lot. We can be sure that the people in the Soviet Union were aware of the gulags, and that they created fear, from an interview with Anne Applebaum, a Washington Post columnist and author of Gulag: A History, where she said “fear weighed heavily on those who remained” In this sense the Soviet Union used the threat of extreme and violent punishment to create fear in their population allowing them, to suppress revolution and maintain power. This was an incredibly important factor, as it would have massively disincentivised most people from participating in crime, in particular, protests and expressing their freedoms and rights we take for granted in the west. This would have made maintaining order far easier in the Soviet Union.

In the Soviet Union, all employment was allocated through the government, as there weren’t private companies that would allow workers to choose their career paths. The government of the USSR would allocate jobs to people depending on the level and field of their education. This gave the government of the Soviet Union great power over their citizens, as people didn’t get a say in what job they did and were simply working where they were stationed, without the ability to leave or change fields. As a result of this, the government was very easily able to fire people or change them into less influential positions if they did the slightest thing wrong. According to the UN 2021, the GDP per capita of the Soviet Union in 1990, once converted to USD was $3,891, which shows that the average soviet citizen would not have been financially stable, even with a good job, and loss of income for even a few months could be devastating for a family, as they may not have been able to afford necessities such as food. The ability of the government to suddenly take away a household’s income was a terrifying prospect, for the Soviet citizens.

This would have been made worse as almost everyone worked, so if someone committed small crimes, not deserving of the Gulags they would still be punished severely. This would strongly discourage people from committing crimes as it could mean a change of job and a massive loss of income, which for the reasons above would be devastating.

This is also an incredibly important factor as it gave the government large amounts of power over everyone, regardless of any other factors, and gave them a way to punish people for minor insubordination, further allowing the government to grip the state.

Finally, the Soviet Union instigated fear in their citizens by limiting free speech and having widespread informants within the population making even expressing your opinion to close friends incredibly risky. Although the Soviet Union always maintained that they ensured Free speech for their citizens, as can be seen in the Soviet Constitution, adopted on October 7 1977 article 50, “citizens of the USSR are guaranteed freedom of speech”,

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this was far from the case, and immediately after the October revolution in 1917, freedom of speech and press was limited by the Decree on the Press, which banned the press to call for resistance, and gave the USSR the power to temporarily and permanently stop publications. To enforce these strict laws, prohibiting people from expressing counterrevolutionary ideas, even within their own homes, the Stasi, East German Secret Police, employed (according to Amnesty, 2015) at least 174,000 informants within the general population of East Germany which would equate to 2.5% of the working population.

This created fear in the general population as they couldn’t trust anyone or express their opinions anywhere, as they didn’t know who was and wasn’t working for the government and could send them to the Gulags. This is portrayed well in the Film, The Lives of Others, which, although fiction, brings to light the level of surveillance within East Germany. This can be backed up by speaking to Berlin Tour Guides, and those who visited the East, who still say it was like two planets in one city and that whilst you were in the East you felt as though you were being watched. In addition to this, they said that one key difference, still to this day, between former East and West Berliners, is that people from the East, were and are usually far less likely to give out personal information, for fear that they were talking to an informant and could end up in a prison camp if the Stasi could locate them. This clearly demonstrates fear within the Soviet Union and Eastern Block populations, which still affects them to this day.

However, there are many examples where the Soviet use of fear has failed to maintain order. One of the major examples of this was the Solidarity movement in Poland. According to Britannica, in 1976, after thousands of workers were denied the right to strike, and arrested and incarcerated, a group, known as the Workers Defence Committee, or the KOR, came to prominence, helping the workers and their families who were being unfairly suppressed, and in 1980, following rising food prices and increasing strikes, Solidarity, a Polish Trade Union was Founded. Solidarity had more than 10,000,000 members in early 1981 and represented most of the Polish Working Class. In spite of increasing pressure from the Polish Government, the organization continued to run and protect the rights of the Polish People to the best of its ability. Consequently, facing mounting pressure directly from Moscow himself, Jaruzelski, the leader of the Polish Government, imposed martial law and arrested all major leaders within the Solidarity movement. Yet this still wasn’t enough, and throughout the 1980s, the Solidarity movement continued underground and continued the fight for workers’ rights and protections across the Soviet Union. As the end of the Soviet Union neared an end in 1988, further unrest spread amongst the Polish populous, and strikes were happening all across Poland, intending to force the government to recognise the Solidarity Union again, and eventually, their demands were met, with the first free elections in Poland coming in June 1981, were candidates that Solidarity had endorsed won the election by some distance. This led to Walesa, one of the key Solidarity Leaders, becoming the Polish President in 1990. This case shows a clear case where, no matter what the Soviet Government did, and no matter how many people they arrested or silenced, the will of the Polish people came through, and demonstrated that fear and oppression were not fool proof methods to subdue the Soviet and Eastern Block populations.

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Another key example where the Soviet Use of fear failed to work was the falling of the Berlin Wall, in 1989. Since the wall had been erected in 1961, oppression East of the wall had only grown, with more than 130 people who tried to escape being, killed by border guards or died in other ways attempting to cross the border. However, as the Soviet Union weakened throughout the 1970s and 80s, in spite of the Hard-Line Stalinist leader of East Germany, Erich Honecker, and continued oppression against protests, the East German people continued to strive for the ability to cross the border into West Berlin.

Right up until the wall fell on the 9th of November, it was incredibly difficult to cross the border, with strict requirements having to be met, yet the East German people all in essence forced the borders open, even willing to risk their lives in some cases, and their freedom in others.

In conclusion, I think that fear up until the fall of the Soviet Union was a vastly important factor to maintain order and worked incredibly effectively to do so. The Soviet State clearly oppressed the people to a very large degree and was able to punish people terribly with the use of the gulags, or in more subtle ways, such as cutting their likely already meagre pay and potentially condemning entire families to days of hunger for minor crimes. The constant threat of these punishments, combined with the widespread informants, clearly created a culture within the Soviet Union where citizens were afraid to speak up for their rights or criticise the government at all. Although, as the Soviet Union fell cases such as that of Solidarity and the fall of the Berlin Wall showed how fear did not totally control the Soviet and Eastern Block populations, and in fact, they weren’t afraid to protest and run underground organizations. However, when considering these cases, it is also important to take into account that they happened late on in the Soviet Union, once the systems of power had already begone to crumble, and change almost seemed inevitable within the countries.

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My Family in Uganda

By Veer Gill

In this essay, I will be writing about oppression of Indian ethnic minorities and corruption in the African country; Uganda – specifically in the year of 1972. This essay is based around what my great grandfather (“Bapuji”) has previously told me about how life was at the time. However, I am going to begin by giving you a little background into what happened. On the 4th of August 1972 Idi Amin (the president of Uganda) announced that he was giving people originating from South Asia living in the country 90 days to leave. In short, he expelled a figure of 80,000 people in the country from the lives and livelihoods they had.

Firstly, let us explore why so many South Asians had moved to Uganda. During the British colonisation of Uganda and India, many Indians (including my Bapuji) were brought into Uganda by the British to build railroads and serve in commerce and administrative roles. My Bapuji and my great uncle (“mama”) were living in Uganda from the 1930s to 1972. I talked to them, and these are the key points I gathered. My Bapuji was born in India during the British rule and came to Uganda in 1933 (at the age of 3). My Bapuji was 42 in 1972. My Bapuji had built a decent life in Uganda for him and his family. He started a small grocery business before gradually working towards a shop ‘the size of Tesco’s!’ My mama told me that life in Uganda was exciting and very family orientated - a considerable amount of time was spent outdoors playing football, cricket, and other sports. The Indians learnt the local language Swahili and had built good relationships with the Ugandans.

In 1946, Amin joined the military. He was then deployed to Somalia in 1949. He began to work his way up through the ranks to ‘effendi,’ the highest position for a Black soldier in the military before finally becoming head of the army and air force in 1966. During this time Amin grew his alliance with Ugandan President Obote and was requested to kill King Metusa II in South Uganda some years later, Amin hadn’t killed the King and Obote grew suspicious – and whilst enroute to Singapore and away from the country, ordered Amin’s arrest, however, Amin began a coup and became president, exiling Obote in the process. Amin was often described as ‘ruthless’ and ‘brutal’ (known as the ‘butcher of Uganda’). His reign was a forceful eight-year regime in which an estimated 300,000 Ugandans were murdered. He began murdering anyone who was loyal to Obote in the lead up to the expulsion. After becoming president, he became resentful of the Indians and how they played such a large part in the Ugandan economy. A Muslim, he is believed to have been told by God (in a dream) to expel all Asians from the country. He said that the Asians were “sabotaging Uganda’s economy, deliberately retarding economic progress, fostering widespread corruption and treacherously refraining from integrating in the Ugandan way of life.” As a result, he announced that all Asians had no more than 90 days to leave the country.

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On the 4th of August 1972, my Bapuji and his family received the news that their whole life would be turned upside down; they had 90 days to leave the country they had built their life in. Initially, they tried to wait it out, and hoped that the situation would improve. However, the situation did not improve. In fact, they waited 3 months, unsure of what their fate may be. I can only imagine what life would have been like with all those uncertainties hanging around their future. Those 90 days they were given to leave were painful. With just 5 days left they had no choice but to leave. After swiftly packing their bags, extremely early in the morning my Bapuji, and his young children prepared to enter the taxi when they were confronted by people who worked at their shop. John, who had been close to the family up to that point, turned up at their home in the middle of the night and drunk. He began cursing everyone in the family, calling them names the children had never heard of, and saying Indians had taken their livelihoods. Luckily, my Bapuji was very calm, and John eventually left. However, they decided they needed to leave and in the early hours of next morning the got a taxi and drove off to Kampala (Uganda’s capital). The drive was long however, as they grew closer to the airport, the horrific sight of dead bodies by the road caused terror. There were checkpoints at every two miles in which Amin’s troops were searching Indians and confiscating any valuables.

It was ‘like you were packages.’ Asians were only allowed to leave with £55. In the picture below, you can see Soroti, where my Bapuji lived and their drive to Kampala (the Capital) and the airport.

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Afterwards, My Bapuji, mama and the rest of my family moved to England. They had British Passports, and it was the obvious option. Life was not easy. They were housed initially in Faldingworth camp in Lincolnshire for 2 months, awaiting permanent resettlement. They were not supposed to come to Leicester, however, due to their elderly mother they were permitted. Straightaway, they looked for jobs. The first few years of settling in the UK was tough as they were starting again from scratch. My grandmother (Nani) was only 16 years old, and her two sisters and a brother were also similarly young. They struggled in a small house in which the family were cramped into, and I could see from the way the spoke that it was extremely hard. My mama worked in the imperial typewriter company in Leicester. He bought his first house for £200 combining the money from the family.

The women of the family began working in textiles factories. The average wage was £16 a week. Then my mama became a bus driver working 60 hours a week and earning £2.80 an hour (£168 a week). My Bapuji worked in a shoe factory. When I asked the pair how they were treated in England, they said they were treated well, however, on several occasions, they were racially abused, but they stayed focused on working and building their lives in England.

Immediately after the South Asians left, the Ugandan economy plummeted. The Asians had been key to keeping the economy afloat, and following the expulsion, Uganda’s poverty rate increase in many areas of the country. Amin wasted state resources on expanding the army, doubling the size twice. Many have different opinions on this, however, it seemed to me that Amin’s reaction was driven by emotion and racial motivations, and not about the health and prosperity of his nation. For more than 6 years, the Ugandan economy was in disarray, until, luckily coffee, which Uganda had been harvesting on a large scale was in higher demand in Europe. This was key for Uganda as they began to rebuild their economy.

Reflecting on his life since moving to Uganda all those years ago, my Bapuji sums it up by saying he was ‘lucky.’ I hope you have enjoyed the story of my Bapuji in Uganda.

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Review: Why Ireland Starved: A Quantitative and Analytical History of the Irish Economy, 1800-1850’

By Nikhil Dewan ‘Why Ireland Starved: a Quantitative and Analytical History of the Irish Economy, 1800-1850’ by Joel Mokyr is a fascinating insight into the causes of the Irish Famine and poverty, which has been debated amongst historians since the nineteenth century. The Irish Famine was one of the worst natural disasters to occur in the past 300 years, leading to the death of 1.5 million people and directly causing the emigration of more than 2 million people between 1845-55. It was caused by the failure of the potato crop due to a blight in 1846 and successive years, which eliminated the source of the 60% of the population’s food. However, there were several underlying causes associated with the economy, which Mokyr delves into.

The Irish Famine is a topic which has not been extensively researched from a mathematical, economical or historical standpoint, and Mokyr successfully approaches this matter from all three perspectives. There is little primary data in this topic, and Mokyr uses a combination of ‘a priori’ and ‘a posteriori evidence’, including witness testimonies, census data, and price levels, to justify and test his hypothesis. Mokyr devotes each chapter to each cause, and thoroughly explains whether he agrees with the general consensus given amongst historians, before coming to a fitting conclusion where he discusses his personal opinion and the problem of analysing a topic like this.

In this book review, I will analyse three of the factors that he discusses, to give an overview about the contents of the book, as well as information I have collated from various other sources and reading.

One factor that supposedly caused the Irish Famine was the issue of overpopulation.

Overpopulation can defined in several ways, but arguably the most fitting definition is that overpopulation occurs when the marginal productivity of labour is zero, meaning an extra workers fails to increase productivity.

According to Thomas Malthus, an eighteenth century economist and philosopher, population growth always outstrips food supply, leading to a decline in living standards, and eventually natural (e.g. famines or epidemics) or preventative (e.g. marriage, chastity or moral restraint) checks on population growth until the subsistence level is reached.

This is because as population increases, food supply needs to increase in order to sustain the needs of the population. This means that more land needs to be cultivated for agriculture, but the land which is most suited for agriculture has already been used, and so ‘marginal land’ needs to be cultivated instead, leading to a decline in the marginal productivity of labour, with the extra output of food declining over time.

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Therefore, living standards fall as the cultivated and available land per worker declines as population increases, known as the law of diminishing marginal returns. In 1817, in a letter to economist David Ricardo, Malthus said that “the land in Ireland is infinitely more peopled than in England; and to give full effect to the natural resources of the country a great part of the population should be swept from the soil.” Malthusian economists thus blamed the famine on the inability of the Irish farmers and peasants to have less children, despite their poor living standards, which led to an increase in the birth rate and making famine inevitable.

This suggests that in order for Malthusian economists’ hypothesis to be right, after the Irish Famine, there needed to be an increase in income per capita, and a decrease in the amount of marginal land cultivated. In Mokyr’s tests, he finds that Irish counties with greater population per acre did not have lower income per capita, and thus concludes that there is no “significant relation between poverty and population pressure variables.”

The slight increase in income per capita from 1850-75 is attributed to a shift in the structure of the economy and a rise in agricultural prices. Furthermore, the total area under cultivation increased from 13.5m acres in 1841 to 15.7m acres in 1871, and so issue of overpopulation and the availability of the cultivated land did not have a significant impact on the Irish economy.

Cormac Ó Gráda also ascertains that before the famine, Irish birth rates were decreasing before the Famine, and an increase in emigration helped to slowly relieve the pressure on the economy: if the potato blight had not occurred, the Irish population and economy would have been sustainable, leading to a rejection of the hypothesis that overpopulation was the main cause of the Irish Famine.

Another factor that caused the Irish Famine was geography and natural resources. In order to approach this topic, you first have to define poverty as the vulnerability of an economy to exogenous shocks, and in the specific case of Ireland, the probability of starvation. If Irish poverty was caused by geographical factors, this meant that the economy was extremely vulnerable to a natural disaster such as the potato blight, and hence was the factor behind the Irish Famine.

Ireland had a lack of suitable coalfields and iron ore, which meant that it was unable to undergo an industrial revolution experienced by other West European economies in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. According to the Parliamentary Papers in 1837-8, there were significant amounts of coal in Ireland, but it was of such poor quality that it was unable to be used efficiently in manufacturing on a large scale. This meant that Ireland either had to import coal from England, or use other sources of energy that were less efficient. Mokyr calculates that there was a 10% cost differential between Ireland and England, and this means that the profit rate was significantly higher in England compared to Ireland. An increase in cost of production means that goods produced in Ireland would be less price competitive than in other countries such as Belgium and Britain, and thus industry would not be able to expand, leading to a decrease in output

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and a lack of technological advancements, and therefore no industrial revolution, and the economy would be more exposed to exogenous shocks.

However, this is limited because the hypothesis holds only ceteris paribus. Wages in Ireland were considerably lower, and this research is corroborated by Kane, who concluded that in a hypothetical transference of a Belfast flax mill to England, in one year, fuel costs would be £22.5 cheaper, but wage costs would be £60 higher. Furthermore, expensive coal in Ireland was offset by the use of water power and peat, which Ireland was well suited for due to large amounts of precipitation, mild temperatures, and large differences in elevation. According to Mokyr, peat was cheaper enough and had many uses, such as for blast furnaces, distilleries and brickmaking, that Ireland could have “developed a peat-based industrial sector if other factors had permitted it.”

This suggests that Irish poverty was caused by factors other than mineral endowments, because although Ireland had a limited supply of coal and iron, there were vast quantities of substitutes that would have enabled them to industrialise, reducing the risk of famines and starvation.

A final factor that caused the Irish Famine was a lack of entrepreneurship and capital, due to the conflict between tenants and landlords.

In Ireland, there were two groups of people that had the opportunity to invest, but chose not to. There were entrepreneurs who had excellent investment opportunities but were unable to do so due to a lack of resources and external finance. At the same time, there were others who owned considerable resources but lacked investment opportunities, and this means that although there were sufficient resources and investment opportunities in the Irish economy, there was lack of capital as resources and investment opportunities did not coincide with each other.

A lack of capital was witnessed in the agricultural sector of the Irish economy, in particular, a lack of fertiliser. Most fertiliser was taken up by the demand of the potato crop, and fertiliser was the limiting factor in food production. According to Mokyr, small farmers were unable to invest enough in soil fertilisation because they “could neither raise enough cattle nor borrow to buy sufficient quantities of fertiliser.” Landlords were the most likely candidate to procure the sum required to invest into fertiliser and agriculture, but often did not due to an inability to see long-term returns as they did not trust their tenants. Farmers could also chose to switch to a mixed farming system where ‘green crops’ and ‘white crops’ were alternated, to increase the output of food and fertiliser simultaneously. However, this system required “considerable expenditure in deep field draining, and marling and liming to reduce soil acidity.” Ireland’s inability to generate

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Irish poverty was thus not caused by the quantity of land, but instead the methods in which the land was farmed and quantity and quality of inputs excluding the quantity of labour and land. An improvement and increase in nonhuman resources, through investment into the land and industry, could have increased output to enable industrialisation and the modernisation of agriculture to successfully occur in Ireland, which would have reduced the vulnerability of the economy to famine. This leads to the conclusion that the Irish poverty and the following famine was caused by a lack of capital and investment into their economy during a time of need.

Overall, I would highly recommend this book to anyone planning to study History or Economics at A-level (especially history), and will give you a significant boost in your studies, due to the significant overlap with the A-level syllabus. Although it is tough to read, it is fascinating to study, in substantial depth, the nineteenth century, a period attributed to sustained economic growth and industrialisation throughout the world, from a negative perspective of the failure of the Irish economy.

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“Study the past if you would define the future.”

- Confucius

TIMELINE 2024

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