C O N T E X T 1 0 9 : M A Y 2 0 0 9 7 Conference report: Cambridge Victorian Studies Group Plunder and preservation The title of the Cambridge Victorian Studies Group conference in March was ‘From Plunder to Preservation: Britain and the “Heritage” of Empire, c1820 to c1940’. First-hand experience of empire is rare today. But only a generation or so back, states in western Europe wielded massive power in the affairs of numerous places as close to us as Ireland or as far from Europe as the South Seas. Other empires, Ottoman Turkey and Austro-Hungary, still ruled historic lands across great distances. These former empires relied on cultural power as well as on the strength of their armed forces. In the period (1820-1940), architecture, conservation, town planning and the emergent study of archaeology all had their parts to play in the exercise and duties of government throughout their empires. Matters debated today locally or nationally were debated globally by our predecessors. The debates were also two sided and sometimes involved more than mere exchanges of words. In 1857 an uprising in India was prompted in some respects by treatment by the imperial power to local sites of religious devotion. Nations that had become the subjects of 19th century and 20th century rule (Egypt, for example) had themselves formerly been the seats of empires. Further complications were religious in origin and due to the rivalry between western powers within colonial regions. Conference topics ranged from digs at Mayan sites in the forests of Central America to the geopolitics of the CrimeanWar, the British rules in Sudan and Jerusalem, and the 200 years of British India. Delegates learned about Captain Cook’s 18th century surveying in the Pacific and how much his navigation owed to the previous explorations of the native inhabitants in the South Seas. In late-imperial times and during more than a generation (1882–1922), Britain governed, or at least exerted a veiled protectorate in, Egypt. But, we learned, ‘Britain ruled the country, the French ran the antiquities service’. Throughout the era the British Museum and the Louvre competed to fill their galleries with the choicest objects from around the globe. They were soon joined by American museums in this pursuit. Mirrors were held up to England itself. The USA had sought assistance from Canada and the government in London to save Niagara Falls from natural and commercial exploitation. The success of this action led to an entente around 1900 between these countries that ultimately protected UK sites such as Shakespeare’s home in Stratford,Wordsworth’s Lake District and Thomas Carlyle’s house in Chelsea. Speakers saw the large-scale works to restore (or reconstruct) stretches of Hadrian’s Wall in the 19th century as symptomatic of the underlying ambition in British imperial attitudes. Graham Tite www.victorians.group.cam.ac.uk From ‘Outrage 20 years after’ by Ian Nairn, Architectural Review (1975) THE EARTH’S SURFACE is sacred and not to be abused – even, in the meanest terms, because if you do so abuse, it will turn round and bite you. City streets and national park and the deep blue sea are one thing. And, boy, will they bite hard, when they do. Urban violence and a fishless Mediterranean are part of the same process. Thanks, old Alexander: the proper study of mankind is man. In the 1720s it was a salutary reminder; in the 1970s it is a four-minute warning. We made this mess, and we have to sort it out. There’s nobody here but us chickens. The revolution has to come inside us: no flag-waving or machine guns. So that every single thing in the landscape happens with compassion – we have managed to debase the word love, which is quite an achievement. Every single thing, every paving stone, every fence post, every new town plan. And that without thinking the world to pieces. Can we do it? We’ve got to, mateys. It means altering – not just here, but everywhere – our laws, our attitudes (‘when did you stop cuddling your wife?’ ‘Sorry, me’lud, I never started’) and ourselves. As a pessimist I don’t think we can do it in time. As a loss leader prophet, we have to, or else. I wish I could care, in general I don’t. We aren’t various enough, humorous enough, compassionate enough – in general. The particular saw us through, before, whether it was Hawksmoor with gout or Mozart with debts or the thousands who went to their deaths in Lancasters and Halifaxes to restrain just one single lunatic. That time is over. It is self-heal or nothing. All I can do, personally, is echo Brendan’s immortal words: have a pint with what’s left over... and the best of luck to you.
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