An occassional blog dedicated to further exploring the historical context behind Downton Abbey, as well as encouraging debate over the historical context/interpretation of the programme as a whole. Beware of spoilers.
Scene from the Irish war of Independence.
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Bloody Sunday (1920)
This was a particularly violent day during the Irish War of Independence.
The Irish Republican Army (IRA) under the intelligence leadership of Michael Collins (pictured above) planned to assassinate upwards of fifty British intelligence personnel in Dublin. This number was reduced to thirty five by the time the murders were carried out on November 21, 1920. Included in this was the Cairo Gang, a group of high ranking british intelligence officers. Ultimately thirteen were killed in a series of coordinated attacks, including two members of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), the police force that acted as the British force in Ireland.
In retaliation, the RIC planned to seek out men responsible at a football match taking place at Croke Park. Arriving at the stadium, police claimed to see armed IRA members and began shooting. Some police claimed to be fired on first. These claims proved false, the men outside the stadium were merely ticket sellers.
The RIC moved into the stadium, shooting wildly by the admission of their own leaders. In the end, fourteen were killed and dozens wounded. Men, women, and children were among the dead and wounded. As a final act of violence, three Irish prisoners held by the British in Dublin Castle were supposedly tortured and killed.
The RIC quickly acted to cover up the incident at Croke Park, claiming that its police had been under attack and had been firing at known IRA members. The incident turned most Irish against the British and even some British were disgusted by the actions of the RIC. Two official British inquests found the RIC to be completely at fault, but these results were suppressed for another eighty years.
Here’s the interview where Fellowes talks about Sybil being based on Lady Constance Lytton.
Thanks so much to Ingrid (aka the Norwegian Nancy Drew) for finding this for me! Was driving me mad.
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Trigger warnings.
The Wellcome Gallery, as per usual, has some great online content: the relatively new phenomenon/increased emphasis regarding medical inspection is explored here. Look particularly at the “Gas Fiend” cartoon. Also the cross-section from the lung poisoning from phosgene shell poisoning might be interesting for William Mason fans.
The mental effects of battle is an incredibly interesting section relating to shell shock and more generally to the mental effects of war. Also regarding the kind of makeshift soup kitchen Mrs Bird and Mr Molesley set up, this poster in particular supplies us with relevant context.
If you have a stronger constitution than I there are videos on “War Neuroses” as treated by Netley hospital in 1917.
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The Wellcome Collection here has a variety of slide-shows regarding their previous exhibit “Remembering War”. Of particular interest is From Shell Shock to PTSD and, especially in reference to later episodes of series 2 and series 3, The Visual Culture of Remembrance.
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(Please note, this is only from a quick Google search, but thought it relevant seeing that the rewatch of 1x03 was yesterday. If anyone has anything more to add— especially on attitudinal aspects of rape— please let me know). I’ll also post this to DA History.
Legislation
Traditionally, rape as a crime in English law in that the victim was required to “prove a continued state of physical resistance”. The penalty of rape was death, as outlined in the 1828 Offenses Against the Person Act.
In the “long nineteenth century” there were very few incidences of stranger rape (though, vitally, we need to take into account issues over the actual reporting of rape in this period- many women may have not come forward). Yet rates increased in war time
Attitudes
“She [Prof Joanna Bourke] painstakingly describes the rape myths that have allowed perpetrators to “get away with it”, such as the 19th-century theory that you can’t rape a woman who resists (“It is impossible to sheath a sword into a vibrating scabbard,” as one 19th-century judicial textbook declared)” source
A century ago, the gaps of experience and expectations may have made forced sex a commonplace occurrence at the start of a marriage. “What takes place often amounts to nothing more or less than rape,” the psychiatrist Leopold Loewenfeld bluntly said in 1913. That he said it at all, and with that word, was the sign of a shifting awareness of the secret traumas of sexual life. Bourke argues that changing possibilities of linguistic expression are not just outward signs of what’s going on but actively shape what is thought and experienced. source
The book [Rape: A History from 1860 to the Present] launches a disciplined and chilling account of the many shocking ways that “experts” - doctors, academics, scientists, lawyers and campaigners - have “explained” not all rape, as the title suggests, but Anglo-American-Australian rape. Many such “theories” have been versions of the staggering view, endlessly rehearsed, that it is women who are really responsible for rape. For most of the 19th century it was believed that it was impossible to rape an unwilling woman - that somehow her thighs would have got in the way, or her subconscious was “willing”, whatever her voice said source
Also please see the sexuality tag for wider context.
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The V & A museum has a very good introductory page over here
