Imperial Gothic: Religious Architecture and High Anglican Culture in the British Empire c....

Reviews / Journal of Historical Geography 44 (2014) 145e162 153

an ideal means of observing nature e and one often superior todried specimens or even on-sight observations e for the opportu-nity they afforded to compare the same plant over its life-cycle.Fuchs strove to make each picture ‘as complete as possible’ (abso-lutissima), an adjective he employed to denote completeness andperfection, which often meant in practice that pictures portrayedthe entire lifestyle of a plant (roots, stems, leaves, flowers, seeds,and fruit). Another period writer, Pietro Andrea Mattioli, arguedthat such perfection was impossible e no one could represent allthe changes of a living plant in one picture e and thus it wasinconceivable to gain true and precise mastery of medicinal simplesthrough pictures alone.

Renaissance humanist textual scholarship e which involvedboth a recovery of ancient texts and a renewal of the reading andwriting practices that produced them e has long been linked totransformations in period artistic practice. Kusukawa arguesconvincingly in part 2 that naturalist scholars who embraced hu-manist ideals of scholarship did not always share similar viewsregarding the role of visual representations in their work. Fuchs,Cornarius, and Mattioli were all-university educated physiciansmotivated by a shared humanist zeal for reviving the ancientknowledge of medicinal plants, yet they held diametrically opposedpositions on the use of pictures, views which they buttressed intypically humanist fashion by turning to the opinions of ancientauthors.

Attention to the role of images in the production and receptionof knowledge similarly adds an important element to studies ofbookish practices in the period. Kusukawa demonstrates that im-ages, too, were subject to bookish methods. Printers often left im-ages to be colored in by readers. Authors relied on note-slipscontaining images as they worked, and they used images as visualcommonplaces to organize their own reading. The sixteenth-century learned physician Thomas Lorkyn, for example, litteredmany of the 588 books he had in his possession at his death withannotations of printed text and images. Lorkyn included pictorialdetails to printed images of plants, added his own images in themargins of his books, and inserted textual comments highlightingspecific features of printed images.

Pictures, for Kusukawa’s early modern authors, ‘played a rolemuch more fundamental and wide-ranging’ than what we asmodern readers might imagine (p. 250). Not merely illustrative,nor reflecting specific observations or observational practice,these pictures instead were mired in contemporary debate aboutthe nature of knowledge production and its transmission.Kusukawa suggests that any thesis which draws facile conclu-sions regarding what pictures reveal (or not) about changes inscientific thinking requires reexamination, for pictures not onlyrequired time, skill, technical expertise and financial means toproduce, but also occasioned fierce debate regarding their utilityand function. Fuchs and Vesalius were chosen by Kusukawa asthe foci of her study, ‘because they are the best known among theillustrated books of the period’ (p. 3), but Kusukawa hasmasterfully undermined our identification of these texts as ca-nonical examples of period use of illustration by demonstratingthat what is generally taken to be key and emblematic in them(namely a new attention to and the role of the visual) was inreality highly contested.

Renée J. RaphaelUniversity of California, Irvine, USA

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2014.02.017

G.A. Bremner, Imperial Gothic: Religious Architecture and HighAnglican Culture in the British Empire c. 1840e1870. New Haven,Yale University Press, 2013, xiv þ 484 pages, US$95 hardcover.

Global history is much in vogue these days, but few architecturalhistorians have ventured to think globally, preferring to focus theirattention within regional, national or, at best, continental or sub-continental boundaries. Now, however, Alex Bremner has chosento examine mid nineteenth-century Anglican church-buildingacross the whole of the worldwide imperial diaspora. The resultis a triumph of ground-breaking research and acute analysis thatwill fascinate and enlighten anyone seeking to understand thetransmission of British values and identity across the world, fromVictoria, British Columbia, to the state of Victoria in Australia, andfrom Cape Town to Calcutta.

Anglican churches were built in England’s colonies from thevery first days of overseas expansion, but Bremner takes as hisstarting-point the establishment of the Colonial Bishoprics Fund in1841 and the first consecration of colonial bishops in WestminsterAbbey in the following year. This initiative coincided with the for-mation of the Cambridge Camden Society, whose aim was toencourage the design of ‘correctly’ detailed Gothic churches for thedignified performance of the Anglican liturgy according to Trac-tarian principles. In 1841 the first volume of The Ecclesiologist, theSociety’s house journal, contained a design for a church in NewZealand, newly annexed to the empire, and within a few yearschurches built on Camdenian principles appeared in all the settlercolonies, some of them designed or executed by the clergy them-selves or even, in the case of the diocese of Cape Town, by thebishop’s wife. Many of them closely followed recent Englishmodels. So the church of St John the Baptist at Prosser Plains inTasmania (1847e1848) is a virtual clone of the church built onlytwo years before to the designs of R.C. Carpenter, the ‘AnglicanPugin’, at Cookham Dean in Berkshire, save only for its stone ratherthan flint walls. Other church builders looked directly back to themiddle ages for models; Christ Church Cathedral at Fredericton,New Brunswick, begun in 1845, is a convincing re-creation of thefourteenth-century cruciform church at Snettisham in Norfolk, andthe same model was used in the cathedral at Montreal(1857ec.1860).

Sometimes local conditions forced clergy and their architects toexperiment with new materials and new modes of design. NewZealand, for instance, suffers from earthquakes, as seen in therecent sad collapse of Sir Gilbert Scott’s cathedral at Christchurch.So at Otaki (1848e1852) the church was built of timber, using thetechniques developed over the centuries by Maori people. Thecathedral at Wellington (1865e1866) is also timber-built, its com-plex roof structure recalling the churches of E.B. Lamb in andaround London and anticipating the work of arts and crafts archi-tects such as Bernard Maybeck in California. In tropical countrieschurches needed to be cool and shady, leading to the developmentof what contemporaries called ‘speluncar’ (cave-like) buildingswith thickwalls and small windows, such as the church of All Saintsat Point-de-Galle in Sri Lanka (1861e1862) and the cathedral atAllahabad in India, designed in 1870 by William Emerson, one ofthe many able but little-known architects whose work is high-lighted by Bremner. One of the most poignant buildings in the bookis the church of St Barnabas in Norfolk Island, built in 1875e1880 toa design by the Oxford architect T.G. Jackson as a memorial to therecently murdered Bishop of Melonesia, but incorporating shell-work motifs by indigenous craftsmen. Here, as in the colonialchurches designed by such famous high Victorian architects asWilliam Butterfield andWilliam Burges, copyismwas abandoned infavour of the principle of ‘development’: the idea that Gothic

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should be a progressive style, adapting and changing according tothe needs of a changing world.

What did all this spate of church-building mean? Any Britishperson visiting the countries of the commonwealth cannot fail to bestruck by the uncanny sense of déjà vu that comes from finding afamiliar street name, or perhaps a cricket ground, in a totally un-expected setting thousands of miles from home; the same almostsurreal feelings are evoked by the sight of what looks like afourteenth-century village church in an Australian or a Canadiansuburb. Yet such buildings are not exotic anomalies; they are ex-pressions of culture and belief first transmitted by the bishops andclergy, who are the real heroes of this volume, and they helpedshape the character of large parts of today’s world. Bremner’ssuperbly illustrated and beautifully produced book has beenawarded the Society of Architectural Historians’ prize for the bestbook of the year e something it richly deserves. It will not onlyopen the eyes of readers to the architectural riches of the formerempire; it will deepen their understanding of the imperial legacyitself.

Geoffrey TyackUniversity of Oxford, UK

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2014.02.007

Shanti Sumartojo, Trafalgar Square and the Narration of Britishness,1900e2012: Imagining the Nation. Oxford, Peter Lang, 2013,x þ 216 pages, £40 paperback.

Since its completion in the mid nineteenth century, TrafalgarSquare has arguably become one of the most well-known publicspaces in the world. In this well-written and engaging book, ShantiSumartojo examines the square’s relationship to British nationalidentity through a series of detailed case studies from the pastcentury. Building on work by scholars such as Benedict Andersonand Michael Billig on the everyday construction of national iden-tities, Sumartojo’s book explores how various groups have usedTrafalgar Square as part of attempts to alter narratives of ‘British-ness’, and how the multiple uses of the square have reframed na-tional meanings implied by its built form. The book addresses aperiod of dramatic change in Britain, and the world more generally,which had inevitable implications for Britain’s notion and consti-tution of national identity. Beginning with the British Empire at itsheight, the book traces the history, interpretations, and uses ofTrafalgar Square through both world wars, the decline of the em-pire and the Cold War, and the rise of modern, multicultural Lon-don. Drawing upon Jeffrey Olick’s notion ‘that the relationshipbetween the national past and its present is best understood ashow the past is reconstructed for the purposes of the present’ (p.3e4), Sumartojo argues that interpretations of history are a keyelement of national identity. The multiple uses of Trafalgar Squareand its varied meanings make it an ideal site for exploring nationalidentity as a discursive process rather than a fixed object.

Sumartojo argues that Trafalgar Square is Britain’s nationalstage, and that groups seeking visibility are able to deploy thesquare’s familiarity for that purpose. This practice results, of course,in the square being used as a space of dissent by groups lacking inofficial power, and examples of this are comprehensively covered inSumartojo’s discussion. This is, to some extent, ground that hasbeen covered before, most notably in Rodney Mace’s TrafalgarSquare: Emblem of Empire (2005). Unlike Mace, however, Sumartojoaddresses more official attempts to construct particular ideas ofBritishness using Trafalgar Square, such as royal weddings,

coronations and funerals, and the celebration in 2005 of Londonwinning its bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games. Sumartojo’s morecomprehensive approach highlights the contentious and multipleuses and interpretations of the square, as well as emphasising theargument that there is no single interpretation of Britishness. Thisidea contributes to recent research on national identity; the bookproviding another example which supports the argument thatnational communities are flexible and multiple entities, constantlybeing negotiated and renegotiated by a range of actors.

Sumartojo’s case studies draw upon research in multiple ar-chives and includes a diverse range of events, from fundraisingand recruitment during both world wars, through protests by theSuffragettes and many other groups, to the more recent celebra-tion of religious festivals such as Diwali and Hanukkah. Theseexamplesdarranged in chronological order and divided intochapters according to different interpretations of Britishness thatwere being portrayed in the square at different stages during thetwentieth and early twenty first centuriesdare used to illustrateSumartojo’s arguments to considerable effect. The context of eachcase study is explained before the event is discussed, so the ar-guments of the book are accessible even if the reader is notfamiliar with the history of London or of Britain. The in-depthdiscussion of each of the case studies means this text is alsouseful for those studying the use of public space, as well as theeveryday construction of nationality.

One arguably key factor this is not addressed, however, is therelative levels of power that different groups using Trafalgar Squarehave enjoyed in promoting their understanding of Britishness.Whilst government control of the square and regulations overdemonstrations that take place there are mentioned, the implica-tions of these factors on the ability of different groups to success-fully promote their understanding of Britishness using the square isnot discussed. It is much easier for the Mayor of London, forexample, to hold an event in the square than it is for the Occupymovement, and precisely these power relations are overlooked inSumartojo’s otherwise comprehensive study. A further minor crit-icism relates to the photographs in the middle of the book which,although interesting, are not directly referred to at any point in thetext, making it somewhat tricky to relate each photograph with itsrelevant discussion in the book.

Thoughtful, thorough, and engaging, this book is a valuableaddition to the field. A sociologist by trade, Sumartojo neverthelessmakes clear and instructive use of geographical concepts, so thebook is a valuable addition to the reading list of any geographerworking on themes such as national identity, public space, orprotest and dissent.

Hannah AwcockRoyal Holloway, University of London, UK

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2014.02.008

John K.Walton and JasonWood (Eds), TheMaking of a Cultural Land-scape: The English Lake District as Tourist Destination, 1750e2010.Farnham, Ashgate, 2013, xv þ 276 pages, £70 hardcover.

There can be no doubting the significance of the English LakeDistrict as a cultural landscape nor its particular significance as atourism landscape. Not only does the Lake District epitomise thewider transformation of the countryside over the last two centuriesinto a place of touristic consumption, nowhere else, at least inBritain, is the interplay between nature, human intervention,artistic and literary interpretation, and the consequential