Sites of British History: The Revival, Creation, and Unmaking of a National Narrativ

This dissertation is a study of public heritage in Great Britain, specifically engaging the intersection of commemoration practices and preservation campaigns, while also considering both heritage tourism and urban planning. Organized as a biography of place, this project explores how locations where significant events took place come to be viewed as heritage sites. The project is framed around case studies of six sites where notable events occurred. The story told in this dissertation begins during the Victorian period, a time that saw both the foundation of modern preservation and the democratization of tourism. Unique to the Victorian experience was its historical consciousness that resulted in two concurrent efforts of commemoration: one a revival of events from centuries past and another of contemporary events deemed historically significant. A third formulation also saw modern Britons systematically exclude places in an effort to erase unseemly aspects of its national narrative. This work shows how various actors in Britain---from the national government and regional councils to private organizations and interested individuals---engineered the British national memory.;While previous scholars have considered the first preservation movements in the late nineteenth century and others focus on Great War memorialization, this project examines sites from the Victorian period through the postwar era. This project considers heritage sites omitted from the first generation of British historic preservation, namely battlefields (Hastings, Bosworth), sites of political episodes (Runnymede, Peterloo), and world's fairgrounds (Crystal Palace, Great White City). Modern Britons did not approach heritage sites uniformly, and tension often existed as opposing interest groups contested stewardship. In all three genres of heritage sites, one location developed through commemorations and tourism, while the other simultaneously faltered. In other words, the project explores the evolution of a heritage site along with a following chapter about an "anti-site." Ultimately, the project concludes that modern socio-political environments resulted in the revival, creation, or erasure of a heritage site.