Englishness

In Our Time: Culture

BBC

History

4.6 • 978 Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2000

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the characteristics of the English identity. “An Englishman’s word is his bond”, “An Englishman’s home is his castle”. “England is a nation of shopkeepers”, but also “the most exclusive club there is”. To Cecil Rhodes to be an Englishman was to have “won first prize in the lottery of life” but to Jonathan Swift the English were “the most pernicious race of odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth”. Organised, effete, cruel, brave, inventive, determined …Who are the English? And when, how and in what heat was their English identity forged? Britain has now the highest percentage of inter-racial marriages in the world. Does that say as much about the English as their previously branded characteristics of gravity, sense of order, domesticity and propriety? What was Englishness and is it possible now to define it in anything more than the loosest and baggiest terms?With Paul Langford, Professor of Modern History, University of Oxford; Peter Mandler, Professor of Modern History at London Guildhall University; Professor Lola Young Director of the National Museum and Archives of Black History and Culture.

Transcript

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0:45.0	Hello an Englishman's word is his bond they say an Englishman's home is his castle
0:49.9	England is a nation of shopkeepers but also the most exclusive club there is.
0:55.0	To settle Rhodes, to be an Englishman was to have won the first prize in the lottery of life,
1:00.0	but to Jonathan Swift, the English were the most pernicious race of odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.
1:08.0	Organised defeat, cruel, inventive, brave, determined, who are the English, and when, how, and in what heat
1:16.1	was their English identity forged.
1:19.0	As we approached the First St George's Day of the New Century, I'm joined by Professor Paul Langford, author of Englishness
1:24.8	identified manners and character from 1650 to 1850.
1:28.9	By Peter Mandler, Professor of Modern History at London Guildhall University, and by Professor Loe Young, Director of the National
	...

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