In Memory, Heritage and Preservation and 20th-Century England, David Strittmatter explores the relationship between commemorative practices and England's “national narrative” (1). Focusing mainly on the period between World War I and the mid-1960s, the book is structured around case studies that examine six locations of historical significance: battlefields (the purported locations of the Battles of Hastings and Bosworth respectively), the sites of major political events (the signing of Magna Carta and the Peterloo Massacre), and the venues of international expositions (the Crystal Palace and the White City). Strittmatter's principal concern is how “the revival, creation, or erasure of heritage sites” operated “in service of promoting national identity” (1).
Each chapter presents a “biography of place” (1) that investigates individual sites’ histories and their implication in broader sociopolitical phenomena. The first case study traces the evolution of Hastings from a place of pilgrimage and the site of a stately home to becoming a location of diplomatic significance in the context of Britain and France's entente cordiale. Strittmatter notes the strategic use of language in a commemorative plaque that fashions the battlefield as a symbol of the “fusion of the English and Norman peoples” (50—51). Geopolitics likewise played into the shifting fortunes of Runneymede, the site where King John acceded to Magna Carta in 1215. Largely ignored until the interwar years, Runneymede became a cause célèbre when the UK government agreed to sell the site in 1921, before public backlash against this apparent affront to national pride led to the government reneging on the sale. As Strittmatter identifies, Runneymede subsequently played a role in Anglo-American relations, with British and American politicians alike making speeches recognizing Magna Carta's influence on the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. Symptomatic of this, the American Bar Association funded the rotunda memorial at Runneymede, and the site also houses a monument to John F Kennedy.
The commemorative functions of other sites analyzed by Strittmatter are more contested. Bosworth, as the site where Henry Tudor, a Welshmen, defeated the English monarch Richard III, was interpreted differently by respective interest groups representing people of Welsh and English heritage, which Strittmatter interprets as an example of “the fragmentation of British identity” (98). A confrontational memorial politics too is discernible in relation to Peterloo. While rapid urbanization effaced traces of the events of 1819 from central Manchester, the St Peter's site retained potency for social reformers, members of trades unions, and campaigners for the right to protest.
Peterloo's leftist associations contrasted with how the Crystal Palace was intended to cultivate patriotism and consensus. Built to house the 1851 Great Exhibition before being relocated to Sydenham, the Crystal Palace's Victorian grandeur remained a symbol of British triumphalism until its destruction by fire in 1936. Although originally built for similar purposes, Strittmatter argues that London's White City never replicated the Crystal Palace's lofty status in the national imagination. Originating as the venue for the 1908 Franco-Britain Exhibition and several subsequent World's Fairs, White City underwent a variety of uses, including as a greyhound track and a military training base, before giving way to a major council estate.
Memory, Heritage and Preservation and 20th-Century England is anchored in detailed primary research, often using material previously unstudied by other historians. Visual sources are used effectively. To cite one example, Strittmatter includes a railway poster with an image of a knight reclining on a deckchair as evidence of how tourist literature married emphases on military history with promoting Hastings as a seaside holiday destination. At times, however, the discussion of obscure sources detracts from the book's readability. Lengthy sections on the innerworkings of organizations such as the Ricardian Society and the Crystal Palace trustees feel self-contained and would benefit from opening a wider analytical lens.
Indeed, Strittmatter's engagement with existing scholarship is patchy. The introduction contains a brisk historiographical overview, but thereafter nods to key theories in the fields of heritage and memory studies (such as Eric Hobsbawm and Terrance Ranger's concept of the invention of tradition and Pierre Nora's Lieux de Mémoire) go undeveloped. The main body of text contains relatively few references to secondary sources, and those that do appear are repetitive: the same quotation by David Lowenthal is cited each of the first three chapters, with another by Wolfgang Schivelbusch recurring twice. This is indicative of some sloppy editorial standards. The omission of an index is disappointing, and proofreaders at an academic press ought to have spotted the misspelling of the “Labor Party” that runs throughout the Runneymede chapter.
It is also striking that Strittmatter's analysis lacks geographical diversity. Four of his chosen sites are in southeast England, with just two situated north of the Watford Gap (Bosworth and Peterloo). This narrow range leaves little room for regional difference in how the past is memorialized and seems insufficient to generalize about English identity. Further to this, Strittmatter risks being too casual when repeatedly conflating English with British identity. While eschewing a four nations approach is not fundamentally illegitimate, the titular focus on sites in England seems inconsistent with Strittmatter otherwise using the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum to lend contemporary relevance to his discussion. The lack of careful reflection on the relationship between empire and English and/or British identity is another oversight, especially given that colonial exhibits were prominent features of international expositions staged at Crystal Palace and the White City respectively.
In sum, Memory, Heritage and Preservation and 20th-Century England is a flawed book. While Strittmatter's diligent and engaging archival research is commendable, he proves less successful in relating his work to pressing debates within British studies.
