Dr Billy Kenefick

Contact Details

w.kenefick@dundee.ac.uk

Tel: +44 (0) 1382 3 85087

Profile

My interest in history really began when I worked off-shore in the North Sea oil industry during the late 1970s and the 1980s. I wanted to know more about the history of work and workers' responses to the changing nature of industry over time.

I took a degree in Economic and Social History at Strathclyde University in 1987 and from the start I was encouraged to become involved in historical debate and discussion. Seven years later I emerged with a PhD and a position as lecturer in modern Scottish and British history at the University of Dundee, specialising in labour and social history: a historian of labour who worked on the rigs!

Now I research and teach on Scotland and Britain. I offer a Level 3 Honours modules in Scottish migration studies c.1830 to 1930 and co-coordinate and teach on another Level three Honours module 'The Scottish Soldier: Image and Reality, c.1870 to 1922’ with my colleague Dr Derek Patrick. I also offer the Level 4 Two-Paper (Two Semesters) Special Subject module Red Scotland/Radical Scotland which examines the rise of Scottish industrial and political radicalism from the 1870s, the period of the 'New Unionism' (c.1889-1897), the 'Labour Unrest' of 1910 to 1014, the impact of the Great War and the Russian Revolution of the Scottish working class, through to the decline of Scottish radical left during the 1920s and early 1930s. There is a shorter one-semester version of this module which is running currently entitled ‘Discontent, War and the Impact of Revolution:Scotlandc.1900 to 1922’. I am also the coordinator of the Level One team taught ‘core’ history module 'An Age of Revolution, 1750 to 1850' in semester one.

History is not simply about exploring the past; it is also about understanding the present. As a discipline history challenges and questions what we know about the past, and those who write about it. Indeed, as historians we should take nothing for granted and we should all aspire to become 'informed skeptics’'. In today's world this is a valuable skill to have at hand.

Teaching interests

Undergraduate Modules:
An Age of Revolution (has been available as a part-time evening class)
The Scottish Soldier: Image and Reality, c.1870 to 1922 (to be offer also as a part-time evening class)
Discontent, War and the Impact of Revolution.Scotland c.1900 to 1922Modern Scottish History 1707 to the Present (Distance Learning Level 3 Option)

Postgraduate: Taught MLitt and MLitt by Research; MLitt and MPhil by Distance Learning and full-time and part-time PhD Supervision

Research

• Publications
• Research Statement
• Research Interests
• Research Problems
• Research Questions

Publications

Books

• Red Scotland! The Rise and Fall of the Radical Left, c.1872-1932 (Edinburgh, EUP, 2007)
• Rebellious and Contrary: The Glasgow Dockers c.1853 to 1932 (East Linton, Tuckwell Press, 2000).
• Kenefick W. and McIvor, A. (eds.), The Roots of Red Clydeside 1910 to 1914?: Labour and Industrial Unrest in West Scotland (Edinburgh, John Donald, 1996).
• Ardrossan – ‘The Key to the Clyde’: A Case Study of the Ardrossan Dock Strike 1912 - 1913 (Irvine, 1993).

        

Recent Articles/chapters

• ‘An Effervescence of Youth: Female Textile-Workers’ Strike Activity in Dundee, 1911-1912’, Historical Studies in Industrial Relations, 33, 2012, pp 189-221. 
• Baxter, K. and Kenefick, W., ‘Labour Politics and the Dundee Working Class c.1895 to 1936’, in J. Tomlinson and C.A. Whatley (eds) Jute No More. Transforming Dundee (Dundee University Press, 2011).
• ‘Confronting White Labourism: Socialism, Syndicalism and the Role of the Scottish Radical Left in South Africa before 1914’ (Suggestions and Debates) International Review of Social History, 55, 2010, pp 29-62. 
• ‘Red Scotland and the Scottish radical left: 1880-1932’, The International Encyclopaedia of Revolution and Protest: 1500 to the Present (Wiley-Blackwell Publication, 2009).
• ‘Transport Unions from the Nineteenth Century to the Present’, in Kenneth Veitch (ed) Scottish life and Society. A Compendium of Scottish Ethnology Volume 8: Transport and Communications (Edinburgh, 2009), pp. 838-863.   
• ‘Scottish Dock Trade Unionism, 1850 to present’, in Mark A Mulhern, John Beech and Elaine Thompson (eds) Scottish life and Society. A Compendium of Scottish Ethnology Volume 7: The Working Life of Scots – ‘Part Six: Public Service and Industry’ (Edinburgh, 2008), pp. 604-628.

 

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Research Statement

I have a keen research interest in maritime history and in particular examining the role of the Irish in emergent national dock unionism in Scotland from the 1880s, and the relationship between the Irish and Jewish communities in Glasgow from the later nineteenth century. My research since the publication of my monograph Red Scotland!, investigates the role of radical Scots the South African trade union and labour movements before 1914, the rise and development of the trade union and labour movement and labour politics in Dundee between c.1890 and 1936, and more recently the activities of female textile workers in Dundee during the time of the ‘Great’ Labour Unrest in Scotland 1910 to 1914. This works continues and a forthcoming article ‘A comparative inter-regional study of strike activity among women workers in Scotland c.1910 to 1911’ is intended for publication in the Labour History Review in 2013 (electronic version – hardcopy due for publication in 2014). Another article ‘The Jews and Irish in Modern Scotland: Anti-Semitism, Sectarianism and Social Mobility’ is due to be published in Immigrants and Minorities also in 2013.   

I have ongoing research interests in migration and social history which has resulted in two recent successful PhD thesis: 'The English in Scotland, 1945 -2000' - which was published by Edinburgh University Press as Being English in Scotland, (2003) by Murray Watson - and 'Emigration from Scotland to Queensland, 1885 to 1888'. I latterly co-supervised a PhD thesis on 'Scottish Culture and the First World War', supervised a recently successful PhD thesis 'The Political History of Women in Scotland c.1918 to the 1960s', and an MLitt thesis 'An Analysis of Scotland's Education Democracy in Higher Education, 1850 to 2000'. I am currently supervising two PhDs on ‘Radicalism in Perthshire, c.1870-1929’ and ‘Jewish Identity and Attitudes toward Militarism in Scotland c.1899-1939’, an MPhil (by distance learning) on Scottish family history, and an Taught MLitt on ‘The Scottish War Memorial, Buenos Aires: A Re-Affirmation of Scottish Identity in the Argentine Republic?’  

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Research Interests

• Nineteenth- and twentieth-century maritime labour and social history
• British and Scottish social and political history in the nineteen and twentieth centuries
• Political radicalism in Scotland between the 1870s and the 1930s
• A social history of the Great War and the Home Front
• The Scottish diaspora and transnational comparative labour history
• Irish and Jewish immigration and inter-ethnic relations in Scotland from the mid-nineteenth century to present
• Economic and social change in interwar Britain: with particular reference to the City of Dundee

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Research Problems

The growth and development of the radical working class politics of Red Clydeside and its impact on the West of Scotland has long been an interest. I have now extend this research theme to investigate in greater depth this phenomenon across Scotland as a whole and I would welcome postgraduate interest in this topic area.

Beyond this I continue my interest in the study of Scots in the Canadian and South African labour movements and would like to extend this to include the Scots in Australasia and the United States of America. With my colleague Dr Derek Patrick we are continuing with a research project (funded by the a small Carnegie research grant) that examines the reasons behind high levels of Scottish recruitment into armed forces during the time of the second Anglo Boer War 1899-1902: ‘Defenders of Empire or Economic Conscripts?’

I would be interested in supervising postgraduate research degrees on these and related areas of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Scotland generally, as well as comparative studies within a British and Imperial historical context related to the role of the Scots and Empire. I am also interest in working on any topic relating to maritime history, working class histories, and the Irish and Jews in nineteenth and twentieth century Scotland. 

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Research Questions

To what extent were the Scots a radical people?

To what extent was Scottish radicalism 'exported' throughout the British Empire since the 1880s with the advent of the 'new imperialism'?

Were Scottish recruits into the Imperial Yeomanry at the time of the second Anglo Boer War 'defenders of Empire, or economic conscripts?

Racism, Anti-Semitism and Christian sectarianism in Scotland since the mid-nineteenth century: Was Scotland an 'anti-immigrant' Society? Is Scotland an 'anti-immigrant society'?

How do we account for Scots taking the leading role in the anti-militarist movement in Britain during the time of the Great War? 

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