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 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 the new Level three Honours module 'The Scottish Soldier: Image and Reality, c.1870 to 1922. I also offer the Level 4 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. I also coordinate and teach on the new 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 sceptics'. In today's world this is a valuable skill to have at hand.

Teaching interests

Undergraduate Modules:
An Age of Revolution (also available as an evening class)
Scots on the Move: A Century of Migration and Emigration c.1830 to 1930
The Scottish Soldier: Image and Reality, c.1870 to 1922
Red Scotland/ Radical Scotland, c.1880 to the 1930s
Modern Scottish History 1707 to the Present (Distance Learning Level 3 Option)

Postgraduate: Taught MPhil and Distance Learning MPhil

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).

        

Articles/chapters

• 'The Shipping Federation and the free labour movement: a comparative study of waterfront and Maritime industrial relations, c.1889-1891', in Richard Gorski (ed), Maritime Labour: Contributions to the history of work at sea, 1500-2000 (Aksant, Amsterdam, 2007), pp.129-154.
• 'Jewish and Catholic Irish Relations: the Glasgow Waterfront c.1880-1914', in David Cesarani and Gemma Romain (eds), Jews and Port Cities 1590-1900: Commerce, Community and Cosmopolitanism (Chapter - Valentine Mitchell, London and Portland OR., 2006), pp. 215-234.
• 'Glasgow Docks and the impact of technological change and modernisation from the 1870s to the early 1930s', in Anne-Lise Piétri-Lévy, John Barzman et Éric Barré (Textes réunis et publiés par), Environnements Portuaries: Port environments (Universités de Rouen et du Harve, Dieppe, 2003), pp. 367-382.

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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 most recent project, culminating in my monograph Red Scotland!, investigates the rise and fall of the Scottish radical left between c. 1872 to 1932 to the 1930s, and I recently expanded the parameters of this study to examine the role of radical Scots in the Canadian and South African trade union and labour movements over the same period. With my colleague Derek Patrick I am also examining Scottish recruitment into the police and armed forces at the time of the second Anglo Boer War 1899-1902.

I have published widely on the pre-1914 industrial discontent in Scotland, the First World War and the impact of the Russian Revolution on Scottish society, Scottish maritime and transport trade union history and aspects of Irish Jewish and Irish relations in Scotland.

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'.

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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 am working on a study of the Scots in the Canadian and South African labour movements and would in time hope to extend this to a study of the Scots in Australia and America. In the meantime - with my colleague Derek Patrick - I am developing a research project that examines the reasons behind high levels of Scottish recruitment into the police and armed forces during the time of the second Anglo Boer War 1899-1902.

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 and in particular the role of the Scots. I am also interest in working on any topic relating to maritime history 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?

Was Scottish radicalism 'exported' throughout the British Empire since the 1880s and the advent of the 'new imperialism'?

Were Scottish recruits into the civil and armed forces at the time of the second Anglo Boer War 'defenders of Empire, or economic conscripts?

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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