Control or Repression: Contrasting a Prisoner of War Camp and a Work Camp from World War Two
There are clear signs of control and repression in the architecture and layout of most internment camps, but internment camps were not the only form of institutional accommodation present in the United Kingdom during the Second World War. Comparison of a prisoner of war camp and a forestry work camp, both in Scotland, reveals similarities and differences between the two. The similarities highlight issues of control and authority, while the differences reveal issues of repression and punishment. The comparison also reveals much about official mind-set in the United Kingdom during the Second World War.
Africans in the South African War (1899-1902) : an Archaeological research study of an African concentration camp
The South African War (1899-1902) was ostensibly a
“White man’s war” between the British Empire and the two Boer
Republics, the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek and the Orange Free
State, but both sides involved Africans in the war. Africans were
active participants in the war and some were interned in
concentration camps, like Boer civilians. Many died there of
diseases, exposure to the elements and conditions in the
overcrowded camps.
 Many books and articles have been written on
Boer concentration camps and the war, but most literature on
African concentration camps only began to appear after 1994. There
are still many gaps in knowledge of these camps, because British
records of African camps are incomplete. This study drew on
archaeological methods (pedestrian surveys and the excavation of
test pits) to help identify the location of the African
concentration camp at Greylingstad. The farm Bakkiesfontein 568 IR
at Greylingstad was selected as a case study to clarify the exact
location of the African camp in that area. The farm was chosen
because there are a number of African graves, a dry stream, and
ruins of an old house. The area investigated is also near a railway
and old station, and the remains of a Scottish Rifles fort. The
artefacts found in the test pits and during the pedestrian surveys
included metal objects, European ceramics and pottery pieces, glass
pieces and even plastic. The features identified included stone
walls (circular and rectangular) and a stone circle. Based on the
findings, it was concluded that Bakkiesfontein 568 IR was indeed
where the African concentration camp was located.
The Provincial Centre at Camulodunum: Towards an Historical Context
Present assessment of the provincial enclosure at Camulodunum, more particularly how far it can be compared to the standard picture of similar centres elsewhere, is inevitably constrained by the limited evidence at our disposal. With no numismatic sources to draw on and in the absence of a single record of the provincial priesthood — a striking void that calls for comment — documentary testimony is restricted to what can be made of two passages in the literary authorities. The first, a notorious sneer in Seneca's Apocolocyntosis (VIII.3), tells only that a temple of some sort was associated somehow with the emperor Claudius. The second text, an obscure allusion in Tacitus, is at first sight no more enlightening but, on closer analysis, the phrase templum Divo Claudio constitutum (Ann. xiv.31) yields the invaluable inference that the temple was to the deified, not the living Claudius; in which case construction must have been begun in a.d. 54 or later. Archaeological data throw no light on the origins of the temple or of the precinct in which it stood but exploration has steadily enlarged our knowledge of the site itself, and understanding of the remains has now reached the stage at which, for all its puzzling lacunae, the centre is as well known in some ways as the triple-tiered complex at Tarraco, the provincial enclave of Hispania Citerior. We have arrived at the point where the British sanctuary and its counterparts on the Continent can be mutually illuminating.