| Summary: | The thesis opens with a very general account of the earliest settlement in the Plymouth region, passing to a more detailed treatment of the manorial division of the district and the settlements on the site of modern Plymouth - their character, growth and significance in the development both of a corporate life within the region and of commercial interests overseas. The effect on the neighbourhood of the extension of the Empire and of national prestige at sea is considered, particularly in relation to the expansion of the port's colonial trade. This brings us to the end of Ch. 5. At this stage the salient physical conditions governing the use of the port are discussed, prior to an examination of the trends of commerce from the 1860s to the present day. The port includes three important and highly individualised harbours, and after studying the characteristics of the port trade as a whole, each of these harbours is considered separately. Part II concludes with a study of Plymouth as the centre of the Westcountry fishing industry. Part III deals with the human and social aspects of the City behind the Port, beginning by tracing the actual consolidation of the several elements into the present highly complex unity of the City of Plymouth, correlating each major advance with the larger developments both in the district and in the country as a whole. Population changes during the past twenty years and the human and economic factors now at work in determining the character of the connurbation are treated in some detail. Finally the City-Port is considered as a centre of commerce, trade and social intercourse, in relation first, to its immediate hinterland, and secondly, to the major population centres of the British Isles.
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