Travelling from the Western Front to fight former Allies in Russia is not the usual story of 1919 for a British ‘Tommy’.  Yet that was the story of some of those men still serving King and Country. On 9 January 1918 the supplement to The London Gazette, an official paper...

A previously unpublished survey of British history by A.J.P. Taylor. It is a characteristic piece, though marked by gloom about the then recent inflation. Introduced by Historical Association President Chris Wrigley.

From the time when primitive man first went adrift on a bundle of reeds or learnt to balance himself on a floating log, to the days where his descendants, no more than a few generations ago, raced scrambling aloft to trim the towering sails of a full-rigged ship, the skill...

Gary Sheffield, Professor of War studies, the University of Wolverhampton, is one of the UK's foremost historians on the First World War.  He is the author of numerous books and previously held posts at the University of Birmingham and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. In April 2014 he spoke at an HA event for teachers...

One hundred and twenty years ago the advent of the first red May Days caused major concern across Europe. To general surprise, in 1890 and the next few years some of the largest rallies occurred in London. In Britain the main demonstration on the nearest Sunday to May Day passed...

The talk given by Sue and Pete Mowforth to the Glasgow Branch, reading from a selection of their parents’ war-time letters, resulted in a flurry of media interest from the national press and radio, including an appearance on the BBC’s The One Show in February 2017. Olga and Cyril Mowforth married in June...

Diana Laffin considers what study of the styles, planning and planting of Brookwood cemetery reveals about nineteenth century mindsets. Graves are serious sources for historians. There is nothing casual about the choices made at death: the size and design of the monument, the text on the stone, even the location...

Some of the most enduring myths in British history were created and perpetuated by novelists, despite the fact that the historical novel has long been relegated to the second division of the literary arts. Deeply unfashionable today, writers like Sir Walter Scott, Edward Bulwer Lytton and William Harrison Ainsworth were...

The now legendary film company Hammer made such classics as The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and Dracula (1958), plus their numerous sequels and subsequent remakes of old Universal Gothic chillers (The Curse of the Werewolf, The Mummy, The Phantom of the Opera), as well as making international stars out of Peter...

Harriet Kettle had a remarkable life. She was on the receiving end of everything that the institutions of social control in Victorian England could throw at her, but resisted, survived and fought back. Harriet’s defiance earned her references in the records of a workhouse, two prisons, two asylums and, in...

The grave markers in churchyards and cemeteries are for the most part depressingly unimaginative both in their design and in their inscriptions but one occasionally meets with an attempt at striking an individual note, such as a sculpted depiction of a motor vehicle, or an animal, or the head-gear worn...

Moves to protect and record the historic environment began at the turn of the 20th century with the establishment of the National Trust in 1895, the Victoria County History in 1899, and the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments for England in 1908. The VCH took the antiquarians’ task onto a...

History Abridged: This feature seeks to take a person, event or period and abridge, or focus on, an important event or detail that can get lost in the big picture. Think Horrible Histories for grownups (without the songs and music). See all History Abridged articles Royal majesty is buttressed by...

History Abridged: This feature seeks to take a person, event or period and abridge, or focus on, an important event or detail that can get lost in the big picture. See all History Abridged articles We live in a seemingly iconoclastic age. Statues that were once part of the established...

History Abridged: This feature seeks to take a person, event or period and abridge, or focus on, an important event or detail that can get lost in the big picture. See all History Abridged articles Just as the Naval Task Force had been dispatched in April 1982, days after the...

History Abridged: This feature seeks to take a person, event or period and abridge, or focus on, an important event or detail that can get lost in the big picture. Think Horrible Histories for grownups (without the songs and music). See all History Abridged articles Most of us are aware...

More and more historians, from diverse political viewpoints, are now expressing concern at the fragmentation of history, especially in the schools curriculum. The fragmentation of the subject has followed upon the collapse of sundry Grand Narratives, such as the ‘March of Progress', which once swept all of history into a...

Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) takes place on 27 January each year, the date in 1945 when the Soviet army entered Auschwitz and liberated more than 7,000 remaining prisoners. It is a time to remember the millions of people murdered during the Holocaust, under Nazi Persecution and in the genocides which followed in...

At a time when the United Kingdom continues to review its internal constitutional arrangements, Matthew Kelly explores how this constitutional debate can be traced back to Gladstone's decision to promote Home Rule for Ireland and how these proposals evolved over time and were challenged. Irish political history decisively entered a...

Hugh Gault reminds us that the provision of adequate and price-accessible housing stock has been a matter of public debate and concern for over a hundred years. Economics and financial priorities have continued to undermine the methodologies and good intentions needed to solve the problem. This year is the hundredth...