Britain & Ireland 1745-1901

The relationship between Britain and Ireland is explored here across a number of articles. Particular themes assessing and exploring social reform on matters such as housing, industrial change and emerging civil rights are included here. Key individuals from the world of politics, science and women’s rights are also examined in detail.

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  • Podcast Series: The Women's Movement

    Multipage Article

    In Part 2 of our series on Social and Political Change in the UK 1800-present we look at the Women's Movement in the UK from its early origins through to the end of the 20th century Part 2 features Dr Anne Logan, Professor June Hannam and Ms Jean Spence. Also...

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  • Podcast Series: Thomas Paine

    Multipage Article

    In this set of podcasts Emeritus Professor W. A. Speck of the University of Leeds looks at the life and ideas of Thomas Paine.

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  • Polychronicon 123: Gladstone and Disraeli

    Article

    Our Polychronicon in Teaching History is a regular feature helping school history teachers to update their subject knowledge, with special emphasis on recent historiography and changing interpretation. This edition of 'Polychronicon' focuses on the interpretations of Gladstone and Disraeli.

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  • Polychronicon 129: Reinterpreting Peterloo

    Article

    The Peterloo massacre is one of the best-documented events in British history. It was the bloodiest political event of the 19th century on English soil. At St Peter's Fields in central Manchester on Monday 16 August 1819, a rally of around 60,000 people seeking parliamentary reform was violently dispersed by...

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  • Polychronicon 131: At your leisure

    Article

    Leisure time - like time itself - is fluid, and keeps changing its social meanings. From a ‘serious' high political perspective there is no history of leisure and leisure is trivial. Such perspectives have long lost their grip on the historical imagination, of course, and we have had histories of...

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  • Polychronicon 152: Changing interpretations of the workhouse?

    Article

    The workhouse has long held a negative reputation in the popular imagination as the dreaded destination of the destitute, an institution guaranteed to strike fear into the hearts of the Victorian poor. This is partly owing to its design under the New Poor Law of 1834 as an explicit punishment...

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  • Polychronicon 174: Votes for Women

    Article

    The beginnings of the nationally organised campaign for women’s suffrage began with suffragists’ orchestration of the petition to Parliament in favour of female suffrage in 1866. The petition contained almost 1,500 names from across the country and was presented to parliament by the Liberal MP John Stuart Mill; it was...

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  • Professional wrestling in the history department: a case study in planning the teaching of the British Empire at Key Stage 3

    Article

    Three years ago ( TH 99, Curriculum Planning Edition), Michael Riley illustrated ways in which history departments could exploit the increased flexibility of the revised National Curriculum.1 He showed that precisely-worded enquiry questions, positioned thoughtfully across the Key Stage, help to ensure progression, challenge and coherence. His picturesque image for...

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  • Putting black into the Union Jack: weaving Black history into the Year 7 to 9 curriculum

    Article

    Making a passionate case for teaching Black British history in the secondary school curriculum, Hannah shares here the personal journey she has travelled in planning for Black British history in her curriculum. She cites her inspirations and offers striking examples to illustrate her rationale and approach to teaching this history....

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  • Queen Victoria as a Politician

    Article

    Even had Queen Victoria not presided over the achievements of the age which bears her name, her career would still hold a fascination for the historian. She was, for one thing, the solitary woman in a male political world. She was possessed of a personality at once perceptive and simple,...

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  • Radicalism and its Results, 1760-1837

    Article

    Radicalism with a large "R", unlike Conservatism with a large "C" and Liberalism with a large "L", is not a historical term of even proximate precision. There was never a Radical Party with a national organization, local associations, or a treasury. But there were, and there are, "Radicals", generally qualified...

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  • Recorded Webinar: Female slave-ownership in 18th and 19 century Britain

    Article

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  • Reflecting on rights: teaching pupils about pre-1832 British politics using a realistic role-play

    Article

    Ian Luff’s discussion of role-play and his many practical examples (Ian Luff (2000) in Issue 100) drew a huge and positive response from readers. Luff emphasised the simple and the realistic, and, at the same time, showed how to get maximum value from these winning activities through a tight learning...

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  • Role Play 1: The Society Game

    Article

    Applicable to Britain 1066-1500, Britain 1500-1750, Britain 1750-1900, and many aspects of GCSE and AS/A2 courses. The version given in full here is for use in a study of Victorian Britain. This tackles the troublesome concept of relative status in a changing society. Exactly what is it that bestows status...

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  • Royal Women: Queen Anne, Elizabeth I and Elizabeth II

    Multipage Article

    In June 2012 the Historical Association and Historic Royal Palaces joined forces to offer a fantastic CPD opportunity in line with the Queen's diamond jubilee. Two CPD events around the theme of Royal Women charted the private histories of queens of the past from within the walls of their palaces. What...

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  • Teaching Gypsy, Roma and Traveller history

    Article

    Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people are the largest minority ethnic group in some communities (and therefore in some schools) in the UK. Yet the past of Gypsy, Roma, Traveller people may rarely be part of history lessons. The result is that pupils of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller heritage may not...

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  • Teaching Year 8 pupils to take seriously the ideas of ordinary people from the past

    Article

    Jacob Olivey wanted Year 8 to know that ordinary people in the nineteenth century constructed their own identities. In this reflection on how his practice developed in his training year, Olivey illustrates the importance of using historical scholarship in choosing foundational knowledge to teach. He shows how he used that...

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  • The Bristol Riots

    Article

    In 1831, Bristol suffered the worst outbreak of urban rioting since the Gordon Riots in London over fifty years earlier. Twelve rioters were officially declared to have died as a result of confrontations with troops and special constables, and many more unidentifiable corpses were discovered among the ruins of the...

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  • The Chapel and the Nation

    Article

    The Noncoformitst chapel has played a crucial role in the history of the English and Welsh nations. When the great French historian Elie Halevy sought to explain the contrast between the turbulent history of his own country and the peaceful evolution of England in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries...

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  • The Eighteenth Century in Britain: Long or Short?

    Article

    W. A. Speck reviews an historical debate central to the interpretation of the eighteenth century in Britain. Few British historians treat the eighteenth century as consisting simply of the hundred years from 1701 to 1800. Until recently political historians tended to end it in 1783. Many textbooks reflect this treatment...

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