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History Abridged: Publishing
Historian feature
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
For centuries the only way the written word could be communicated was by it being...
History Abridged: Publishing
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Linking Law: Viking and medieval Scandinavian law in literature and history
Historian article
Ongoing interdisciplinary developments have cast light on the surprisingly sophisticated world of Viking-age and medieval Scandinavian law and its wide-ranging influence in these societies.
In many ways, the Viking Age and its inhabitants are more familiar than ever before. From video games to television and films, new narrative frontiers and bigger...
Linking Law: Viking and medieval Scandinavian law in literature and history
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Does historical fiction matter for children?
Historian article
Can you remember a book from when you were young that took you to another place that was fascinating, intriguing and felt real but wasn’t Narnia? Quite often those books were historical fiction; sometimes they were more fiction than history and sometimes vice versa. While the Ladybird histories were some people’s...
Does historical fiction matter for children?
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My Favourite History Place: Gladstone’s Library at Hawarden
Historian feature
When I first visited Gladstone’s residential library in 1977 for a pre-university History degree reading week, I barely knew who Gladstone was. I had just come back from a holiday in Italy and the contrast between Florence and Hawarden, a Welsh border town, was startling. I came from the sunny remains...
My Favourite History Place: Gladstone’s Library at Hawarden
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My Favourite History Place: Petra
Historian feature
Ghislaine Headland-Vanni visits the ancient city of Petra, in Jordan.
When you hear the word ‘Petra’ what images does the word conjure up for you? Maybe you have visited and know it already; if not, then like me you may not fully comprehend its size. I naively thought I could...
My Favourite History Place: Petra
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Isaac Butt and Irish Nationality
Article
Alan O’Day reviews and reassesses the career of the major Irish Nationalist figure before Charles Stewart Parnell. Once the most respected man in Irish nationalist circles, Isaac Butt became merely a footnote in Anglo-Irish history after his death on 5 May 1879. Yet, from the mid-1860s until he died his...
Isaac Butt and Irish Nationality
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Good Evening Sweetheart
Historian article
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...
Good Evening Sweetheart
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‘Cromwell’s trunks’
Historian article
Ted Vallance discusses the extent to which Richard Cromwell was able to muster broader support for his rule than is sometimes acknowledged.
If the second Lord Protector, Richard Cromwell, is remembered at all, it is as a byword for political failure. Succeeding to the position of head of state after his father, Oliver Cromwell’s death in September...
‘Cromwell’s trunks’
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Out and About in Oxford
Historian feature
The Sheffield Branch of the Historical Association is a very active one. In addition to our monthly meetings we organise a range of study visits, from one-day trips to longer residential tours in the UK and occasionally in mainland Europe. In recent years, these have included visits to Portsmouth, Lincoln and Newark, Newcastle and Northumberland, and the battlefields of Waterloo....
Out and About in Oxford
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Local History Online
Website
Local History Online is a useful resource to find out about local history societies in your area. It has an extensive directory of local societies which has direct links to over 650 society websites and contact details for an additional 560 societies, as well as links to local speakers and...
Local History Online
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Out and about in Zanzibar
Historian article
Joe Wilkinson takes us on a tour of the island of Zanzibar, where the slave trade continued long after the British abolished it.
Mention Zanzibar and most people will think of an Indian Ocean paradise, perfect for honeymooners, relaxing on the popular pristine white north-eastern beaches of Bwejuu and Paje,...
Out and about in Zanzibar
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Nineteenth Century African chiefs in Nuneaton: A local mystery uncovered
Article
In Nuneaton’s St. Nicolas Churchyard lies a sizeable, though not elaborate, flat gravestone. It commemorates Canon Robert Savage, Vicar of the parish 1845-71, his wife Emma and many of their children. This tombstone, like so many in our graveyards, reveals a wide range of historical information, recording significant detail about...
Nineteenth Century African chiefs in Nuneaton: A local mystery uncovered
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Out and About: Barging between Brindleys
Historian feature
Coventry canal basin ought to be a hive of activity. It is a collection of new and well-restored buildings around the terminal arms of the Coventry Canal and could be like thriving Gas Street Basin in neighbouring Birmingham, but it is on the wrong side of the inner ring road....
Out and About: Barging between Brindleys
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Look Back - But Not in Anger? A Manchester Boyhood
Article
The following is an extract from A Manchester Boyhood, the recently-published autobiography of Professor Donald Read, a past-president of the Historical Association. His book seeks to set his personal experience during the nineteen-thirties and forties within the troubled history of the time. His opinions, some of which may be found...
Look Back - But Not in Anger? A Manchester Boyhood
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My Favourite History Place: Mandala House
Historian feature
Many myths surround David Livingstone and in this part of the world more myths about the man abound than perhaps anywhere else. We can only speculate on whether he fought off lions with his bare hands, shamed slave-traders into letting their slaves go with just a few words from the scriptures...
My Favourite History Place: Mandala House
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A Zeppelin VC remembered
Historian article
Ronan Thomas introduces the bravery of Rex Warneford who was the first pilot successfully to bring down a Zeppelin in 1915.
Rex Warneford was one of Britain’s ‘bravest of the brave’. A Royal Navy fighter pilot during the First World War, he was awarded the Victoria Cross by King George...
A Zeppelin VC remembered
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Women in British Coal Mining
Historian article
With the final closure of Britain’s deep coal mines, Chris Wrigley examines the long-standing involvement of women in and around this challenging and dangerous form of work.
With the closure in 2015 of Thoresby and Kellingley mines, the last two working deep coal mines in Britain, leaving only open-cast coal...
Women in British Coal Mining
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St Peter’s-ad-murum, Bradwell-juxta-Mare
Historian article
Marie Paterson discovered this historical and spiritual structure many years ago and it continues to affect her.
In Essex, on the northern shore of the Dengie Hundred, overlooking the mouth of the Blackwater estuary, proudly stands the lonely Saxon chapel of St Peter’s-on-the-Wall. Erected on the site of the Roman...
St Peter’s-ad-murum, Bradwell-juxta-Mare
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Welsh archers at Agincourt: myth and reality
Historian article
Adam Chapman debates the evidence for a Welsh presence among Henry V’s highly-successful force of archers at Agincourt in 1415.
Michael Drayton, in his poem of 1627, The Bataille of Agincourt, described the Welsh presence in Henry V's army: ‘who no lesse honour ow'd To their own king, nor yet...
Welsh archers at Agincourt: myth and reality
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My Favourite History Place - Magdeburg
Historian feature
Magdeburg (‘Magdeburg überascht') is situated on the banks of the River Elbe in the state of Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany. First mentioned by Charlemagne in 805, Magdeburgtoday attracts much attention by being a major historic venue on the Straße der Romanik or Romanesque Route that has opened up a large number of...
My Favourite History Place - Magdeburg
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William Stubbs
Classic Pamphlet
William Stubbs was among the earliest, and is still one of the greatest of the academical English historians. His life (1825-1901) fell in a period that produced a notable succession of distinguished historians in England. He was the first of them to do his historical work as a resident teacher...
William Stubbs
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St Helena: Napoleon's last island
Historian article
Paul Brunyee asks why Napoleon ended up on St Helena, and what life was like for him in exile there.
On his return to Paris after Waterloo, Napoleon had no significant group of supporters left in Paris. He was stunned by his catastrophic defeat and knew he was being outmanoeuvred...
St Helena: Napoleon's last island
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Waterloo's prizefight factor
Historian article
Image: 'Pierce Egan celebrates the Boxiana touch as Napoleon is floored'
David Snowdon examines the impact of the world of ‘pugilism' on the army during the Napoleonic Wars and looks at some famous boxers who perished in the battle.
By 1815, one writer, and one sporting publication, had become synonymous with...
Waterloo's prizefight factor
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Out and About in Runnymede
Historian feature
The Runnymede area is rich in historical associations. Nigel Saul looks at other places of interest near where King John gave his assent to the Charter in 1215.
The birthplace of our democratic heritage is a broad meadow on the banks of the lower Thames near the meeting-point between Surrey...
Out and About in Runnymede
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My Favourite History Place - Cambridge City Cemetary
Historian feature
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission maintains memorials to our war dead in large and small numbers in cemeteries across the world, and here Glenn Hearnden presents us with a detailed and informative case-study of Cambridge City Cemetery.
Like many large towns and cities across the UK, there is a cemetery in...
My Favourite History Place - Cambridge City Cemetary
