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History Abridged: Operation Black Buck
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
Just as the Naval Task Force had been dispatched in April 1982, days after the...
History Abridged: Operation Black Buck
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Smithfield's Bartholomew Fair
Historian article
On the north-western side of the City of London, directly in front of St Bartholomew's Hospital near the ancient church of St Bartholomew the Great, there once lay a ‘smooth field', now known as Smithfield. This open space of around ten acres had a long and turbulent history. In medieval...
Smithfield's Bartholomew Fair
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Pleasure Piers: a sign of Victorian exuberance
Article
October 2010 was a memorable month for England's historic pleasure piers. Early in the month, fire ravaged Hastings Pier, to the extent that there is some doubt as to whether it can be restored, but, by contrast, at the end of the month there was the delightful news that the...
Pleasure Piers: a sign of Victorian exuberance
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Pressure and Persuasion Canadian agents and Scottish emigration, c. 1870- c. 1930
Article
In February, 1907, the Canadian government’s most northerly regional emigration office in the British Isles opened for business in Aberdeen. Located near the city centre, only a stone’s throw from the docks and the railway station, it soon fulfilled the expectation that it would capture the attention of a large...
Pressure and Persuasion Canadian agents and Scottish emigration, c. 1870- c. 1930
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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,...
Queen Victoria as a Politician
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Imperialism resurgent: European attempts to 'recolonise' South East Asia after 1945
Historian article
‘To think that the people of Indochina would be content to settle for less [from the French] than Indonesia has gained from the Dutch or India from the British is to underestimate the power of the forces that are sweeping Asia today'.
An American adviser in 1949 cited: Robin Jeffrey...
Imperialism resurgent: European attempts to 'recolonise' South East Asia after 1945
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British Christians and European Integration
Historian article
Despite Britain’s longstanding membership of the European Union, the question of ‘Europe’ continues to loom large in the nation’s politics. Whilst the economic pros and cons of Britain ‘joining’ the euro might be understood by only a select few, that issue provides for the many an opportunity to debate Britain’s...
British Christians and European Integration
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Stalinism
Classic Pamphlet
Stalin's remarkable career raises quite fundamental questions for anyone interested in history. Marxists, whose philosophy should cause them to downgrade the role of ‘great men' as an explanation of great events, have problems in fitting Stalin into the materialist interpretation of history: did not this man ride rough-shod over the...
Stalinism
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1851 by Asa Briggs
Classic Pamphlet
This classic pamphlet is being re-published in digital form to coincide with the special edition of The Historian devoted to the memory of Asa Briggs. He was one of the most illustrious members of the Historical Association and a devotedly loyal member all his life.
One Historian has said that...
1851 by Asa Briggs
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Earth in vision: Enviromental Broadcasting
Historian article
Joe Smith, Kim Hammond and George Revill share some of the findings of their work examining what digital broadcast archives are available and which could be made available in future.
The BBC’s archives hold over a million hours of programmes, dating back to the 1930s (radio) and 1940s (television). It...
Earth in vision: Enviromental Broadcasting
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Joseph Priestley's American Dream
Historian article
Joseph Priestley ended his days in Northumberland, Pennsylvania. This is one of the most delightful spots in the eastern United States. It is situated at the confluence of the North Western and North Eastern branches of the Susquehanna, one of the great rivers of North America, which winds its way...
Joseph Priestley's American Dream
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Amphibious Warfare in British History
Classic Pamphlet
The term "Amphibious Warfare" was adopted a few years ago to indicate a form of a strategy of which the characteristic was the descent of the sea-borne armies upon the coasts and ports of an enemy. It is not a method peculiar to Great Britain, for all maritime nations from...
Amphibious Warfare in British History
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Spencer Perceval: private values and public virtues
Historian article
The public man and his career Spencer Perceval's career as a public figure lasted from 1796 when he became a King's Counsel and MP for Northampton until his murder sixteen years later at the age of 49. He was shot in the lobby of the House of Commons at 5.15pm...
Spencer Perceval: private values and public virtues
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Hat on headstones
Historian article
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...
Hat on headstones
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Child labour in eighteenth century London
Historian article
On 1 March 1771, thirteen year-old John Davies, a London charity school boy, left his home in Half MoonAlley and made his way to Bishopsgate Street. There he joined thirteen other boys of similar age who, like him, were new recruits of the Marine Society, a charity that sent poor...
Child labour in eighteenth century London
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‘Guilty pleasures’: Moral panics over commercial entertainment since 1830
Historian article
In 1866 the Select Committee on Theatrical Licenses and Regulations questioned Inspector Richard Reason:
Col. Stuart: What is the class of people who go [to penny theatres]?[Police] Inspector Richard Reason: I should think there is a great number of the criminal class, and some of the children of the working...
‘Guilty pleasures’: Moral panics over commercial entertainment since 1830
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Cooling Memories? Why We Still Remember Scott And Shackleton
Historian article
Just along from the grand lobby of the new British Library, on the left up a broad staircase, there is a half concealed doorway. Walk through the doors and you enter a low gallery, dimly lit and filled with expansive display cases. There is always a hush in this room...
Cooling Memories? Why We Still Remember Scott And Shackleton
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1939 After Sixty Years
Article
Historians view major anniversaries with a measure of ambivalence. We know that they are artificial, that it is merely a convenient fiction to think that the passage of a round number of years provides a privileged vantage point from which to review the significance of a given event. Yet we...
1939 After Sixty Years
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Real Lives: Maharaja’s German: Anthony Pohlmann in India
Historian feature
Our series ‘Real Lives’ seeks to put the story of the ordinary person into our great historical narrative. We are all part of the rich fabric of the communities in which we live and we are affected to greater and lesser degrees by the big events that happen on a daily...
Real Lives: Maharaja’s German: Anthony Pohlmann in India
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Britain's Olympic visionary
Historian article
Forty-six years before the modern Olympics began, the small Shropshire market town of Much Wenlock was the seemingly unlikely setting for the establishment of an ‘Olympian Games'. Commencing in 1850, they were to become an annual festival in the town. The architect of this sporting enterprise was a local surgeon...
Britain's Olympic visionary
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Real Lives: Beatrice Alexander
Historian feature
Our series ‘Real Lives’ seeks to put the story of the ordinary person into our great historical narrative. We are all part of the rich fabric of the communities in which we live and we are affected to greater and lesser degrees by the big events that happen on a daily...
Real Lives: Beatrice Alexander
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Neville Chamberlain: Villain or Hero?
Historian article
Perhaps no other British figure of the twentieth century has been as vilified or as celebrated as Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister from 1937 to 1940. In 1999, a BBC Radio 4 poll of prominent historians, politicians and commentators rated Chamberlain as one of the worst Prime Ministers of...
Neville Chamberlain: Villain or Hero?
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Real Lives: Who was Sir John Steell?
Historian feature
Our series ‘Real Lives’ seeks to put the story of the ordinary person into our great historical narrative. We are all part of the rich fabric of the communities in which we live and we are affected to greater and lesser degrees by the big events that happen on a daily...
Real Lives: Who was Sir John Steell?
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Real Lives: Rebecca West
Historian feature
Our series ‘Real Lives’ seeks to put the story of the ordinary person into our great historical narrative. We are all part of the rich fabric of the communities in which we live and we are affected to greater and lesser degrees by the big events that happen on a daily...
Real Lives: Rebecca West
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Real Lives: Dame Helen Gwynne-Vaughan
Historian feature
Our series ‘Real Lives’ seeks to put the story of the ordinary person into our great historical narrative. We are all part of the rich fabric of the communities in which we live and we are affected to greater and lesser degrees by the big events that happen on a daily...
Real Lives: Dame Helen Gwynne-Vaughan
