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Real Lives: Maria Rye’s emigration home for destitute little girls
Historian feature
Alf Wilkinson explores the controversial story of Maria Rye, who founded the Female Emigration Society in 1861 in order to take ‘surplus’ young ladies to Australia and New Zealand to work as teachers and governesses. As there was insufficient demand for these, she refocused her work on taking pauper children...
Real Lives: Maria Rye’s emigration home for destitute little girls
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British-Army camp followers in the Peninsular War
Historian article
Charles J. Esdaile throws light on a vital part of a field army that receives little study, the ‘baggage train’.
The subject of the involvement of women’s involvement in warfare is one that over the past 20 years has become increasingly fashionable, and there is, therefore, a growing literature on...
British-Army camp followers in the Peninsular War
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Real Lives: Flora Sandes
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: Flora Sandes
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Out and About in Upper Weardale
Historian feature
Tony Fox introduces us to two battlefields and the work of the Battlefields Trust.
Stanhope takes its name from the ‘stony valley’ in which it sits. It is the most significant town in beautiful Upper Weardale. Like many towns in this area Stanhope’s growth accelerated in the nineteenth century as...
Out and About in Upper Weardale
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Peterloo August 1819: the English Uprising
Historian article
Robert Poole, historical consultant to the ‘Peterloo 200’ commemorations in and around Manchester over the summer, explores the latest research into those tragic events of August 1819 and their significance in the road to democracy.
On Monday 16 August 1819 troops under the authority of the Lancashire and Cheshire magistrates...
Peterloo August 1819: the English Uprising
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Child Health & School meals: Nottingham 1906-1945
Article
Following Jamie Oliver’s devastating television series on the inadequacy of school meals the present government has been quick to be seen to address the situation. In September 2005, Ruth Kelly, the then Education Secretary, announced a war on junk food in schools.1 This was nothing new, because the history of...
Child Health & School meals: Nottingham 1906-1945
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The Handing Back of Hong Kong: 1945 and 1997
Article
Andrew Whitfield examines the recovery of Hong Kong from the Japanese, 52 years before its return to China. As the clock ticks ever closer to midnight on 30 June 1997, the sun will set on Britain’s last major colonial outpost. Thousands of miles from the motherland, the colony originally acted...
The Handing Back of Hong Kong: 1945 and 1997
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A South African, a Welshman and a Scotsman and the birth of the Royal Air Force
Historian article
In this article Sebastion Cox explores the significant role of international involvement in the creation of the Royal Air Force. The RAF owes its existence to a number of people but high among those deserving of credit are a South African Field Marshal, a Welsh politician and a Scottish soldier.
A South African, a Welshman and a Scotsman and the birth of the Royal Air Force
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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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The German prisoner-of-war camp in Dorchester
Historian article
Dave Martin investigates why there is a war memorial for German soldiers, ‘buried in a foreign field’, in a Dorset churchyard.
The German prisoner-of-war camp in Dorchester
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Tank development in the First World War
Historian article
The emergence of the tank as a further weapon of war is inextricably associated with Lincoln where various early models were developed.
By 1915 the Great War had gone just about as far as it could and for the first time, the way an entire war was fought was described...
Tank development in the First World War
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Personality & Power: The individual's role in the history of twentieth-century Europe
Article
What role do individuals wielding great power play in determining significant historical change? And how do historians locate human agency in historical change, and explain it? These are the issues I would like to reflect a little upon here. They are not new problems. But they are inescapable ones for...
Personality & Power: The individual's role in the history of twentieth-century Europe
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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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Memorial Oaks at Wolsingham School
Historian article
Our World War I commemorative series continues with Robert Hopkinson's introduction to what the Imperial War Museum believes is the oldest war memorial in Britain.
Wolsingham School and Community College, in Weardale, County Durham, celebrated its 400th anniversary in 2014. As part of the celebrations, there was an exhibition, a...
Memorial Oaks at Wolsingham School
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Writing the First World War - Podcasts
Writing the First World War
The Writing the First World War event in partnership with the English Association and the British Library took place at the British Library in London on April 14th.
Over 80 teachers attended a wonderful day of stimulating professional development which was kicked off by a thought provoking take on how...
Writing the First World War - Podcasts
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Podcast Series: The Cold War
Multipage Article
An HA Podcasted History of the Cold War featuring Dr Elena Hore of the University of Essex, Dr Matthew Grant of Teeside University, Dr Holger Nehring of the University of Sheffield, Dr Michael Shin of the University of Cambridge, Professor Mark White of Queen Mary University of London, Professor Charles...
Podcast Series: The Cold War
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The New Imperialism
Classic Pamphlet
This Classic Pamphlet first published in 1970 comes with a new introduction written by the author M. E. Chamberlain.The New Imperialism - Introduction by M. E. Chamberlain Professor Emeritus at Swansea University. May 2010.When this pamphlet was first published imperialism was a hot political topic and battle raged between Marxist and...
The New Imperialism
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Ofsted and History in Schools
Article
HM Inspector John Hamer reviews the evidence. In a lecture marking the 150th anniversary of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Schools, Peter Gordon recalled a nineteenth century HMI, the Reverend W.H. Brookfield. His circle of friends included Tennyson, the Hallams and Thomas Carlyle.
Ofsted and History in Schools
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Sir Francis Fletcher Vane, anti-militarist: The great boy scout schism of 1909
Historian article
Sir Francis Patrick Fletcher Vane, fifth baronet (1861-1934), a man of wideranging but seemingly contradictory passions and interests, was an idealistic but also hard-working aristocrat who played a major role in shaping the early Boy Scout movement in London. While the name of the founder of the Boy Scouts, Robert...
Sir Francis Fletcher Vane, anti-militarist: The great boy scout schism of 1909
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The Black Leveller
Historian Article
History is rarely far removed from today's concerns. What is true of history in general is true of biography; specifically. Darcus Howe: a political biography is no exception. In writing it, we were consciously intervening in current debates about Britain and ‘race'.
The impetus to write emerged in 2008 during...
The Black Leveller
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History's big picture in three dimensions
Article
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...
History's big picture in three dimensions
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Christopher Hill: Marxism and Methodism
Historian article
Christopher Hill, the eminent historian of seventeenth century England, was a convinced Marxist throughout most of his long and productive life (1912-2003). He embraced this secular world-view when he was a young History student at Oxford in the polemical 1930s and never lost his ideological commitment, even though he resigned...
Christopher Hill: Marxism and Methodism
