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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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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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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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Agincourt 1415-2015
Historian article
Agincourt has become one of a small number of iconic events in our collective memory. Anne Curry explores how succeeding generations have exploited its significance.
In his budget statement of 18 March 2015 the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, announced £1m had been awarded to commemorate the 600th anniversary...
Agincourt 1415-2015
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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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Driver Ben Cobey 8th Royal Field Artillery
Historian article
Alf Wilkinson asks why three men were awarded the Victoria Cross during the retreat from Mons in August 1914 and the fourth involved in the action wasn’t. What does that tell us about Britain during the arly days of the Great War?
In August 1914, when war broke out, the...
Driver Ben Cobey 8th Royal Field Artillery
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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
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Out and About with Garibaldi
Historian feature
One approach used by British local historians is to explore and examine patterns in the landscape, based on a belief that the patterns will instruct and develop our historical awareness and understanding. Although approaches to local history may be less developed abroad, we can still apply our techniques to the...
Out and About with Garibaldi
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Opposition and Resistance in the GDR
Historian article
A journalistic coup broke over Germany on 2 January 1978. The West German news magazine, Der Spiegel, published the first part of a longer piece in which an association calling itself the ‘Alliance of German Democratic Communists’ seriously criticized the policies of the East German Communist Party, the SED, and...
Opposition and Resistance in the GDR
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My Favourite History Place: Sutton Hoo
Historian feature
A Secret Uncovered, A Mystery Unsolved
Sutton Hoo is a sandy heathland overlooking the estuary of the River Deben in Suffolk. In Old English a ‘hoo' is a promontory, ‘sutton' is southern, and ‘tun' is a settlement. Historians have known for years that the fields were farmed in the Iron...
My Favourite History Place: Sutton Hoo
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Myth and Reality: A Necessary Marriage at Twelfth Century Glastonbury
Article
It is the habitation of strangers and the domination of foreigners. There is today no Englishman who is either earl, bishop or abbot. The newcomers devour the riches and entrails of England, and there is no hope of the misery coming to an end…the fatal day for England, the mournful...
Myth and Reality: A Necessary Marriage at Twelfth Century Glastonbury
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Novelty and Amusement? Visiting the Georgian Country House
Article
The best-known country house visit in literature is that to Pemberley of Elizabeth Bennet, accompanied by her uncle and aunt Gardiner. Few events make better costume drama: personal and class unease, historic dress and carriages, grand house and landscape park. But beneath the tension of Elizabeth’s unexpected meeting with Darcy,...
Novelty and Amusement? Visiting the Georgian Country House
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Out & About in Swansea Castle
Historian feature
The ruins of Swansea Castle stand at the edge of Swansea's shopping centre and are generally ignored by shoppers and passers-by who just ... well ... pass by. But this was to change to some extent in 2012, and the HA's Swansea Branch adopted a very close relationship with the...
Out & About in Swansea Castle
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Marcus Morris and Eagle
Historian article
Marcus Morris and Eagle: Approved reading for boys in the 1950s & 1960s
The National Art Library of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London's South Kensington held an exhibition in the first five months of 2012 devoted entirely to British adventure comics of the 1950s and 1960s, many taken...
Marcus Morris and Eagle
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Out and about in Holderness
Historian feature
East of Hull lies Holderness, a twohundred square mile portion of the former East Riding of Yorkshire, extending from Hornsea in the north to Spurn Head and flanked by the river Humber and the North Sea. It is a very fertile tract of rich agricultural countryside but it is particularly...
Out and about in Holderness
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The National Insurance Act 1911: three perspectives, one policy
Historian article
Sandwiched between the Parliament Act and the Home Rule Act, the National Insurance Act 1911 is easily overlooked and often forgotten. Yet, as Gilbert has pointed out, it was critical both of itself and as the foundation for social legislation up to current times. It came into force on 15...
The National Insurance Act 1911: three perspectives, one policy
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Out and About in Halifax 1863-2013
Historian feature
The 150th anniversary of Halifax Town Hall in 2013 provides an opportunity to explore the rich heritage of this Pennine town as did its first British royal visitor in 1863.
It was unusual for the national press to descend on Halifax, as they did on 3 and 4 August 1863,...
Out and About in Halifax 1863-2013
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What's New About New Labour?
Historian article
In the 1980s it was often argued that the Labour party was finished as a major force in British politics. Yet on 1st May 1997 it won a landslide victory, securing an overall majority of 179 in parliament. Two years into its term of office, it retains a strong lead...
What's New About New Labour?
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Out and about in Martinsthorpe: a walk in the country
Historian feature
History is nothing if not an exercise in informed imagination. On a country walk in Rutland arranged by a group of (non-historian) friends, I noted that the Ordnance Survey map showed our planned route, following a ridge of high ground separating the valleys of the meandering Gwash and Chater rivers,...
Out and about in Martinsthorpe: a walk in the country
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Presenting Naseby
Historian article
The summer of 2007 saw the completion of new visitor facilities on and near the battlefield of Naseby. The two locations are the first to be created since the Cromwell Monument was finished in 1936 and they stand more than 5km (3 miles) apart, one of them 2km south-east of...
Presenting Naseby
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Roald Dahl and the Lost Campaign
Historian article
Following the successful filming of his book ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’, Roald Dahl has an international reputation as a children’s writer. There is, however, a macabre dimension to his writing underlined by his successful TV series ‘Tales of the Unexpected’. Dark episodes in Dahl’s highly successful career touched his...
Roald Dahl and the Lost Campaign
