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Affirmative mysticism and John Woolman in colonial America
Historian article
Joshua M. Reinke introduces the American Quaker abolitionist, John Woolman. This seventeenth-century diarist’s encounter with Christ took him on a journey that led across the American colonies and provoked him to voice his fierce opposition to human bondage and the slave trade...
Affirmative mysticism and John Woolman in colonial America
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Opinion: History, anti-history, and historical fiction
Historian feature
As he gives a lecture to the Historical Association’s Virtual Branch, novelist, historian and BBC New Generation Thinker Oskar Jensen shares his thoughts on history, fantasy and the need to engage with the past on its own terms.
Opinion: History, anti-history, and historical fiction
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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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Out and About 124 - Pedalling after Alfred
Historian feature
Alfred in Wantage - Dave Martin takes to his bike to explore statues of Alfred the Great.
Alfred the Great, the name speaks for itself, was a hero to the Victorians so it is no surprise to find that there are three statues commemorating him. The earliest one was erected...
Out and About 124 - Pedalling after Alfred
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Bismarck
Historian article
Readers of this journal will need no introduction to Otto von Bismarck. There are almost as many English-language biographies of him as those written in German. The four short studies by Lynn Abrams, Bismarck and the German Empire, 1871-1918 (1995); Andrina Stiles, The Unification of Germany, 1815-1890 (1986); D. G....
Bismarck
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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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Late Medieval Taxation Records
Historian article
There are more than 23,000 medieval taxation records from England and Wales in the Public Record Office alone. For many years the vast majority of them have lain undisturbed in their archive boxes, but recent work is showing the true value of some of these as historical sources and making...
Late Medieval Taxation Records
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Each man's life was worth 1sh 1d 1/2d!
Historian article
Alf Wilkinson explores Britain's biggest coal mining disaster, at Senghenydd Colliery, in South Wales, in October 1913.
At ten past eight in the morning of Tuesday 14 October 1913, just after 900 men had started work underground, an explosion ripped through Senghenydd Colliery, near Caerphilly, killing 439 miners and, later...
Each man's life was worth 1sh 1d 1/2d!
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Out and About in Letchworth: A Social Experiment
Historian feature
In a previous edition of The Historian (110, Summer 2011) we highlighted the midnineteenth century achievement of the industrialist John Dodgson Carr in creating the holiday resort of Silloth as a place of resort and recreation for his workers, and the wider workforce in Carlisle. So the seeds of trying...
Out and About in Letchworth: A Social Experiment
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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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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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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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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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Alexandra and Rasputin
Historian article
Has the role of Alexandra and Rasputin in the downfall of the Romanovs been exaggerated out of all proportion?
If a country is defeated in war, the rulers run the risk of being overthrown. In 1918 the Kaiser left Germany for Holland, Germany became a Republic; the Austro-Hungarian Empire came...
Alexandra and Rasputin
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Out and about in Nottingham
Historian feature
There were people living in Nottinghamshire as far back as 40,000 BC, as excavations in the limestone caves at Cresswell Crags (near Worksop) have proved. Much later, when the Romans came, they drove two roads through parts of the county – the Fosse Way to the South, with associated developments...
Out and about in Nottingham
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Charles Gilpin
Historian article
Family Background and Early Life
Charles Gilpin was born in Bristol in 1815, the son of James Gilpin, a Quaker draper, and Mary Gilpin nee Sturge. The Sturges were a notable Quaker Liberal family, active in the campaign against slavery. Their relatives included the Darbys of Coalbrookdale. Charles Gilpin was...
Charles Gilpin
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Men's Beards and Women's Backsides
Historian article
Since the late Middle Ages periods in which it was fashionable for men to be clean-shaven have alternated in Europe with periods in which it was fashionable for men to wear beards. In some periods clean-shavenness went together with long hair, at others beards went together with short hair, and...
Men's Beards and Women's Backsides
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Sutton Hoo and long-distance contacts
Historian article
This article looks at the importance of long distance connections between the English kingdoms and the eastern Mediterranean in the sixth to eighth centuries.
The relationship between the ship burial at Sutton Hoo – in the eastern English county of Suffolk – the people who discovered and excavated it, and what...
Sutton Hoo and long-distance contacts
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A probable silk heirloom from Central Asia...
Historian article
This article explores precious fragments of silk, manufactured in the Byzantine Empire and Central Asia, discovered in archaeological excavations in Dublin.
Dublin, situated on the east coast of Ireland, grew out of a fortified riverside camp (longphort) for overwintering marauding Vikings or ‘northmen’, who were plundering wealthy ecclesiastical establishments from the late eighth...
A probable silk heirloom from Central Asia...
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Why White Liberals Fail: United States politics in an election year
Historian feature
Paula Kitching interview with Professor Anthony J. Badger about his latest book.
2024 is an election year in the United States. For many in the UK and around the world the US political system can be confusing, with simple processes seemingly more complex than you would expect. It is not just the system...
Why White Liberals Fail: United States politics in an election year
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A land without music?
Historian article
It is sometimes said that England was a ‘land without music’ in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries – not so, according to David Fleming.
‘Between the age of Purcell and that of Elgar and Parry, we had to do without much musical life in our country.’ Or so wrote Simon...
A land without music?
