This posthumously published article by John Springhall was presented to us, with recommended illustrations, shortly before his death. It reflects his interest in popular culture and how people lived their lives in quite a remarkable manner. Adult-directed British uniformed youth movements played a  significant but often overlooked role during the...

Mountbatten was a controversial figure who died in tragic circumstances but Adrian Smith demonstrates that, behind his aristocratic facade, he was a very adept, talented and formative personality. Four years have passed since the re-opening of Broadlands, the Hampshire home of Lord and Lady Brabourne. The house was subject to...

Many communities have cataclysmic disasters which tend to dominate or define their local history. Gareth Davies reveals that the sudden collapse of the Great Yarmouth Suspension Bridge is a telling example of this trend. Beside the waters of the River Bure in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk stands a shiny black memorial...

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...

The popular image of the First World War is of young men leaving the tedium of the factory or the mine to volunteer for service on the Western Front in one of Kitchener’s new armies. Less well known is the background effort that went into maintaining and strengthening morale as...

Radicalism with a large "R", unlike Conservatism with a large "C" and Liberalism with a large "L", is not a historical term of even proximate precision. There was never a Radical Party with a national organization, local associations, or a treasury. But there were, and there are, "Radicals", generally qualified...

This Classic Pamphlet was published in 1937 (the centenary of the accession of Queen Victoria, who succeeded to the throne on June 20, 1837). Synopsis of contents: 1. Is the Victorian Age a distinct 'period' of history? Landmarks establishing its beginning: the Reform Bill, railways, other inventions, new leaders in...

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...

The versions of history on our cinema screens have an important influence upon public perceptions of the past. In his article Taylor Downing explores how the wartime British government used the cinema for propaganda purposes and how the film Battle of the  Somme contributes to portrayals of that battle to this...

In the First World War Britain suddenly became vulnerable to aerial attack. Alf Wilkinson records a memorable turning-point in the battle against the Zeppelin menace. On the night of the 2-3 September 1916 Lieutenant William Leefe Robinson became the first pilot to shoot down a Zeppelin raider over Britain. He...

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...

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...

Captain Thomas Wyndham of Marshfield Park in Somerset was on voyage to Barbary where he sailed from Kingroad, near Bristol, with three ships full of goods and slaves thus beginning the association of African Trade and Bristol. In the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Bristol was not a place of...

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...

All schemes for education involve some consideration of the surrounding society, its existing structure and how it will-and should-develop. Thus the interaction of educational provision and institutions with patterns of employment, social mobility and political behaviour are fascinatingly complex. The spate of valuable local studies emphasizes this complexity and makes...

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...

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...

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...

Michael Crumplin explores the medical facilities of the British Army and asks how likely soldiers wounded at Waterloo were to survive. The road to Waterloo One of the very few benefits of conflict is the advancement of medical practice. The recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistanhave been dealing with relatively...

Scum of the earth – or fine fellows? Carole Divall asks whether the men of the British Army really were ‘the scum of the earth’, as often asserted, or willing soldiers who earned the respect of the French. ‘Soldiers were regarded as day labourers engaged in unsavoury business; a money...