History@Portsmouth

University of Portsmouth's History Blog

Author Archive | Mike Esbester

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New Data Set On Railway Accidents Released & Research Collaboration

In this post, Mike Esbester, Senior Lecturer in History, introduces the new dataset he’s been working on for the ‘Railway Work, Life & Death’ project. He shows the working behind the data and what’s in it – including why a book of legal cases reveals so much about one of the most dangerous industries of its time. You can find the all the project data here. Back in February 2019 the ‘Railway Work, Life & Death’ project took part in Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine’s ‘Transcription Tuesday’ event. This made a primary source available digitally – scans of a volume detailing a railway trade union’s legal cases between […]

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An archive at threat: Thomas Cook, 2019

UPDATE: Since writing this post, things have moved on – thankfully for the better. There was a tremendous response to the Business Archives Council’s (BAC) call for letters of support. The BAC worked with the liquidators, who have agreed that the archive should be preserved, intact, for the nation. Arrangements are now being made for its transfer to a professional archive. So – well done to all involved: advocacy really worked on this occasion! The official update is here: https://managingbusinessarchives.co.uk/news/2019/12/update-on-the-thomas-cook-archive/ How essential is the archive to the historian? In this post, Mike Esbester looks at the very real threat to one UK archive that is nearly 180 years’ old – […]

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Playing Ally Pally!

In this blog, Mike Esbester, Senior Lecturer in History at Portsmouth, updates us on recent progress on the Railway Work, Life & Death project, including a new project partner, international collaboration, engagement with audiences beyond the academic – and on taking the project to out to a huge new venue. Alexandra Palace is an iconic venue – and not somewhere I’d envisaged taking a history research project: yet at the end of the month, that’s exactly where I’ll be with the Railway Work, Life & Death project! We’ll be exhibiting at the Family Tree Live show, a huge family history fair taking place on 26 and 27 April this year. […]

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Making collaborative research … more collaborative!

In this blog, Dr Mike Esbester, senior lecturer in history at Portsmouth, discusses your chance to get involved in the research project he co-leads, looking at safety and accidents on British and Irish railways at the start of the 20th century. Mike’s research and teaching focus on the everyday, including ideas about mobility and accidents in modern Britain.   One of the great aspects of the ‘Railway Work, Life & Death’ project, which I co-lead with colleagues at the National Railway Museum in York (NRM) and the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick (MRC), has been its collaborative nature. As well as working across institutions and professional boundaries […]

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Health and Safety in Contemporary Britain

New Publications | Dr Mike Esbester, Senior Lecturer in History, has just published a book with Professor Paul Almond on Health and Safety in Contemporary Britain: Society, Legitimacy and Change since 1960. The book charts the development of modern British health and safety, in response to ideas around risk society, managerialism, regulatory capitalism, and demographic and economic changes in the workplace. Mike’s research focuses on the cultural history of safety, risk and accident prevention in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Health and Safety in Contemporary Britain – Society, Legitimacy, and Change since 1960 | Paul Almond | Palgrave Macmillan To read more about the book, click here.

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Looking backwards – and forwards

In this post, Mike Esbester, Senior Lecturer in History, outlines student and staff work with an external partner to mark a significant anniversary. Mike’s research focuses on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain, particularly on the cultural history of safety, risk and accident prevention, and on the history of mobility.  When people hit a big milestone age – 40 is a common one – it seems that for many the mind starts to think with greater focus about the past, as well as turning to the future. In some respects organisations are no different: big anniversaries are often used as a moment to pause and take stock, as well as to consider […]

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