Dr Fiona Mccall was interviewed in December for the 1984 Today! podcast on all things dystopian, being intrigued by the concept of thinking about the 1640s and 1650s, in this way. How did the strictures of the real puritan regime of mid-17th century Britain compare with fictional dystopias like those of Orwell, Huxley, John Wyndham, Margaret Atwood and John Christopher? There were certainly incidents that strike us today as dystopian: the execution of women (but not men) for adultery; the rise in witch hunting for example. But the theme encouraged reflection on whether we would understand these times as dystopian in the same way as those who lived through them […]
Archive | Public History
Public History
Connecting past and present: how my history degrees led me into heritage marketing and retail
Below, UoP history alumni Nia Picton-Phillips writes about how her experiences at Portsmouth gave her the skills she needed to succeed in heritage marketing and retail at Chippenham Museum in Wiltshire. Nia studied for a BA and then an MRes in history, researching holocaust memorialisation, with Dr Mathias Seiter as her supervisor. I’ve always had a passion for history and learning about the past, so when I was applying for university and writing my UCAS personal statement, I imagined that I’d spend my career as a historian, completing a PhD, specialising in a particular field, and becoming an expert. Perhaps that is still true in a way, as I’ll never […]
Community collaboration in action
Over the last year, the History team’s Dr Mike Esbester, Senior Lecturer in History, has been working with a local history group to find out more about our region’s railway workers. Here he reveals more about this exciting partnership – including where you can see what they’ve produced. Increasingly over the last few years my research has become much more collaborative in approach. That’s largely to do with my work as co-lead of the Railway Work, Life & Death project. The project looks at accidents to British and Irish railway staff before 1939, working with teams of volunteers at the National Railway Museum, the Modern Records Centre at the University […]
Liberation Route Europe goes live
By Fiona McCall on September 25, 2025 in Learning in Focus, Public History, Research in Focus, Uncategorized
As part of their second-year module, Working with the Past, second-year history students have been involved with Liberation Route Europe producing the first UK trails for LRE, including one in Portsmouth, highlighting Second World War remembrance sites and stories. This went live over the summer, and was featured by the BBC and Radio Solent. The Community in War-Scarred Portsmouth Route takes in a number of sites in Portsmouth including the Royal Garrison Church.
National Archives podcast – People of the Railways
As part of the nation-wide series of events to mark two hundred years of the railways, The National Archives of the UK ‘On the Record’ railway-focused podcast invited our own Dr Mike Esbester in as an expert. Together with archivists, Mike drew on his research and 25 years of using The National Archives to discuss early railway travellers and their experiences, and railway accidents, drawing on Mike’s work for the Railway Work, Life & Death project. The podcast is available here.
Portsmouth history graduate is Record Keeper of the Year
Portsmouth history graduate Chloe Anderson-Wheatley has been awarded the title of Record Keeper of the Year award by the Archives & Records Association, to recognise the extensive contribution she has made to record keeping for the Falkland Islands Government. Over the past eighteen months Chloe has significantly raised the profile of the Island’s National Archives service, increased local and international engagement and awareness with the collections, and has built new partnerships. Having been a volunteer archivist as a teenager, Chloe gained a history degree at the University of Portsmouth, before completing an MA in Archives & Records Management from University College London, returning to the islands to become their first […]