This blog, by Dr Mel Bassett, research associate for the Port Towns and Urban Cultures project, discusses the many activities of the PTUC group, from working on major First World War exhibitions, to sharing their research with schoolchildren. Mel’s research interests centre on dockyard workers’ identities and the role of empire in the Edwardian period. Situated on the south […]
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Research in Focus
Lost Voices: Spiritualism on the Home Front, 1914-1919.
Dr Karl Bell, reader in cultural and social history at Portsmouth, has written the following blog based on his AHRC-funded ‘Everyday Lives of the First World War’ research project that examined the role of Spiritualism in Britain during the First World War. Karl’s research interests cover various aspects of ‘the fantastical imagination’, including magical beliefs and […]
‘Man Up!’: Revisiting the trenches and reviewing First World War masculinity.
“David McCracken’s dissertation was a well-written and outstandingly researched piece of work. It conducted a rigorous interrogation of current First World War historiography and deployed a broad range of evidence, from infantrymen’s diaries and letters to memoirs and oral testimony, to evaluate how soldiers coped with life in the trenches. David put forward a multi-layered […]
‘Do it the safety way!’ 100 years of accident prevention.
In this blog Dr Mike Esbester, senior lecturer in history, discusses how he has been working with the British Safety Council in order to create an online archive of their material. Mike draws upon his research interests in his 3rd year Special Subject strand. Mike’s wide-ranging take on the history of accident prevention touches upon accidents at work, in the streets and at home, […]
The sad death of 16-year old James Beck
Dr Mike Esbester, senior lecturer in history at Portsmouth, has written the following blog telling the story of the death, in July 1914, of a teenager working for the Caledonian Railway Company. Mike’s research focuses on the cultural history of safety, risk and accident prevention in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Volunteers working on the […]
Exploring London low life: The forgotten East End.
As academics, we are often asked to conduct reviews, do consultancy work, or write blogs. In the following blog, written for the Adam Matthew digital archive platform, our Professor Brad Beaven discusses London’s ‘low life’ in the nineteenth century. The original blog can be accessed at http://www.amdigital.co.uk/m-editorial-blog/exploring-london-low-life/ When we think of the East End in […]