Tag: Portsmouth

  • Tombfinders: Working with the Napoleonic past

    Tombfinders: Working with the Napoleonic past

    As part of the Working with the Past Module, four second year undergraduates from the University of Portsmouth’s BA History program (Izzy Turtle, Emily Harris, Damiana Kun and Rebekah Money) have been working with the Napoleonic & Revolutionary War Graves Charity (NRWGC) on a dedicated project to locate Napoleonic era veterans, locating and assessing their graves, and working to restore them. Founded in 2021, the NRWGC (UK Registered Charity No 1196849) was founded by Zach White to honour the memory of veterans of all nationalities who served between 1775 and 1815. The charity does this by locating veteran’s long forgotten graves, cleaning and restoring them where appropriate, and reburying disinterred veterans so that they can have the dignity of a final resting place.

    Highland Road Cemetery, Portsmouth
    Highland Road Cemetery, Portsmouth

    In this podcast launched on Sunday 5 May 2024, project members talk about their recent efforts to find the graves of Napoleonic veterans across Portsmouth, and their experiences of cleaning graves. The students travelled to the Hampshire County Archive in Winchester, before narrowing down their search to Highland Road Cemetery, spending hours tracking down and assessing graves in the cemetery, and the rolling their sleeves up and cleaning one of the graves – that of Major General Dwyer, of the Royal Marines Light Infantry. Their research also saw them request and receive access to St Ann’s Church, on the Portsmouth Dockyard Naval Base, as they went searching for a little-known memorial to Admiral Maitland – the man who arrested Napoleon.

    To find out more about the efforts of the NRWGC, and the support their work, go to www.nrwgc.com

  • A tour of Portsmouth’s history

    A tour of Portsmouth’s history

    One of our UoP history students, Archie McDermott-Paintin, appears in this university video, giving a tour of some of Portsmouth’s history, from the historic dockyard to contemporary community activism.  Archie studied for a degree in history with the department, and is now doing a master’s degree in Victorian Gothic studies.

  • The Lost Crafts of the Past

    The Lost Crafts of the Past

    As part of their work on the second year core module ‘Working with the Past’, three University of Portsmouth History students – Chanel Parker, Loraya Head, and Gemma Norris – collaborated with Portsmouth Museum and Art Gallery to curate a three-month exhibition that both celebrated the crafts of our ancestors and highlighted the importance of preserving the craftspeoples’ skills for future generations. In this blog, written for Hampshire Archives Trust, Chanel Parker discusses the research methods the group used when curating the exhibition.

    ‘Working with the Past’ is coordinated by Mike Esbester.

    To read the blog, click this link.

     

    Slider image courtesy of Birmingham Museums Trust

  • Graduation 2023: A day to celebrate our students’ achievements!

    Graduation 2023: A day to celebrate our students’ achievements!

    Our students’ graduation day is always a special day for us tutors (and, of course, for our students and their families and friends, too!). This year it was even more special because it marked the success of our first cohort of students who started university at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite all the challenges they (and we) faced, they have succeeded and we are so proud of them all and their amazing achievements. This short blog features a few images taken on the day as we celebrated with our undergraduate and postgraduate students. Congratulations all!

    While graduation is always a day of mixed emotions – it’s exciting to see our students graduate, but it’s also sad to see another cohort leave – we were incredibly proud to watch our students cross the stage this year. They’ve been through so many challenges while studying with us, so it’s great to see them celebrating their successes with their families and friends on the day. We were sorry to see them go, but were filled with pride as they crossed the stage at the ceremony at Portsmouth Guildhall, held on the morning of Thursday 20 September. Fortunately, the weather was kind to us, too.

    First up, the History team get their gowns and congregate in Park Building ready to make their way to the stage. If you’re wondering why we have different coloured gowns, it’s because each university has its own colours.

    Members of the History team ready to proceed to the graduation ceremony

     

    After the ceremony we all made our way to the ‘Graduation Village’ in Ravelin Park, where we had time to talk with our students and their friends and families (while enjoying a glass of something bubbly).

    The History team, students and their guests celebrate in Ravelin Park’s ‘Graduation Village’
    Mick Hayes (centre) celebrates receiving his doctorate with supervisors Rob James (left) and Brad Beaven (right)

     

    So that’s it for another year. Once again, many congratulations to you all! It’s been a pleasure working with you, and we wish you the very best for the future!

    The History team

  • Enhancing students’ skills and experiences: A Twitter takeover, an exhibition and a podcast

    Enhancing students’ skills and experiences: A Twitter takeover, an exhibition and a podcast

    As a team we always encourage our students to enhance their skills while studying for their History degree with us, and one way we do this is by offering them opportunities to work with some of our external partners. In this post, we demonstrate how this is undertaken in one second year core module, ‘Working with the Past, co-ordinated by Dr Mike Esbester.

    As part of their studies during their History degree, our students have worked with a range of local and international institutions, including the Mary Rose Museum, Lloyd’s Register Foundation,  the D-Day Story archive, Hong Kong Baptist University, and Pompey History Society, and have undertaken a wide variety of interesting projects over the years.

    One of our second year core modules, ‘Working with the Past’, is set up to specifically foster this type of collaboration. In the module we demonstrate how the practice of academic history can be transferred and applied to a vast range of practical projects that involve thinking about, working with, or drawing-upon knowledge and understanding of the past (you’ll find blogs on some of these projects elsewhere on this site).

    Portsmouth Museum and Art Gallery

     

    This year, one group of students have been working with Portsmouth Museum and Art Gallery on their new #EndangeredCrafts exhibition. Having taken inspiration from the Heritage Crafts ‘Red List of Endangered Crafts’, the Museum will hold an exhibition that highlights the objects that are held in its collections that represent traditional crafts that are at risk of disappearing. This disappearance, the Museum notes on its website, “is due to the individuals holding the knowledge and skills being unable to make provision to pass them on to the next generation”.

    Our students, Chanel, Gemma and Loraya, in collaboration with Museum staff and under the supervision of our Dr Maria Cannon, have held a Twitter takeover (on 11 May 2023), put together a research panel (coming soon!) and recorded a podcast, which is published on the Museum’s website. To hear the podcast, go to the Portsmouth Museum and Art Gallery website here.

     

    https://portsmouthmuseum.co.uk/what-to-see-do/special-displays/endangered-crafts/

  • Follow in the footsteps of history: Liberation Route Europe’s Hiking Trails network

    Follow in the footsteps of history: Liberation Route Europe’s Hiking Trails network

    Earlier in the year our Rob James participated in an outreach event hosted by Liberation Route Europe in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. LRE Foundation is an international network that brings together people and organisations who are dedicated to preserving the cultural heritage of the Second World War. At the event, Rob took part in a panel discussion outlining the benefits of the organisation and its new Hiking Trails project. The southern section of the UK Hiking Trail runs from London to the South coast, and one of Rob’s PhD researchers, (now Dr) Jayne Friend, was employed by the Foundation to provide material for the trail. Jayne identified many points of interest relating to the D-Day campaign in Britain, and when the trail is officially launched you’ll be able to follow in the footsteps of those who participated in the campaign. To read more about the outreach event, visit the LRE Foundation’s newsletter here. To find out more about the Hiking Trails project, and watch a video introducing the London to Portsmouth trail, follow this link.

     

    The panel discussion, with our Rob James seated third from the left