History@Portsmouth

University of Portsmouth's History Blog

Tag Archives | nineteenth century

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Sailors Ashore: The Exploration of Class, Culture and Ethnicity in Victorian London by Brad Beaven

Brad Beaven has a new blog published on the Social History Society’s blog, looking at the history of ‘sailortowns’, seaport’s urban quarters where sailors would stay, eat, drink and be entertained.  These were  transient and liminal spaces and a unique site of cultural contact and exchange. Despite the rich array of research areas in class, race and gender relations that these districts have to offer, sailortowns have tended to be overlooked in historical study.  This is because they sit at the cross-roads between the urban and maritime realms, and have tended to fall between these two schools of history. Brad writes about his new article published for the journal Social […]

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Fantine from Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, by Margaret Bernadine Hall (1863-1910)

The morality of state intervention in sexually-transmitted disease

Is it appropriate for governments to restrict personal liberty in an effort to control disease? This issue has come very much to the fore in the wake of the current worldwide Coronavirus epidemic.  In this post, Darcy Mckinlay, a second year history student, writes about nineteenth-century arguments against forcible methods of controlling venereal diseases. During the nineteenth century there was an increase in state intervention, marking a transformation from a previous ‘non-interference’ government approach.[1]  In 1864, the first of three Contagious Diseases Acts was passed, permitting the compulsory medical inspection and detention of prostitutes with venereal diseases.[2]  This law was specifically aimed at working-women in military-based towns because the government […]

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Goblin scullery maids, ghostly miners and cannibal sailors: my experience of studying for a PhD at the University of Portsmouth

Dr Eilís Phillips followed three years of undergraduate study at the University of Portsmouth with a three-year PhD on Victorian monsters, supervised by Dr Karl Bell, Reader in History at the University.  Her work is an inspiration to many, not least to my own students studying ideas of the monstrous in the 17th century Civil War context.  Impressively, while studying with and teaching at the University, Eilís has combined her academic studies with regular performances as a musician at many locations in Portsmouth and the surrounding areas – ed.   My PhD was a three-year, CEISR-funded interdisciplinary project which used an approach based in History – grounded in historiography – […]

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Self-identity under slavery: Frederick Douglass narrates his story

Joshua Bown, a first year History student at the University of Portsmouth, has written the following blog entry on the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, for the Fragments module, which looks at the possibilities and challenges of using primary sources for historical study. The module is co-ordinated by Dr Katy Gibbons, Senior Lecturer in History at Portsmouth. The use of egodocuments as a primary source for historians has provided both significant and controversial contributions to the field. As Laura Sangha puts it, the potential advantages of studying these personal documents seem obvious, in that they may ‘reveal what an individual actually thought and felt about […]

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The Invention of the Weekend

Articles by our own Professor Brad Beaven on how the current 48-hour weekend became the norm, were recently published in the Conversation and in The Independent: Link: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/weekend-lesson-four-day-working-week-a9274096.html   Link: https://theconversation.com/history-of-the-two-day-weekend-offers-lessons-for-todays-calls-for-a-four-day-week-127382 Brad has published widely on urban popular culture, leisure and empire in Britain in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

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Using Personal Sources: Charlotte Brontë’s letters

Rachel Savage, a second year History student at the University of Portsmouth, has written the following blog entry on letters sent between author Charlotte Brontë and her friend Ellen Nussey, for the Introduction to Historical Research module. Rachel reveals how personal sources like this can be used to gain insight into the emotions of women living in the 19th century Britain. The module is co-ordinated by Dr Maria Cannon, Lecturer in Early Modern History at Portsmouth. Charlotte Brontё was born in 1816 and grew up in a society which compelled her to conceal her gender with the pseudonym Currer Bell in order to initiate her successful writing career. [1] The […]

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