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 […]
Tag Archives | seventeenth century
Uncovering seventeenth-century Portsmouth: the assassination of the King’s favourite
Portsmouth was strategically important in the seventeenth century, but relatively little has been written on it. For their second-year Working with the Past project a group of UoP history students tried to discover more about three key Portsmouth figures from this time. In this second post in a series, Olivia Newby writes about the infamous murder of the Duke of Buckingham on Portsmouth High Street and how it became a catalyst for political change in the 17th century. When we think of famous people relative to Portsmouth’s history, we often think of Charles Dickens and his famed nineteenth century novels.[1] What we don’t often draw attention to, is the importance […]
The man who fortified Portsmouth: uncovering the work of Sir Bernard De Gomme
Portsmouth was strategically important in the seventeenth century, but relatively little has been written on it. For their second-year Working with the Past project a group of UoP history students tried to discover more about three key Portsmouth figures from this time. In this first post in a series, Callum Ireland writes about the Dutch engineer who rebuilt the fortifications which shaped the Portsmouth seafront today. Portsmouth, the maritime capital of England. We all know at least one fact about the deep and rich naval history of this island off the South coast, whether it’s the mighty Mary Rose and its short tenure under Henry VIII or the long and […]
Why the Polish Reformation deserves to be remembered
For his dissertation, third-year UoP history student Jacob Canavan chose to focus on Polish Protestantism which, while largely forgotten and repressed at home, proved to have a significant influence abroad, in spreading ideas which were to influence enlightenment thought across Europe. Jacob’s supervisor was Dr Fiona McCall. Jacob has been accepted to continue on to study for a Master’s degree at the University of York, the alma mater of our own Drs Katy Gibbons and Mike Esbester and Professor Dave Andress and a great place to study religious history. When one thinks about Poland and its history, one rarely conjures the image of a Protestant church, with its pristine white […]
Students visit 17th century Portsmouth
For the third-year UOP history specialist option Britain in Revolution, students are taken on a visit round Old Portsmouth to see some evidence of Portsmouth’s 17th century history. Portsmouth was strategically important in the Britain’s Civil Wars and also famously the place where the Duke of Buckingham was stabbed to death by John Felton. Here are some of this year’s students outside the house where this happened on the High Street, which was followed by a visit to Buckingham’s elaborate tomb in the cathedral including a memento mori skull. The cathedral itself lost its tower during the siege of 1642, thanks to the parliamentary gunners firing from Gosport.
Histories of Adulthood in Britain and the United States
In November 2024 our own Dr Maria Cannon published an edited collection Adulthood in Britain and the United States from 1350 to Generation Z in the Royal Historical Society’s New Historical Perspectives series published by the University of London Press. Laura Tisdall, Senior Lecturer at Newcastle University, was Maria’s co-editor. The collection looks at how ideas of adulthood have changed over the centuries and addresses two central questions: who gets to be an adult, and who decides? The chapters in the collection cover more than 600 years and two continents and are focused around four key themes: adulthood as both burden and benefit; adulthood as a relational category; collective versus individual […]