Author: Robert James

  • Park Building: A seat of learning and former home to the city’s central library

    Park Building: A seat of learning and former home to the city’s central library

    In this blog, part of a series of posts looking at sites of historical interest in Portsmouth, Dr Rob James, Senior Lecturer in History, reveals that Park Building, location for History’s Open Days, was once home to the city’s central library. Rob’s research focuses on society’s leisure practices, and he teaches a number of units that focus on one of the most popular leisure pursuits of the first half of the twentieth century, going to the cinema.

    Portsmouth’s first public library didn’t open until 1883, much later than most other sizeable cities in England. Indeed, the country’s first public library was opened over thirty years earlier, in Manchester in September 1852. Over the next few years many major towns and cities followed Manchester’s lead and opened public libraries to serve the country’s growing number of readers.

    Manchester Public Library

    When I first started researching the country’s public library history I was somewhat surprised to see that Portsmouth was so late in getting in on the act. There appears to have been an initial reluctance among the city’s civic elites in setting up a free library service, with the local newspaper reporting in 1944 that ‘in the early days of the [free library] movement Portsmouth was not “library conscious”.’ [1] Apparently, opposition towards a public library service came from the city’s ratepayers who ‘opposed all attempts by the Borough Council to inaugurate a library service’. [2] That opposition was ‘gradually worn down’, and after the first public library proved to be a well-liked and much-visited amenity, Portsmouth’s civic leaders embarked upon providing branch libraries in many other areas of the city.

    Such was the popularity of the first library that the Council soon had to look for an alternative location in which to accommodate all of its visitors (as well as the thousands of books it needed to house). Portsmouth ‘central’ library has, therefore, had a number of homes, but since 1890 it has been located at the heart of the city’s civic centre. Between 1890 and 1907 the library was located in the New Town Hall (site of the current Guildhall). After that it was housed in Park Building, which was also home to the city’s Municipal College. The library is currently located in Guildhall Square, next to the Civic Offices and just a stone’s throw away from the Guildhall.

    Park Building, Portsmouth

    Continuing the long history of education on that site, Park Building is now home to the University and the venue for our Faculty’s Open Days. So, when you’re next in the building – as a visitor at an Open Day or as a current student – try to imagine it filled with books and bustling with avid population of readers from across the city!

    To read more on public libraries in Britain, see the previous blogs by Rob James on this site: ‘Libraries as community hubs’, ‘Read for Victory‘, ‘Pleasure in reading is the true function of all books’ and ‘Literature acknowledges no boundaries’.

    Notes

    [1] See comments published in ‘Portsmouth is Now Library Conscious: A Review of 60 Years’ Work in the City’, Evening News (Portsmouth), 30 May 1944.

    [2] James G. Ollie, The Portsmouth Reader, July 1947.

  • Women’s Community Activism Project

    Women’s Community Activism Project

    Work has begun at the University of Portsmouth on ‘Women’s Community Activism in Portsmouth – The Hidden Heritage of a Naval Town”, a project supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. This interdisciplinary project is led by Sue Bruley of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and Laurel Forster of the Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries.  Dr Anna Cole is the Project Co-ordinator and Sue Turner the Project Administrator.  Sue is an alumni of the University of Portsmouth and worked for Portsmouth Television in the early 2000s. She is founder and CEO of Elephant in Scarlet, a CIC specialising in video production, based in Portsmouth’s Historic Dockyard. Dr Anna Cole specializes in oral and archival histories of race, gender and sexuality and has worked both in the academic and not-for-profit, community sector. She worked at the University of London, Goldsmith’s College as Research Co-ordinator of a large AHRC-Getty funded international, interdisciplinary project on embodied exchange in Oceania, as Prime-Minister’s Research Fellow at the Museum for Australian Democracy, Canberra and is Regional Lead for an innovative not-for-profit campaigning organisation Hand in Hand Parenting.  Anna Cole writes here on the Women’s Community Activism Project and its upcoming launch day.

    We live in a new era of political activism. Snapchat, Vimeo, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms magnify the reach of local campaigns in ways that were inconceivable before the birth of the internet.  The Arab Spring of 2011, and recent online campaigns such as #Metoo and Time’s Up are testimony to this new era – an era of ‘ipad activists’ of ‘clicktivists’ or ‘slack-tivists’ as Craftivist Collective founder, Sarah Corbett, dubs them.  In these new times pertinent questions can be asked about the efficacy and longevity of political campaigns for a just society.  What motivates activists in the face of monumental challenges to keep going and to imagine a better future regardless of the platforms available to them?  What campaigns and approaches lead to lasting change? How do local campaigns reflect and refract larger national issues and activism?

    Thousands of women and men gather at Trafalgar Square for a rally after marching globally through central London, to promote women’s and human rights a day after the inauguration of US President Donald Trump on Saturday January 21, 2017

     

    We are wanting to speak to, record and learn both from women activists who acted locally, thought globally, and made positive change happen. We want to speak to those who worked tirelessly lobbying for equal pay and for maternity and paternity provision.  We want to learn from those who dreamt of a better future for their children, and worked against racism and sexism in schools. We want to record those who fought for affordable childcare and those who were victorious in the introduction of better workplace conditions in the 1960s and ‘70s.  We want to speak to women who juggled the demands of families and children with paid employment, and women who broke new ground in the Wrens. The story of the Portsmouth branch of the international Women’s Liberation Movement will be central, but it is only one of many strands in a wider, un-documented movement for local women’s rights and equality in Portsmouth. The struggle of women against sexual-harassment in the workplace and domestic violence at home and their campaigns for better housing will be an important part of this new history.

    The aim of the project is to not only record a new and often invisible story of women in a traditionally naval town, but to train and support groups of local volunteers in oral history, video making, curatorial design and web content. There are opportunities for students of social and cultural history, gender politics, marketing and media available now to get involved and gain valuable work-experience and skills while being part of an exciting historic project with contemporary links. This an ambitious, year-long project, with outcomes that include 50 oral history interviews and transcriptions, 6 groups of volunteers working on website content, video stories based on first person testimony, a learning pack for schools, a ‘Memory Day’ to engage with local girls as they grow up, a touring mobile exhibition, a project booklet, and finally two public lectures in 2019.  Get involved now and take your place in making history.

    For more information and to get involved come along to our launch day on Saturday October 20th, at the University of Portsmouth Library, Seminar Room 2,  from 10am until 3.30pm.  You can join us for lunch and an oral history training session, or drop-in as you can.  The day is free but registration is essential:

    Contact Anna Cole or Sue Turner to register: anna.cole@port.ac.uk or susan.turner@port.ac.uk

    Phone: 02392 846 121 or 02392 846 156

    Facebook: Women’s Community Activism in Portsmouth

    Website: www.womenscommunityactivism.port.ac.uk

  • Libraries as community hubs

    Libraries as community hubs

    Dr Robert James, Senior Lecturer in History at Portsmouth, has written a piece for Social History Exchange, a blog run by the Social History Society, to celebrate Libraries Week. In the blog Rob discusses how libraries have acted, and continue to act, as hubs for the local community. To read the blog, click here.

  • History Research Seminars Autumn 2018

    History Research Seminars Autumn 2018

    Every year, the History team at Portsmouth organise a series of research seminars that take place across the autumn, winter and spring terms. Historians are invited from a range of institutions, both in Britain and abroad, to talk about their latest research projects. The subjects presented cover a broad historical timespan and offer insight into a diverse range of topics. This autumn there will be talks on monstrosity in the nineteenth century, ‘No Platforming’ in universities, and women’s workplace protests in the late-twentieth century. All are welcome to attend.

     

    Wednesday 10th October, 3:00-5:00pm. Room: Milldam Building LE1.03

    Monstrosity in nineteenth-century mining narratives

    Eilis Phillips (University of Portsmouth)

     

    Wednesday 14th November, 3:00-5:00pm. Room: Milldam Building LE1.04

    Free speech on campus? The use and critique of ‘No Platform’, c. 1974-1986

    Jodi Burkett (University of Portsmouth)

     

    Wednesday 12th December, 3:00-5:00pm. Room: Milldam Building LE1.04

    Women, workplace protest and political identity in England, c. 1968-1985

    Jonathan Moss (University of Sussex)

  • ‘Definitely my favourite year’: How to succeed in your final year as a History student

    ‘Definitely my favourite year’: How to succeed in your final year as a History student

    Returning for your third year as a History undergraduate? This blog was written by former History student Emily Fryer, and in it she reflects back on her final year of study and offers tips on how to work through it. Emily graduated in July 2018 with a first class degree.

    Third year was definitely my favourite year, it is extremely rewarding. It feels like all the work you have put in during first and second years is coming together, and you are starting to see the results. I personally found the work load way more manageable than second year, mostly thanks to there being no more assessed seminars. There’s also so much choice, so hopefully the units you are doing are extremely interesting and engaging. The group research project is a great opportunity to go deeper into a topic you are passionate about, but maybe didn’t fit into any of your units in previous years.  Even if you aren’t the biggest fan of presentations I am sure that you will like this one, to bring a project from a group idea, investigate it in the archives, and produce a presentation was a process I thoroughly enjoyed.

    When someone mentions third year, I’m sure you immediately think of one thing… your dissertation. I know I definitely found the prospect of having to write 10,000 words daunting at first, I found it much easier to break it up in my head. Three chapters, 3,000 words each, its like three essays. Much easier than trying to tackle 10,000 words head on.

    Everyone will tell you this, but it truly is the best advice… start early! Use the 10% task as an opportunity to get most of your reading and research done, then you have a solid foundation to continue with the rest of your work.  A lot of what you write for it can be used in your first chapter too.  Another one of my top dissertation tips would be to meet regularly with your tutor, they can help steer you in the right direction and answer any questions that you may have. Lastly, even though it might be hard to motivate yourself as they aren’t assessed and there’s no formal deadlines, make use of the opportunity to hand in your chapter drafts and have them checked by your tutor. I found rewriting or editing chapters after feedback was so helpful.

    Careers is something I wish I’d have given more thought to, but it just wasn’t my priority. To be honest, when I wasn’t reading or writing essays the last thing I wanted to do was look or apply for jobs. But, if you are someone like me who has no idea what they want to do after they leave uni, don’t panic. You’ve got years to decide what you want to do, but only one year to be a final year History student. However, I would advise you to keep it in the back of your mind as you go through third year. Make the most of the resources that are available, staff at the careers and recruitment centre are super helpful when it comes to applications or careers advice and they also have a good website.

    Third year flies by so make the most of your last year in Portsmouth. It’s easy to get bogged down with uni work, but a good social life is key to being able to do your best work. If there’s somewhere that you and your friends have been talking about going for two years, now’s your chance to go. Take that break from the library and have lunch in Gunwarf. If you haven’t already been for a trip to the Dockyards or a night out on Albert Road I would definitely recommend it. Make time for yourself and your friends and your grades will be better for it.

    Good luck and enjoy it!

     

  • ‘Step outside of your comfort zone’: How to get the best out of your second year at university

    ‘Step outside of your comfort zone’: How to get the best out of your second year at university

    Are you just about to start your second year studying History? This blog, written by Eleanor Doyle, President of the University of Portsmouth Students’ Union History Society, offers great advice on how to get the most out of your second year of studies. Eleanor is just about to start her final year.

    My best piece of advice for second year is to be brave and have the confidence to step outside of your comfort zone. My second year at Portsmouth University flew by and although it might feel as though your summer was gone in a blink, second year goes by even faster.

    One of the most exciting parts of second year is that you have the opportunity to choose the units you study and so you can tailor your degree to your interests. For me, this meant I spent most of my time flitting between crime and punishment in early modern England and social relations in London’s urban slums in the 18th and 19th century. While this might not be everyone’s idea of a great year, I really enjoyed the variety that came with these units. However, random chance meant I also spent my time studying post-war Germany. This was well and truly out of my comfort zone! I felt quite daunted at the prospect of studying a unit I knew nothing about, especially when I was aware most of my friends had a head start from their A-levels.  However, I am very happy to say that this unit turned out to be fascinating and I had some of my best results ever! My experience in this unit makes me convinced that stepping outside your confidence zone is one of the best things you can do in your second year.

    When it begins, second year can feel a bit like a limbo between the nerves of first year and getting stuck into your dissertation in third year. However, second year is great in its own right! By the time you start your second year, you feel more comfortable with how seminars work, the way you work best and the types of things that interest you. (Although, don’t worry if you haven’t figured all this out yet, as you go through second year your skills and confidence will grow and you’ll realise you were better than you thought.) Also, the type of work and assessments you do in your second year give you a fantastic opportunity to get really stuck into topics that fascinate you. I wrote a blog post on Jane Austen using the surviving letters she sent to her sister, Cassandra, to look at how Jane understood herself and her world. Attempting something like this was certainly out of my comfort zone when I started my second year, but I can confidently say it was one of the most enjoyable pieces of work I’ve ever written.

    Second year is also a perfect time to try something new or develop your extra-curricular skills by taking up some of the great opportunities around. I enjoyed being one of the University’s student ambassadors at our last Open Day and I had the chance to take over the department’s Twitter page to have a chat about my experience at university. I also took a big step and became History Society President and I can’t wait for the year ahead. However, there are also a huge number of opportunities outside the University that you can make the most of during your second year. I took on new roles in my job at the Mary Rose and took up rock climbing as a hobby! These completely different things really helped me in my second year because they made sure I took time to step away from my work and focus on something else.

    Finally, second year is also the time when people start thinking about their dissertations. I found this rather daunting at the start of the year but I now know I was definitely not alone! I would strongly advise you to approach all the reading you do for your seminars and essays with an open mind, even if you think you don’t find the topic interesting. For me, this mind-set helped me decide to write my dissertation on gin palaces in 18th and 19th century London. This was certainly not an option I had even considered before my second year!  You never know what might inspire you and the earlier you start being open to new ideas, the easier it is to decide what you really like.

    Overall, second year is wonderful. Like anything, it has its stresses and its deadlines but having the confidence to take it on and get as much as you can out of it means your second year is one you’ll never forget. My experiences across my two years at Portsmouth University have prepared me well for my next challenge: third year! Now I can’t wait to get started.

    Good luck to everyone starting their second year – I hope you’re brave and bold and get as much out of it as you can!