Emily Burgess, who studied for PhD in history at the University of Portsmouth, has had a paper published in Women’s History Review which is free to read here. The paper looks at press depiction of Alice Diamond, leader of the interwar Forty Thieves gang. By mythmaking, framing Diamond as an ‘Underworld Amazon’, ‘Giant’, and ‘Queen of the Terrors’, the press was able to project female gangsterism as a form of ‘internal terror’ to fuel fears over gender, post-war brutalisation and the changing interwar landscape.See a previous post about Emily’s work on London’s female gangsters here. Emily is a graduate of the University, having studied for a BA (Hons) History degree […]
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Venice’s shifting relationship with their Ottoman Neighbours: between religious crusades and economic détente
Third-year UoP history student Elliott Thomas examines the surprisingly pragmatic relationship between Catholic Venice and the Islamic Ottoman Empire, which caused the Venetians first to fight against the Ottomans at the Battle of Lepanto in defence of Cyprus, and then, motivated by economic considerations, to betray their Catholic allies in signing a peace treaty with the Turks resulting in three-quarters of a century of détente. One of the most consequential events of the end of the medieval period was the fourth crusade (1202-1204), where crusaders were ferried by the Venetians to sack the city of Constantinople.[1] This sacking would cause the collapse of the Byzantine Empire into a series of […]
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 […]
Community collaboration in action
Over the last year, the History team’s Dr Mike Esbester, Senior Lecturer in History, has been working with a local history group to find out more about our region’s railway workers. Here he reveals more about this exciting partnership – including where you can see what they’ve produced. Increasingly over the last few years my research has become much more collaborative in approach. That’s largely to do with my work as co-lead of the Railway Work, Life & Death project. The project looks at accidents to British and Irish railway staff before 1939, working with teams of volunteers at the National Railway Museum, the Modern Records Centre at the University […]
Victim or scheming seducer? Investigating screen depictions of Anne Boleyn
A level studies in history and media led Damiana Kun to focus her Portsmouth history dissertation on how a patriarchal screen industry has ignored modern research and continued to attach negative stereotypes to one of history’s most famous and complex women. Damiana’s supervisor was Dr Maria Cannon. Whether someone has a deep interest in history or not, many remember the six wives of the Tudor King Henry VIII by the old English nursery rhyme: “Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived.” However, in popular culture, Anne Boleyn is perhaps the best known out of the six wives, as the one who supplanted a long-time wife and queen and set a nation […]
Liberation Route Europe goes live
By Fiona McCall on September 25, 2025 in Learning in Focus, Public History, Research in Focus, Uncategorized
As part of their second-year module, Working with the Past, second-year history students have been involved with Liberation Route Europe producing the first UK trails for LRE, including one in Portsmouth, highlighting Second World War remembrance sites and stories. This went live over the summer, and was featured by the BBC and Radio Solent. The Community in War-Scarred Portsmouth Route takes in a number of sites in Portsmouth including the Royal Garrison Church.