It was hosted by the Trade Union & Employment Forum of History & Policy, and brought together practitioners, trades unionists and academics – including the University of Portsmouth History team’s Dr Mike Esbester. Mike’s research focuses on histories of safety, risk and accident prevention in modern Britain. Some of that has looked at the changing landscape of health and safety at work and beyond since 1960 – including the 1974 Health and Safety at Work Act. The change of law was much needed; in the 1960s and early 1970s, UK workplaces were still killing and injuring large number of people. Their impacts were felt beyond the factory walls, too, as workplace incidents affected more than ‘just’ employees.
The principles underlying the Act had both radical and conservative elements. They extended the duty of care far beyond the boundaries of the workplace. At the same time, they modelled older ideas about who was able to prevent harm. Mike brought these tensions and contradictions out in his presentation to the symposium, which gave a long-term historical overview of the Act’s originals. He’s explored some of these aspects in this piece for The Conversation. This piece, written for History & Policy at the 40th anniversary of the Act, is also still relevant today. All of this work draws upon Mike’s research, including the ‘Changing Legitimacy of Health and Safety at Work’ project, funded by the Institution of Occupational Safety & Health.
The symposium brought together different approaches, from the historical to the present day, the philosophical to the practical. It wrestled with the question of how far the 1974 Act has kept pace with the world around it, and whether or not it might be time for a new means of approaching health and safety in the UK.
The University of Portsmouth History team’s Mike Esbester has recently had a co-authored open access article published, in Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal. It’s part of a special issue, marking the 50th anniversary of the Modern Records Centre (MRC) at the University of Warwick.
The MRC is the major repository for archives of trades unions and employers organisations, with a particular strength in transport collections. Mike has been using the MRC for his research for over 20 years.
Over the last five years the MRC has been an integral part of the ‘Railway Work, Life & Death’ project, as a collaborator and institutional co-lead, alongside the University of Portsmouth and the National Railway Museum. The project also works with The National Archives of the UK and the RMT Union. The project is looking at accidents to British and Irish railway workers before the Second World War.
Working with small teams of dedicated volunteers, the project is transcribing accident records and making them freely available for researchers to use, via the project website. So far the project has made available over 48,000 records, and the volunteers are working on a further 70,000 cases.
Page from a booklet, with text describing an accident, accompanied by a posed photograph, showing a fireman on top of a steam engine’s tender as it was moving, about to be struck by a bridge.
Given collaboration is integral to the Railway Work, Life & Death project, when the MRC wanted to mark its 50th anniversary in 2023, Mike and the project team were keen to be involved. Mike spoke about the project, alongside volunteer Cheryl Hunnisett and RMT President Alex Gordon. Having voices outside the traditional higher education setting was fundamental to the talk, another way of putting into practice the co-creative ethos of the project.
This has followed into the publication, ‘Collaboration in the Archive’. It looks at the Railway Work, Life & Death project and the MRC, reflecting on the project’s work, including the successes and challenges of working collaboratively. As a point of principle, it was co-authored. It features two of the project volunteers, Cheryl Hunnisett and Stephen Lamb, the MRC’s Senior Archivist James King, RMT President Alex Gordon, and Mike.
Just as importantly, in terms of reaching outside higher education, the article is open access, meaning it’s free to download!
Below Pauline Standley describes the experience of studying for a master’s degree in history (MRes) at Portsmouth. She looked at the role of Nina Simone as a civil rights activist, a feminist, and someone who reflected the broader socio-political shifts of her time. Pauline’s supervisor was Dr Lee Sartain.
Nina Simone. For many, her name immediately brings to mind her iconic, richly textured voice, often accompanied by signature sounds of the trumpets and piano in timeless classics like “I Put a Spell on You” or “Feeling Good”. While these songs undoubtedly capture her unshakeable legacy, Nina Simone is also a reservoir of intersectional experiences that reveal much about the socio-political dynamics of 20th-century America. In examining the personal evolution of Nina Simone and the broader societal changes, my research brings together cultural, political and intellectual histories, which illustrates how figures like Nina were pivotal in shaping resistance movements for African Americans. Using her a case study in my research project has been incredibly fruitful, allowing me to engage with the themes I’m deeply passionate about – gender and race within the American context – and understanding their impacts on an incredibly personal level. It also highlighted just how overlooked Nina Simone is; though celebrated as a musical icon, her contribution to the civil rights and feminist movements remain significantly understudied. Certainly, this makes for exciting research: digging through archives, furiously highlighting her autobiography, dissecting her thoughts and reflections, and then juxtaposing these findings with the ideas of key intellectuals and leaders of her time to discover how they connected – or contrasted! This is often followed by overly excited, far-too-long email to my supervisor (apologies, Lee) where I gush about my latest discoveries and how incredible she is. The brilliant part of having a supervisor, though, is they usually match your enthusiasm, and suddenly a “look what I found!” turns into a whole chapter of analysis.
Musical Division, “Singing in a small group with Lorraine Hansberry and Nina Simone” The New York Public Library Collections, 1963. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/5d9a7e60-2cf4-0135-0613-0fc77b59adf9
Though the scope initially felt overwhelming, it proved to be a perfect size – big enough to cover the nuances of the topic, yet focused enough to stop the research from running away with itself. For an entire year, I was immersed in discovering and researching Nina Simone and 20th-century America. Skeletal ideas that I had been tossing around gradually blossomed into well-structured project. There is an unmatched sense of satisfaction in witnessing an academic piece you’ve designed and nurtured evolve into a comprehensive body of work. The MRes course is perfectly tailored for those who like to have creative control and the space to freedom to focus on their own specialist content, which is an added bonus if you are looking to further your academic studies but there are no available MAs which aligns to your topic area. Whilst the main body of the MRes is occupied in undertaking the dissertation, there are other assignments due such as a Literature Review, Research Proposal and Poster Presentation. Each of these assignments are extremely helpful in laying out the bare bones of your project, your key arguments and the existent body of research you will refer to. It will not only help you feel more confident in your project, as it will force you to critically examine your own work, but it will help you develop key skills such as critical thinking, research methodology and effective articulation of complex ideas – all highly attractive skills for employability.
So, readers of the History Blog Site! Heed my call – don’t overlook the Masters of Research (MRes) Course. If you enjoyed, are currently enjoying or enjoy the idea of undertaking your dissertation, designing and leading a project tailored to themes that fascinate you, and you’re curious about deepening your academic studies, I urge you to consider the MRes. For me, it built on the skills I developed during my undergraduate years and become of the most transformative and rewarding period of my academic journey. And if you’re thinking of pursuing a PhD in the future, the MRes is the perfect stepping stone, helping you develop fundamental individual research skills that will prepare you to undertake rigours of doctoral research, including independent study, critical analysis and project management.
UoP Senior Lecturer in history Dr Fiona McCall had the following post published today on the website of the Ecclesiastical History Society, in which she discusses the extraordinary role of the military in Interregnum religious life.
Plaque erected at Thorpe St Andrew Church in Norfolk to the victims of the disaster.
On the 9 September, our own Dr Mike Esbester had this piece on the Thorpe St Andrew train crash of 10 September 1874 published in The Conversation. Mike compares how memories of the loss of lives in such dramatic events compares with the often forgotten deaths of working class railway workers, whose deaths lack the single point of reference that such events provide.
Our own Dr Mike Esbester was featured on BBC 1’s ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ on 5 September 2024, helping Rose Ayling-Ellis learn more about her ancestor’s railway accident. The episode is available to watch on BBC iPlayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0022n0p
