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 […]
Archive | Alumni
Portsmouth history graduate is Record Keeper of the Year
Portsmouth history graduate Chloe Anderson-Wheatley has been awarded the title of Record Keeper of the Year award by the Archives & Records Association, to recognise the extensive contribution she has made to record keeping for the Falkland Islands Government. Over the past eighteen months Chloe has significantly raised the profile of the Island’s National Archives service, increased local and international engagement and awareness with the collections, and has built new partnerships. Having been a volunteer archivist as a teenager, Chloe gained a history degree at the University of Portsmouth, before completing an MA in Archives & Records Management from University College London, returning to the islands to become their first […]
From a Portsmouth history degree to conserving historic buildings at York
Mature student Mandy Wrenn was a great influence on the younger students while studying history at Portsmouth, and is still in touch with many of them. We still use her blog on urban football as a model for students on the Underworlds model thinking about how to analyse sources for their document commentary assignment. Below she describes how she went on to study (and gain a distinction) for a Masters degree in conserving historic buildings at the University of York. Figuring out what to do after a history degree isn’t always straightforward. Some people have a plan, but for many, it’s a case of working out how their skills fit […]
Realising and communicating a love for history, at Portsmouth and beyond
Ashleigh Hufton is remembered with great affection by the history team as a student who contributed keenly to history seminars from the outset and worked hard to develop her skills further during her studies in history at the University of Portsmouth from 2018 – 2021. Ashleigh has since been enjoying great success teaching history at secondary level. Below she writes about her studies at Portsmouth, and what she has gained from them since graduating. What I enjoyed most about my history studies at Portsmouth It is difficult to pinpoint the most enjoyable part of my degree because I genuinely loved every moment of being a student at the University […]
London’s female gangsters: press responses and gendered implications 1890-1940
On 17 May 2023 University of Portsmouth PhD researcher, Emily Burgess, presented her paper on the press’s treatment of female gangsters from the late-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. If you missed the paper, the recording is available to watch here. You will need the following password T19#MUVU to access the recording. An abstract for Emily’s paper can be found below. Emily is a graduate of the University, having studied for a BA (Hons) History degree between 2017 and 2020 (awarded First Class honours) and an MRes in History between 2020 and 2021 (Distinction). She was awarded the ‘Robbie Gray Memorial Prize’ for the Best Undergraduate History Dissertation in 2020, and started […]
Charting the major milestones of the Space Race: Wally Fawkes and the satirical cartoon
On 1 March 2023 the renowned jazz musician and cartoonist Wally Fawkes passed away aged 98. In his long career, Fawkes illustrated satirical cartoons for The Daily Mail under the pseudonym ‘Trog’. His most famous creation was the comic-strip ‘Flook’, but his illustrative work increasingly focused on British politics. In this blog, alumnus student Daniel Millard discusses Fawkes’ role in familiarising the British public with the country’s role in the ‘Space Race’ during the Cold War years. Daniel interviewed Fawkes as part of his research for his undergraduate dissertation, ‘Exploring together: how curators, correspondents and cartoonists presented the Space Race to the British public, 1957-1975‘. Daniel graduated with a first-class BA […]