Frankie Raine’s dissertation looked at how perceptions of crime in the nineteenth-century were influenced by sensationalist literary and media representations, contrasting the depiction of men involved in the mid-Victorian garrotting panic, with those of female prostitutes accused of theft. She found that the impact of literary and journalistic depictions on public understanding was mixed, intersecting in a more complex way with on pre-existing gender and class expectations. Below, she describes her research process, and gives some tips for future dissertation students. Frankie’s supervisor was Professor Brad Beaven. The abundance of media sources detailing crimes and the criminals convicted of carrying them out has long been a cause of amusement and […]
Tag Archives | nineteenth century
“War. It has got to come”. How the radical imperialism of Alfred Milner and Joseph Chamberlain pushed Britain into war with South Africa
Elliott Thomas’s enthusiasm for and seriousness about history was apparent to from the time I first taught him in his first year of studies, and he has contributed several pieces for this blog. For his dissertation he looked at the role of charismatic figures Joseph Chamberlain, Alfred Milner, and the writer John Robert Seeley in pushing ideas of radical, racist imperialism which at the turn of the twentieth century led Britain into a devastating conflict in South Africa. Elliott’s supervisor was Professor Brad Beaven. Elliott’s work has got better and better over the three years he has studied with us and it is great to see Elliott give a shout […]
Southsea castle ramparts (land side)
By Fiona McCall on May 14, 2026 in Learning in Focus, Public History, Research in Focus, Uncategorized
By Ben Whiteman Beginning groundwork in 1813, the castle expansion would be overseen by Major-General Benjamin Fisherman and last until the finishing touches were made in 1817. Southsea castle spent much of the late 18th and early 19th century in a poor state of disrepair. Coastal erosion had taken parts of the western wall while an accidental gunpowder explosion in 1759 destroyed a large portion of the castle. The explosion is believed to have started from a large cooking fire in the east wing living quarters. It’s thought that sparks fell through the cracks in the old floorboards igniting the gunpowder storeroom below. However, this was never confirmed.[1] Tragically the […]
Alice Diamond, ‘Queen of the Terrors’ in the interwar London underworld
By Fiona McCall on November 27, 2025 in Alumni, Learning in Focus, New Publications, Research in Focus, Uncategorized
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 […]
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 […]
National Archives podcast – People of the Railways
As part of the nation-wide series of events to mark two hundred years of the railways, The National Archives of the UK ‘On the Record’ railway-focused podcast invited our own Dr Mike Esbester in as an expert. Together with archivists, Mike drew on his research and 25 years of using The National Archives to discuss early railway travellers and their experiences, and railway accidents, drawing on Mike’s work for the Railway Work, Life & Death project. The podcast is available here.