History@Portsmouth

University of Portsmouth's History Blog

Tag Archives | history

Skylark launch

Using Oral Sources: Recovering the history of the Skylark rocket

By on January 17, 2018 in Learning in Focus

Daniel Millard, a second year History student at the University of Portsmouth, wrote the following blog entry on how historians can use oral history testimony to reflect on Britain’s attempts to enter the ‘space race’ in the late-1950s for the Introduction to Historical Research Unit.  The unit is co-ordinated by Dr Maria Cannon, Lecturer in Early Modern History at Portsmouth. In 1957 Britain entered the space race with the launch of the Skylark sounding rocket. Conceived at a time when the nation was seeking to develop ballistic missile capabilities Skylark quickly positioned itself as a valuable research tool with which to help scientists unlock secrets from above the Earth’s upper atmosphere. […]

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View of Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight, etching by Wenceslas Hollar, 1643, British Museum Print Q, C.100

Portsmouth and the English Civil Wars

By on December 14, 2017 in Learning in Focus

Dr Fiona McCall teaches a third year special subject on the British Civil Wars.  Below she looks at events in Portsmouth which give it a good claim to be considered the place where the Civil War broke out. Hampshire saw considerable action during the First Civil War (1642-6), being sandwiched between the area of Parliamentary control in the South and East, and the South-West, which was controlled by the Royalists for most of the first war.   One of the first major sieges took place here at Portsmouth, and one of the last, further north at Basing. Other notable actions occurred at Winchester, at Alton church, Cheriton, and just over the […]

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Men-leaving-DY-Unicorn-Gate

Nationalism, Regionalism and British identity in early 20th century England

By on November 16, 2017 in New Publications, Research in Focus

Dr Melanie Bassett is a Research Associate for the Port Towns and Urban Cultures project. She also teaches undergraduate units in History. Here she talks about her chapter which is published in the Four Nations Approaches to Modern ‘British’ History. A (Dis)United Kingdom? edited collection, which is out now. In 2015 I gave a paper at the United Kingdom? Four Nations Approaches to Modern ‘British’ History conference which prompted me to look at my research from a different perspective. My PhD thesis (completed at the University of Portsmouth) was entitled The Royal Dockyard Worker in Edwardian England: Culture, Leisure and Empire, and although I briefly considered the role of ‘Englishness’ […]

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jodi

Students in Twentieth-Century Britain and Ireland

By on October 23, 2017 in New Publications

Dr Jodi Burkett is Principal Lecturer in History at Portsmouth, where she teaches on a range of undergraduate units, including Society and Culture in Twentieth Century Europe, Being British After the War: Continuity and Change in British National Identity, 1945-2005, and Students and Youth in Postwar Britain. Jodi researches British national identity and the legacies of empire in the postwar period, and her current work evaluates student anti-racist activism in the 1970s and 1980s. She has recently published an edited collection of chapters on Students in Twentieth-Century Britain and Ireland. See below for further details. To purchase the book click here. Students in Twentieth-Century Britain and Ireland explores the experiences and activities of students across […]

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Darkfest

Portsmouth Darkfest returns! October 26th – November 30th 2017

By on October 13, 2017 in Events

Dr Karl Bell, Reader in Cultural and Social History at Portsmouth, has organised another series of events this autumn as part of Portsmouth Darkfest, a creative and cultural festival that explores all things dark, supernatural and sinister. For details of the wide range of exciting events taking place, click here. Karl’s research interests cover nineteenth-century British society’s continued fascination with supernatural beliefs, magic and folklore, and feeds into his final year Special Subject, Magic and Modernity: Witchcraft and the Occult, c. 1800-1920s.

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fiona 2

The Excommunication of Portsmouth, 1450-1508

By on October 5, 2017 in Learning in Focus, Research in Focus

Dr Fiona McCall teaches on a first year module, Early Modern World, where we discuss the practice of the medieval Catholic church before the reformation, and a second year module, Crime, Sin and Punishment in Britain, 1500-1850, which looks at the extensive jurisdiction of the church courts in the early modern period, as well as the role of religious ideas in punishment. Below she relates how the town of Portsmouth was excommunicated in 1450, and what it had to do, fifty-eight years later, to end this predicament. This year, Patrick Johnson, one of the students who studied the above module last year, will be researching a dissertation on the social meaning […]

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