History@Portsmouth

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Josiah King, The Examination and Tryall of Old Father Christmas

Have yourself a puritan Christmas

By on December 16, 2020 in Research in Focus

Dr Fiona McCall is a lecturer in early modern history, teaching units on the British Civil Wars, and Crime, Sin and Punishment in early modern Britain, amongst others. Her current research project investigates traditionalist resistance to puritan values in English parish churches during the 1640s and 1650s, and in this blog she discusses how Christmas was banned during this period. Christmas was officially banned during the late 1640s and 1650s along with the rest of the church calendar.  But the interdict was widely ignored.  Trawling through various counties’ quarter sessions depositions for the period, I have found frequent references to Christmas, Easter, Whitsun, and various saints days, the witnesses (even those testifying […]

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Hans Holbein ship with sailors

Cut-throat communities, angry noblemen, and a noseless pirate! My journey through the joys and horrors of writing a dissertation

By on June 16, 2020 in Learning in Focus, Research in Focus

Below, the first of a series on this year’s bumper crop of student dissertations, from my own supervisee Tom Underwood.  Tom was one of the most prepared and organised students I’ve ever supervised, but as he mentions below, also still honing his dissertation down to the wire, and we were blown away with the results.  Tom is planning to continue onto an MRes, where his impressive skills at reading early modern handwriting, and patience with sifting his way through basement archives should come to further good use. – ed Whether its Errol Flynn’s smooth-talking Captain Blood, or Johnny Depp’s rum-soaked Jack Sparrow, the pirate occupies a special place within popular […]

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Welcome_to_the_Falkland_Island cropped

Four years on: graduation to employment

By on April 7, 2020 in Learning in Focus, Public History

In this blog post, graduate Chloe Anderson considers her time at Portsmouth and its influence on her career. Chloe comes from the Falklands Islands originally, so is probably the student who has travelled the furthest to study history at Portsmouth.  As she writes below, she is now putting her history training to good use back home. We’re pleased that she offered to put this together for us, as it’s lovely to keep in touch with our graduates and to be able to share their success stories. Whilst some aspects of our course structure have changed since Chloe studied with us, the essential aspects she discusses (our approach, the support and […]

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Black Cultural Archives V3

Students visit the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton

By on March 5, 2020 in Learning in Focus, Research in Focus

Third year student Amelia Boddice describes her first experience of visiting and using an archive, with other students of the Racism and Anti-Racism in Post-War Britain special subject, taught by Dr Jodi Burkett. As part of my special subject, ‘Racism and Anti-Racism in Post-War Britain’ run by Dr Jodi Burkett, we had to come up with our own essay questions.  At first this seemed quite a daunting prospect.  As I looked through the topics and read more widely I decided to write about something I was truly interested in: the British government’s attempts at improving the everyday experiences of ethnic minorities in the 1970/80s.  I wanted to touch on the […]

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Windsor Castle

Life after Graduation

By on February 12, 2020 in Learning in Focus, Public History

One of our recent graduates tells us how the skills he gained studying at Portsmouth, and the volunteer experience he gained while studying, helped him secure an exciting job in the heritage sector.  For security reasons, he has not been named. Having graduated in the summer of 2019 and with a firm understanding that it was now time to get back into the world of work, the task was on to find a job, one that both stimulated me and used the great many skills learned through the three years at Portsmouth. Upon entering university I knew that my one objective was to better myself in both educational values and […]

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