History@Portsmouth

University of Portsmouth's History Blog

Tag Archives | Britain

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Accidents on the railways: A story of heartbreak and loss

By on June 30, 2022 in Learning in Focus, Public History

University of Portsmouth History student Jenny Leng produced a blog for the Railway Work, Life & Death project as part of her work on the second year core module ‘Working with the Past’, coordinated by Mike Esbester. Mike co-leads the RWLD project along with Karen Baker (Librarian, National Railway Museum) and Helen Ford (Manager, Modern Records Centre) with the assistance of Craig Shaw (Volunteer Administrator, NRM). In this blog, Jenny uncovers the stories of Portsmouth railway workers Godfrey and Albert Linegar, who were both involved in accidents at work, one resulting in heart-breaking loss. To read the blog, click this link.

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Breakup of Britain

Differential fees for overseas students

By on June 13, 2022 in Learning in Focus, New Publications, Research in Focus

In this new post, Senior Lecturer Jodi Burkett shares a podcast in which she discusses a chapter she has written for the edited collection The Break-up of Greater Britain (MUP, 2021). Jodi’s research focuses on the cultural and social impacts of the end of the British Empire, with a particular focus on national movements like the National Union of Students, and in this podcast she reveals how the different fees charged to overseas students caused significant anger among the student community in the late-1960s. Increasing tuition fees for University students has been a way for governments to save money since, at least, the late 1960s. While most students didn’t have […]

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Could Churchill have done more to prevent the holocaust? The evidence of a personal letter

By on May 27, 2021 in Learning in Focus

Callum Chinn, now in his final year studying history at Portsmouth, wrote this blog piece for the second-year Introduction to Historical Research module last year.  In it, he examines a letter written by Winston Churchill in July 1944, and what it reveals about the allies’ knowledge of and response to the holocaust. The twentieth century witnessed one of the most horrific atrocities of all time, the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis across Europe; known worldwide as the Holocaust. With a ‘recent estimate that 5.4 million to 5.8 million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust’, it raises questions about the speed of the allied response to the situation, whether […]

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“There are no revolutions in well-governed countries” – British film and the Russian Revolution

By on February 1, 2021 in Learning in Focus, Research in Focus

In this blog, Rob James explores how the events of the 1917 Russian Revolution impacted British film production in the mid-twentieth century. Rob tells us that the chance of a film being made depicting those tumultuous events depended on how they were presented. If the film demonstrated any sympathy towards the revolutionaries, then a ban was inevitable. Rob’s research covers society’s leisure activities and how they were shaped and controlled from both within and outside the entertainment industry. His research feeds into a number of optional and specialist modules that he teaches in the second and third year. In the 1934 film Princess Charming, produced by Michael Balcon, one of […]

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From Margins to Centre? An undergraduate conference on marginalised histories

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

At Portsmouth we were delighted to have not one, but two students presenting their work at the recent ‘From Margins to Centre’ conference at the University of York – a testament to the innovative and exciting research our students are devising and doing. In this blog post our second contributor, third year student Amelia Boddice, discusses the conference and where her paper fitted into the themes of the day. As well as building her employability skills, the conference prompted some thought-provoking reflections on the nature of historical enquiry: Amelia clearly got lots out of the day – just as it should be! The whole history team here at Portsmouth pitched […]

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Putting a positive spin on war-time evacuation

By on April 30, 2020 in Learning in Focus, Public History, Uncategorized

In this blog post, second-year history student Alex Symonds looks at a diary from World War II, now in the Imperial War museum.  The diary, apparently a joint effort by three girl guides, was probably intended for public consumption, and thus downplays the negative impact of war-time life for evacuees. The evacuation of British children in World War II is often depicted as a negative experience for everyone involved.  Children who had never even left their home towns suddenly had to adapt to life in the countryside and living with strangers, while their host families were confronted with dirty, disease-riddled children who were nothing like they had ever seen before.[1] […]

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