History@Portsmouth

University of Portsmouth's History Blog

Tag Archives | history

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Bridging the gap between the academic and non-academic worlds: Engaging the public in academic research

By on July 12, 2022 in Learning in Focus, Public History, Research in Focus

In this blog Reiss Sims, who has just gained a first-class degree in History at Portsmouth (well done, Reiss!), discusses a project he worked on last year with some of his fellow History students for the module ‘Working with the Past’, coordinated by Dr Mike Esbester. As part of their project, the students looked into how academic historians take their work ‘out of the academy’ and into the public realm. Reiss and his fellow students interviewed our Dr Karl Bell, who researches all things supernatural, to find out how he has tried to engage the wider public in the history he studies. Last year, as part of our assessment for […]

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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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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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Poisonous Reading – James Greenwood attacks the Victorian ‘penny dreadful’

By on May 25, 2021 in Learning in Focus

In this piece, written for the Fear and Fun module, taught by Dr Rob James and Dr Karl Bell, second year UoP student Amber Braddick discusses journalist James Greenwood’s exaggerated denouncement of the Victorian ‘penny dreadful’.  Despite such middle-class anxietes over the corrupting influence of cheap print on working class youth, many of their stories strike a highly moralistic tone. James Greenwood’s, A Short Way to Newgate (1874) demonstrates the anxieties felt by the middle classes towards the extremely popular penny dreadfuls during the late 19th Century. The author, Greenwood, is not only writing in an attempt to show other middle and upper class members of society how dangerous this […]

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UoP History research seminar: the attack on female deviance under Godly rule, 1645-1660

By on March 12, 2021 in Events, Research in Focus

    On 10th March 2021 the paper in our UoP History Research seminar series was by UoP history lecturer Dr Fiona McCall, who gave a paper on female deviance during the English interregnum, including fighting in church, sexual harassment, drinking, swearing and cursing, adultery and witchcraft.  This paper has been recorded for those unable to attend on the day, see below. We hope to upload further recordings of History Research papers in the near future. Click here for a link to the recording of the seminar (you will need the password: %MT6U8&S)  

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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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