History@Portsmouth

University of Portsmouth's History Blog

Tag Archives | crime

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Homosexual relationships in the time of King James I

A blog on homosexual relationships in the time of King James I was published today by our own Dr Fiona McCall in the Conversation. https://theconversation.com/mary-and-george-homosexual-relationships-in-the-time-of-king-james-i-were-forbidden-but-not-uncommon-223522 Fiona teaches the second year UoP option Underworlds: Crime, Deviance and Punishment in Britain, 1500-1900 which looks at sexual offences and attitudes in the early modern period.  Her research looks […]

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Criminal punishments in Devon, 1598-1638

In the second-year UoP history module, Underworlds:  Crime, Deviance & Punishment in Britain, 1500-1900, taught by Dr Fiona McCall and Professor Brad Beaven, students study the history of crime and punishment between 1500 and 1900. Students can take this option on a range of courses at Portsmouth, including History, Criminology and English Literature.  In this […]

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The ‘Whitechapel Horrors’ – Victorian newspapers report Jack the Ripper as gothic fiction

The ‘Jack the Ripper’ murders in East London in the late Victorian period have become infamous. In this piece, first year UoP history student Seamus McLoughlin looks at how an article in a Victorian newspaper was of its time in choosing to ignore known facts about the case, or any compassion towards the victims, in […]

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The Forty Elephants – a forgotten female gang of South London

Last year Emily Burgess produced an outstanding dissertation on the all-female working-class gang from South London known as the Forty elephants.  Here she writes about how she came up with the idea and carried out the research, with Rob James as supervisor.  Emily concludes with some useful advice for all our students currently writing proposals […]

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Not so merry England: a Swiss visitor comments on Elizabethan criminal justice

English people tend to think highly of our long-established legal system.  But as second-year student Liam Fisher explains, visitors from Europe didn’t always see things the same way.  Liam’s blog is based on work he did for the second-year module: Underworlds: Crime Deviance and Punishment: 1500-1900, taught by Fiona McCall and Brad Beaven. The English […]

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

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.  […]

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