For their Thinking Like An Historian module we take our first-year students to look at some of the memorials in Portsmouth, and then they write a piece for their portfolio assessment on a memorial of our choice. Here are some of the memorials chosen by students for further analysis: Memorials in Portsmouth Cathedral Sofia de Freitas Franco chose the Historic Windows located in the north wall of the Quire and the south wall of the Navy Aisle of Portsmouth Cathedral. She finds stained glass windows a rather beautiful way to commemorate lost lives. Each of these different windows represent a different historical figure who were very significant in their […]
Tag Archives | First World War
The end of shipbuilding on the Thames
One of our MA Naval History students, Paul O’Donnell, has recently had a blog published by the Churchill College Cambridge, whose archive he used for his dissertation research. His research there, using the papers of first Lord of the Admiralty Reginald McKenna, sheds new light on Arnold Hills, the eccentric chairman of Thames Iron Works, who were the last shipbuilders working on the Thames. It was ironical that this firm, one of the few firms capable of building Dreadnoughts, should have closed down in 1912, at the heart of the Dreadnought arms race. But as Paul explains, the company had an afterlife, as its works football team evolved into West […]
The banality and brutality of war: Wilfred Owen’s letter to his mother, Susan Owen, February 1917
In the second in our series on First World War sources, second-year UoP student Charlotte Lewis discusses what can be learned from a letter by famed WWI poet Wilfred Owen to his mother Susan. Whilst Wilfred Owen’s poetry is well known for describing the horrors of the First World War, his letters to his mother, Susan Owen, give the reader an insight into Owen’s personal experiences and reactions hiding behind his poetry. In light of this, this blog will focus on a letter written by Owen in February 1917 to his mother.[1] Through the analysis of this letter, this blog will try to convey not only its significant use in […]
Normalising the brutality of the Somme: a soldier writes to his aunt, 13 October 1916
In the first of a series on First World War sources, in this blog second year UoP student Oliver Rooney discusses the experiences of Charles Wyndham Wynne, expressed through his letter to his aunt Sophia Sarah Wynne on the 13th October 1916, several months before his death in June 1917, as well as the historiography surrounding the importance and limitations of First World War letters. [1] The atrocities of the First World War have been conveyed through personal letters between soldiers and their families. These personal sources provide historians with a first-hand understanding of the soldier’s experiences during wartime, and the emotions they conveyed and attempted to conceal from their […]
Volunteering with naval artefacts from World War I
Emily Burgess, a third year history student at Portsmouth, describes some of the things she has learned and some of the amazing artefacts she has got to work with on a daily basis in over a year spent working as a volunteer first for the National Museum of the Royal Navy and then for the Royal Marines Museum. She is now devising her own projects and events for the museum and has found the experience invaluable to her studies for her degree. During my first year at Portsmouth University I attended a history volunteer fair held in The Mary Rose Museum. It was there that I met my future supervisor […]
Heritage and Memory: Warlingham War Memorial
Benjamin Locke, a second year History student at the University of Portsmouth, has written the following blog entry on Warlingham War Memorial for the Introduction to Historical Research module. Benjamin considers the messages provided by the memorial’s imagery and how they reflect the social expectations of the time of its unveiling. The module is co-ordinated by Dr Maria Cannon, Lecturer in Early Modern History at Portsmouth. ‘Heritage is the valorisation and preservation by individuals and groups of traces of the past that are thought to embody their cultural identity’. [1] The values and practices of heritage preservation are determined by major political and economic trade-offs, both of which determine what […]