UOP History students studying the second-year Working with the Past module have launched an interactive trail for Southsea Castle, which was built for Henry VIII in the then fashionable trace italienne style of angled star-shaped fort, examples of which you can find all across Europe. Click here to read a post about how the Castle was captured by the parliamentarians at the start of the English Civil War from its drunken royalist commander! The trail follows the launch of a student-written trail for Portsmouth Cathedral last year. Each of the students – Ben Whiteman, Charlie Wilkinson, Madi East and Magdalena Djakovic – worked on a different part of the structure: […]
Tag Archives | heritage
Connecting past and present: how my history degrees led me into heritage marketing and retail
Below, UoP history alumni Nia Picton-Phillips writes about how her experiences at Portsmouth gave her the skills she needed to succeed in heritage marketing and retail at Chippenham Museum in Wiltshire. Nia studied for a BA and then an MRes in history, researching holocaust memorialisation, with Dr Mathias Seiter as her supervisor. I’ve always had a passion for history and learning about the past, so when I was applying for university and writing my UCAS personal statement, I imagined that I’d spend my career as a historian, completing a PhD, specialising in a particular field, and becoming an expert. Perhaps that is still true in a way, as I’ll never […]
From a Portsmouth history degree to conserving historic buildings at York
Mature student Mandy Wrenn was a great influence on the younger students while studying history at Portsmouth, and is still in touch with many of them. We still use her blog on urban football as a model for students on the Underworlds model thinking about how to analyse sources for their document commentary assignment. Below she describes how she went on to study (and gain a distinction) for a Masters degree in conserving historic buildings at the University of York. Figuring out what to do after a history degree isn’t always straightforward. Some people have a plan, but for many, it’s a case of working out how their skills fit […]
An African slave trading commodity washed up off the Isle of Wight
Many of our UoP history students take the opportunity to do voluntary work in one of the many museums in Portsmouth or nearby. Second-year UoP History Isobel Turtle started volunteering even earlier. Having decided to defer her university entry, she started working at the Isle of Wight shipwreck centre in 2021. It’s given her lots of unique opportunities to learn how a museum works: highlights have included seeing how a museum becomes accredited by the Arts Council, how grants and funding are secured and used, how exhibitions are created from scratch, working on databasing the collection, helping with visiting school groups and managing volunteers. She has worked her way up […]
An inventory of Henry VIII’s navy
UoP second-year history student Francesca Raine has recently had a guest blog published for the Mary Rose collections, discussing the Anthony Roll. This list of Henry VIII’s ships was presented to King Henry VIII in 1546 by its creator Anthony Anthony, an official of the Ordnance. Beneath each ship is an individual inventory detailing information on the weaponry, crew, and tonnage, an in-depth Tudor catalogue. This document holds the only illustration and final report of the Mary Rose from its active life. Click here to read more.
The Lost Crafts of the Past
As part of their work on the second year core module ‘Working with the Past’, three University of Portsmouth History students – Chanel Parker, Loraya Head, and Gemma Norris – collaborated with Portsmouth Museum and Art Gallery to curate a three-month exhibition that both celebrated the crafts of our ancestors and highlighted the importance of preserving the craftspeoples’ skills for future generations. In this blog, written for Hampshire Archives Trust, Chanel Parker discusses the research methods the group used when curating the exhibition. ‘Working with the Past’ is coordinated by Mike Esbester. To read the blog, click this link. Slider image courtesy of Birmingham Museums Trust