English Civil War royalism has often been depicted as the preserve of the elite, but this was not necessarily the case, as MRes student Natalie Lejeune found in her research into the activities of gunmakers during and after the civil wars. Prior royal service often inclined these specialist craftsmen towards the Royalists initially. After the Royalist defeat, they transferred their work to a new Republican Government prepared to tolerate their dubious loyalties in exchange for their much-needed skills. Yet their loyalties remained conflicted, with some, including female-gunmakers as well as men, secretly supplying arms to Royalist conspiracists on the side, a pattern of mixed loyalties which mirrors those in France […]
Tag Archives | industrial history
PhD by Publication – Top tips from an award-winning UoP history graduate student
Anthony Annakin-Smith is a local historian with a diverse range of interests focused on maritime and industrial history in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Anthony was awarded the PhD by Publication from the University of Portsmouth in 2022 for his work on The Neston Collieries, 1759-1855: an Industrial Revolution in Rural Cheshire. The collieries date from the eighteenth century, when the main colliery was owned by local magnates the Stanley family, and were more successful than its better-known contemporaries in nearby south-west Lancashire and North Wales. It was the first large industrial site in west Cheshire and introduced the area’s earliest steam engine. Anthony’s supervisors for his […]