History@Portsmouth

University of Portsmouth's History Blog

Tag Archives | military history

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Tombfinders: Working with the Napoleonic past

As part of the Working with the Past Module, four second year undergraduates from the University of Portsmouth’s BA History program (Izzy Turtle, Emily Harris, Damiana Kun and Rebekah Money) have been working with the Napoleonic & Revolutionary War Graves Charity (NRWGC) on a dedicated project to locate Napoleonic era veterans, locating and assessing their graves, and working to restore them. Founded in 2021, the NRWGC (UK Registered Charity No 1196849) was founded by Zach White to honour the memory of veterans of all nationalities who served between 1775 and 1815. The charity does this by locating veteran’s long forgotten graves, cleaning and restoring them where appropriate, and reburying disinterred […]

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The Dragon Gun: secrets of a local South-East Asian treasure

On 29 November 2023 we were pleased to welcome Thomas Davies, Assistant Curator of Artillery at the Royal Armouries: Fort Nelson, to the University of Portsmouth as part of our History Research Group Seminar series. Thomas presented his paper on the Dragon Gun, the iconic cannon housed at Royal Armouries: Fort Nelson on Portsdown Hill.  The Dragon Gun was captured in Myanmar by the British Army in the 19th century and presented to the Prince of Wales. Today it can be viewed in Fort Nelson’s Art of Artillery gallery. The gun dates to the 18th century, is only one of four in the world, and has always been believed to […]

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Empire and its afterlives 2: How do you teach history with primary sources?

This is the second post in the Empire and its afterlives series. The introduction can be found here. Primary sources represent a wide range of materials which historians can draw on, and students made the most of this diversity. The podcast episodes included discussions of armed forces recruitment posters, political speeches and pamphlets, as well as a board game, a novel, and a series of photographs by a renowned photojournalist. Two of the students selected a recruitment poster from the Second World War as their recommended source, but suggested different ways of including it into the English and Welsh curriculum. Drawing on two articles on active remembrance and military multicultural heritage […]

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The Fitzroy Report, 1904: How the poor physical condition of Boer War army recruits prompted social change

Following the end of the second Boer War in 1902, the government appointed an Inter-Departmental Committee to investigate why so many would-be recruits had been in poor physical condition. The Committee, chaired by civil servant Almeric FitzRoy, has become known as the Fitzroy Report.  Second-year UoP history student Ben Hessey discusses the report, what it tells us about contemporary ideas about parenting, gender, eugenics and social provision, and its longer-term significance.  This piece was originally written for the second-year Danger! module, which investigates issues of censorship and state control between 1850 and 2000 and is taught by Dr Rob James and Dr Mike Esbester. During the early twentieth century the […]

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Seventeenth-century fortifications found at University of Portsmouth archaeological dig

Some of Portsmouth’s historic fortifications are being uncovered in two trenches on the site of the new University of Portsmouth Sports Facility in Ravelin Park. The walls that have been revealed would have protected the naval port during the 17th century, a major period of development for the port.  A gun platform or embrasure has now been uncovered by the archaeologists, AOC archaeology. See the most recent article on the project in the University of Portsmouth News

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