History@Portsmouth

University of Portsmouth's History Blog

Tag Archives | primary sources

Birmingham Museum Trust tapestry

The Lost Crafts of the Past

By on August 16, 2023 in Events, Public History, Research in Focus, Uncategorized

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

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city museum featured image

Enhancing students’ skills and experiences: A Twitter takeover, an exhibition and a podcast

By on May 11, 2023 in Employability, Events, Learning in Focus, News, Public History, Research in Focus, Uncategorized

As a team we always encourage our students to enhance their skills while studying for their History degree with us, and one way we do this is by offering them opportunities to work with some of our external partners. In this post, we demonstrate how this is undertaken in one second year core module, ‘Working with the Past, co-ordinated by Dr Mike Esbester. As part of their studies during their History degree, our students have worked with a range of local and international institutions, including the Mary Rose Museum, Lloyd’s Register Foundation,  the D-Day Story archive, Hong Kong Baptist University, and Pompey History Society, and have undertaken a wide variety […]

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800px-Tcitp_d068_shanghai_shortly_after_opening_the_port_to_foreign_trade

“Officers of the society”: Lloyd’s Register surveyors in China and transnational maritime networks, 1869-1918

By on December 21, 2022 in Events, Research in Focus, Uncategorized

On 14 December 2022 University of Portsmouth PhD researcher, Corey Watson, presented at the second joint Naval History/ History research seminar of the year. In the paper Corey, who is in the second year of his doctoral programme, discussed the crucial role that the small group of surveyors who worked for Lloyd’s Register in China played as middle-men in this global maritime system. If you missed the paper, the recording is available to watch here. You will need the following password MLFv8c.z to access the recording. An abstract for Corey’s paper is below. To read more about Corey’s PhD programme, generously funded by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation, see Dr Melanie […]

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English civil war society cropped

King Charles I – a man of principle, not a “man of blood”?

By on September 24, 2021 in Learning in Focus, Research in Focus

Many people instinctively blame King Charles I for the British Civil Wars. So recent UoP history graduate Connor Scott-Butcher’s decision to use his dissertation to challenge the idea, perpetuated by the regicides, that Charles was a “man of blood”, and the weight of historical argument ranged against him, always seemed to me a risky and provocative proposition.  Below, Connor writes about how he went about his research.  He gave a few sleepless nights to his supervisor, as well as himself, but the result was a balanced and well-structured argument, based around extensive use of contemporary primary sources. – Dr Fiona McCall. My topic for my dissertation was a thorough examination […]

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Josiah King, The Examination and Tryall of Old Father Christmas

Have yourself a puritan Christmas

By on December 16, 2020 in Research in Focus

Dr Fiona McCall is a lecturer in early modern history, teaching units on the British Civil Wars, and Crime, Sin and Punishment in early modern Britain, amongst others. Her current research project investigates traditionalist resistance to puritan values in English parish churches during the 1640s and 1650s, and in this blog she discusses how Christmas was banned during this period. Christmas was officially banned during the late 1640s and 1650s along with the rest of the church calendar.  But the interdict was widely ignored.  Trawling through various counties’ quarter sessions depositions for the period, I have found frequent references to Christmas, Easter, Whitsun, and various saints days, the witnesses (even those testifying […]

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The banality and brutality of war: Wilfred Owen’s letter to his mother, Susan Owen, February 1917

By on August 13, 2020 in Learning in Focus

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 […]

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