Britain & Ireland 1901-present

War and conflict, technology, illness and medicine and the battle for civil and national rights have all been key elements of the 20th century through to today, thus, all of those themes and many more are explored in this section. Underpinning many of these articles and included here are articles exploring pedagogical issues, managing knowledge and transferring knowledge. Read more

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  • Polychronicon 157: Reinterpreting police-public relations in modern England

    Article

    The relationship between the police and the public has long been a key subject in English social history. The formative work in this field was conducted between the 1970s and 1990s, but the past few years have witnessed something of a revival of research in the area. By focusing on...

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  • Newcastle and the General Strike 1926

    Article

    The nine-day General Strike of May 1926 retains a totemic place in the nation's history nearly 100 years later. The Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill was among those who attempted to characterise it as anarchy and revolution, but this was hyperbole and largely inaccurate for, as Ellen Wilkinson (then...

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  • On British Soil: Hartlepool, 16 December, 1914

    Article

    Heugh Battery, a Victorian survivor, received a new lease of life in 1908 when introduction of an improved Vickers 6-inch Mark VII gun greatly added to earlier, far less telling firepower. The Victorian pile was refurbished two years later and a pair of the new cannon installed. In 1907, the...

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  • Helping Year 9s explore multiple narratives through the history of a house

    Article

    A host of histories: helping Year 9s explore multiple narratives through the history of a house Described by the author Monica Ali as a building that ‘sparks the imagination and sparks conversations', 19 Princelet Street, now a Museum of Diversity and Immigration, captivated the imagination of teacher David Waters. He...

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  • Siegfried Sassoon Diaries Online

    Article

    Siegfried Sassoon, soldier and poet of the First World War who controversially began to oppose the war after winning awards for bravery, has his entire war diaries digitised and published online by Cambridge University:

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  • Gary Sheffield: Origins of the First World War

    Article

    Gary Sheffield, Professor of War studies, the University of Wolverhampton, is one of the UK's foremost historians on the First World War.  He is the author of numerous books and previously held posts at the University of Birmingham and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. In April 2014 he spoke at an HA event for teachers...

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  • Richard Evans Medlicott lecture: The Origins of the First World War

    Article

    This year the Historical Association's Medlicott medal for services to history went to Professor Sir Richard Evans. Richard Evans is the Regius Professor of History at Cambridge and President of Wolfson College, Cambridge. He has written numerous highly respected and internationally best-selling books. Evans is bests known for his works on...

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  • Writing the First World War - Podcasts

    Multipage Article

    The Writing the First World War event in partnership with the English Association and the British Library took place at the British Library in London on April 14th. Over 80 teachers attended a wonderful day of stimulating professional development which was kicked off by a thought provoking take on how...

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  • On the frontlines of teaching the history of the First World War

    Article

    It is very common for people in politics and the media to make assumptions about what happens in history classrooms. Too often these preconceptions are based on little more than anecdote, examples from the Internet or memories of what someone experienced at school themselves. In this article, Catriona Pennell reports...

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  • The Assassination of Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand

    Article

    On Saturday 28th of June it will be 100 years since the Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated with his wife Sophie in Sarajevo. As everyone knows or will know after this summer that assassination led to the start of the First World War. The young man who fired the...

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  • Triumphs Show 155: beyond trivial judgements of 'bias'

    Article

    Towards victory in that battle... 10A were nearly a term into their GCSE history course, working on an 1890-1918 British history ‘depth study'. They had already completed work on the Liberal welfare reforms and on the women's suffrage movement, and they had been practising a range of source evaluation approaches....

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  • Remembering the First World War: Using a battlefield tour of the Western Front

    Article

    Remembering the First World War: Using a battlefield tour of the Western Front to help pupils take a more critical approach to what they encounter The first year of the government's First World War Centenary Battlefield Tours Programme is now under way, allowing increasing numbers of students from across Britain...

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  • Helping Year 9 explore the cultural legacies of WW1

    Article

    A world turned molten: helping Year 9 to explore the cultural legacies of the First World War Rachel Foster shows how her own study of cultural history led to a new dimension in her planning. She wanted to show her students not only that historians are interested in many different...

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  • Polychronicon 155: Interpreting the Origins of of the First World War

    Article

    As I write this article I have before me my grandfather's Victory Medal from the First World War. It has inscribed on the reverse side, ‘The Great War for Civilisation 1914-1919'. The absolute certainty of such a justification for Britain's entry into the war seems somewhat hollow as we approach...

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  • Using The Wipers Times to build an enquiry on the First World War

    Article

    Teaching ‘the lesson of satire': using The Wipers Times to build an enquiry on the First World War ‘Blackadder for real' is how the British journalist and broadcaster, Ian Hislop, characterised The Wipers Time, the newspaper published on the front line by members of the 12th Battalion Sherwood, and recently brought...

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  • Local Authority Housing

    Article

    Local authority housing has been a distinctive feature of the British housing system throughout the twentieth century. This pamphlet outlines the development of local authority housing in Britain from its origins in the late nineteenth century to the present day, focusing on the ways in which policy changes have affected...

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  • Unpacking the suitcase and finding history: doing justice to the teaching of diverse histories in the classroom

    Article

    Unpacking the suitcase and finding history: doing justice to the teaching of diverse histories in the classroom It has become a truism that Britain is a multi-cultural society yet, as Mohamud and Whitburn argue, there is still a great deal of thinking to be done by history teachers in accounting...

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  • Building an overview of the historic roots of antisemitism

    Article

    ‘But I still don't get why the Jews': using cause and change to answer pupils' demand for an overview of antisemitism Research by the Centre for Holocaust Education has suggested that students need and want more help with building an overview of the historical roots of antisemitism and that they...

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  • Unsung Heroes: The British Merchant Navy WW2

    Multipage Article

    The British Merchant Navy was a term that applied to the employees of British shipping companies whose vessels ranged from the sleekest ocean liners to obsolete tramp steamers. Merchant seamen already included contingents of Black, Asian and Arab sailors and the British Merchant Fleet was swelled between 1939 and 1945...

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  • Bill Hall - Empire at War

    Multipage Article

    Bill Hall was born in Coventry in 1944. His grandfather came to Britain in 1901, and worked in the Daimler car factory. In this video Bill talks about the part his family played in supporting the war effort during World War Two.

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