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Volunteering in Museums & Galleries
Briefing Pack
The Museums Association has written a short guide to volunteering with museums.
Tips on volunteering
Don't limit your efforts to national and large regional museums and galleries. They are probably overwhelmed with requests for voluntary work
Apply to smaller local museums. You are likely to get a broader range of...
Volunteering in Museums & Galleries
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Out and about in the Trent Valley
Historian feature
In the muddy corner of a field fringing Biddulph Moor in North Staffordshire, a small fenced enclosure surrounds Trent Head, ‘official' source of the River Trent (SJ905 579). In truth, any of a handful of springs that rise nearby might serve. Pilgrims are well advised to equip themselves with Wellington...
Out and about in the Trent Valley
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Victoria County History (VCH)
History Network
Victoria County History
Founded in 1899 and originally dedicated to Queen Victoria, the VCH is an encyclopaedic record of England's places and people from earliest times to the present day.
It is without doubt the greatest publishing project in English local history, having built an international reputation for scholarly standards.
Based...
Victoria County History (VCH)
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The Great Revolt of 1381
Classic Pamphlet
The Great Revolt of 1381 began in South-West Essex sometime between late May and 2 June: contemporary narratives and record sources differ irreconcilably about the dates. It all started with the arrival of a royal tax commissioner, John Bampton, at Brentwood inBarnstable Hundred. He came to inquire into the evasion...
The Great Revolt of 1381
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Ealing Branch History
Branch History
The Ealing Branch was formed shortly after the second world war. Among its founder members was Gordon Batho, then a schoolboy at Ealing County Grammar School for Boys and now President of the Durham branch of the Historical Association and Emeritus Professor of Education at Durham University. The Ealing branch holds...
Ealing Branch History
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Lloyd George and Leadership: the Influences of Mr Gladstone and Abraham Lincoln
Branch Podcast
On 26 November 2010, 4pm, at the National Waterfront Museum, the Swansea Branch Anniversary Lecture was delivered by Kenneth O Morgan (Baron Morgan of Aberdyfi in the County of Gwynedd) on ‘Lloyd George and Leadership: the Influences of Mr Gladstone and Abraham Lincoln'.
Lloyd George and Leadership: the Influences of Mr Gladstone and Abraham Lincoln
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Immerse yourself in history
Information
Historical Association membership is an enjoyable way to learn and expand your history knowledge, take part in local and national events, gain access to expertise and meet others with a similar interest in history.
Membership includes a subscription to our quarterly magazine The Historian delivered directly to your door and access to the...
Immerse yourself in history
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Winston Churchill and the Islamic World: Early Encounters
Historian article
Winston Churchill had a major impact on British and world history in the twentieth century. A great deal has been written on his roles in the two world wars and on many aspects of his career. Yet relatively little attention has been paid to his relations with the Islamic world....
Winston Churchill and the Islamic World: Early Encounters
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The snobbery of chronology: In defence of the generals on the Western Front
Historian article
Faced with the testimony of the huge casualty lists of the First World War, the desperate battles of attrition, the emotive evidence of the seemingly endless cemeteries and memorials, the moving war poetry of men such as Owen and Sassoon, and the memoirs of those who fought, it is not...
The snobbery of chronology: In defence of the generals on the Western Front
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Ruins in the woods: A case study of three historical ruins 'hidden' in the woodland of Derbyshire
Historian article
Ruined buildings shrouded in trees, masonry crumbling into the undergrowth. It sounds like the backdrop for an Indiana Jones movie, the sort of thing people trek across Central America or the wilds of Cambodia to find. But Britain has its own share of enigmatic relics. Three very different such historical...
Ruins in the woods: A case study of three historical ruins 'hidden' in the woodland of Derbyshire
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What did you do in The Great War? A family mystery explored
Historian article
Research into family history is well-known as likely to dig up some uncomfortable evidence. Nearly every family has had its bastards; nearly every generation has had someone on poor relief. We had both. But more troubling was my recent suspicion that a hundred or so years ago not one but two...
What did you do in The Great War? A family mystery explored
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Cornwall Branch History
Branch History
The earliest information we have about the HA in Cornwall is an Annual General Meeting minute book showing that the branch was re-formed in 1963 by schoolteachers. Lecture meetings were held in various schools and these were probably all in the Truro area. The branch always appears to have been...
Cornwall Branch History
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Historical Causation: Is One Thing More Important Than Another?
Branch Lecture Podcast
WHAT COLOUR ARE THE UNICORNS?Professor Steve Rigby, recently retired from the University of Manchester, delivered ‘Historical Causation: Is One Thing More Important Than Another?' to the Bolton Branch of the Historical Association on 29th November 2010. His lecture gives a fascinating introduction to the philosophy of historical causation, looking at...
Historical Causation: Is One Thing More Important Than Another?
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President Barack Obama and the State of the Union Address
Historian article
Introduction
Shortly after noon on 20 January 2009 Barack Obama began his historic Inaugural Address as 44th President of the United States of America. On the west porch of the Capitol, home to the US Congress, and under propitiously blue skies, the first African American president spoke before more than...
President Barack Obama and the State of the Union Address
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Peter the Great
Classic Pamphlet
No European ruler except Napoleon I has impressed both contemporise and later historians so profoundly as Peter I of Russia by the originality and the personal character of his achievements. Like Napoleon, Peter appeared to some observers, at least in his later years, as almost more than human. He seemed...
Peter the Great
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Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust
Historian article
Daniel Goldhagen defines anti-semitism as ‘negative beliefs and emotions about Jews qua Jews.' Nazis believed Jews to be the source of Germany's misfortunes, and that they must be denied German citizenship and removed from German society. Hitler never compromised on the need to settle what he regarded as the Jewish...
Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust
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Arnold Wilkins: Pioneer of British Radar
Historian article
Whenever British radar is discussed the name that usually comes to mind is that of Robert Watson Watt. Our history books and our dictionaries of biography consistently attribute the discovery of radar in Britain solely to Watson Watt, with little or no mention of the key role played by his...
Arnold Wilkins: Pioneer of British Radar
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Out and about in the East Yorkshire Wolds
Historian feature
East Yorkshire is a somewhat neglected area for touring. Yet, the villages in the chalk Wolds possess much charm and a lot of surprising history to reward those who would explore them. In my youth, I toured these villages many times both on foot and by bicycle. This route is...
Out and about in the East Yorkshire Wolds
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The price of reform: the people's budget and the present trauma
Historian article
When Lloyd George succeeded Asquith as Chancellor of the Exchequer in April 1908, his first task was to introduce the old age pensions Asquith had initiated. His second was to prove even more momentous. On 29 April 1909 he presented what has become known as "The People's Budget".
The task...
The price of reform: the people's budget and the present trauma
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A Tale of Two Chancellors: The Ineffectual Reformation in Elizabethan Staffordshire
Historian article
The Elizabethan Reformation in Staffordshire had a shallow seedbed. The radical reformers of the 1540s had greeted the conversion of the county with a mixture of high hopes and hyperbole. The East Anglian preacher and disciple of Latimer, Thomas Becon, wrote a treatise The Iewel of Ioye urging that itinerant...
A Tale of Two Chancellors: The Ineffectual Reformation in Elizabethan Staffordshire
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Podcast Series: The British Empire 1800-Present
Multipage Article
An HA Podcasted History of the British Empire 1800-Present featuring Dr Seán Lang of Anglia Ruskin University, Dr John Stuart of Kingston University London, Professor A. J. Stockwell and Dr Larry Butler of the University of East Anglia.
Podcast Series: The British Empire 1800-Present
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Podcast Series: The British Empire 1600-1800
The British Empire
An HA Podcasted History of the early British Empire featuring Professor Trevor Burnard of the University of Warwick, Professor Stephen Conway of University College London, Dr Jon Wilson of King's College London, Professor Gad Heuman of the University of Warwick.
Podcast Series: The British Empire 1600-1800
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Out and about in Trowbridge
Historian feature
This is more than one of our conventional ‘Out and About in Local History' items because Ken Rogers introduces us to a process whereby visual architectural and industrial history of Trowbridge has been saved from destruction; and then he gives us some clear guidance as to where to go and...
Out and about in Trowbridge
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Historical Diary: An Eighteenth-Century Gap Year
Historian article
Historical diaries written by children are rare and only seven from England and the United States written before 1800 are known to have survived. One of these, found tucked away in the London Metropolitan Archive, is the diary of William Hugh Burgess, a fifteen year-old boy who grew up in...
Historical Diary: An Eighteenth-Century Gap Year
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Remembering Neville Chamberlain
Historian article
Brent Dyck is a Canadian teacher and a previous contributor to The Historian. In this short essay he offers us his objective interpretation of the achievements of Neville Chamberlain. For some what he says may seem surprising and for others it might even be controversial. However, editorially it seemed entirely proper...
Remembering Neville Chamberlain
