-
The Pilgrimage of Grace: Reactions, Responses and Revisions
Article
Dr Michael Bush investigates the interpretations of the pilgrimage of grace. Our perception of the pilgrimage of grace has been largely created by Madeleine and Ruth Dodds and their magnificent book The Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536-7, and the Exeter Conspiracy, 1538 (Cambridge). Published in 1915, it has dominated the subject...
The Pilgrimage of Grace: Reactions, Responses and Revisions
-
In the Footsteps of our Ancestors: Beamish - a unique educational experience
Primary History article
Please note: this article pre-dates the current National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.
What kind of experience will be remembered by the children in your class in 20 or 30 years’ time? A trip to Beamish, The North of England Open Air Museum, would be a likely candidate....
In the Footsteps of our Ancestors: Beamish - a unique educational experience
-
King Charles II
Classic Pamphlet
The conclusions of historians change over the years, not only as a result of the discovery of new evidence, but as a result of the changing times in which historians themselves live and work. We have become familiar with the notion that each generation of historians may have its own...
King Charles II
-
Local Authority Record Offices: Our Heritage at Risk
Article
Rosemary Dunhill fears the review of local government structures might lead to damaging cuts in the archive service. The lives of archivists in record offices run by local authorities have been dominated in the last few years by the review of local government. The Government wished to simplify local government...
Local Authority Record Offices: Our Heritage at Risk
-
Out and About - On the Track of Brunel
Historian feature
In ‘Brushstrokes', his essay on biography, Ben Pimlott wrote: ‘A good biography is like a good portrait: it captures the essence of the sitter by being much more than a likeness. A good portrait is about history, philosophy, milieu. It asks questions as well as answering them, brushstrokes are economical,...
Out and About - On the Track of Brunel
-
Going to school: a post-1066 thematic study
Primary History article
The post-1066 thematic study provides us with a really exciting opportunity to consider something different. While non-statutory guidance provides some suggestions to consider, the actual possibilities are endless and enable us to choose something highly relevant to our schools. In this article, Paul Bracey invites us to explore schooling over...
Going to school: a post-1066 thematic study
-
Bonnie Prince Charlie: The escape of the Prince in 1746
Historian article
Thirty thousand pounds was an enormous sum of money in 1746. That was the reward offered by the British government for the capture of Prince Charles. Many Highlanders knew where he was at various times and places after Culloden, but they did not betray him. As one of his helpers...
Bonnie Prince Charlie: The escape of the Prince in 1746
-
Triumphs Show 192: Balancing micro- and macronarratives of the Holocaust
Teaching History feature
Lien de Jong celebrates her 90th birthday in September 2023. In lots of ways, her biography is similar to many Europeans of her generation. She was born, grew up and went to school in The Hague during the 1930s. She trained to work in a nursery. In the 1950s, she...
Triumphs Show 192: Balancing micro- and macronarratives of the Holocaust
-
Cunning Plan 152.2: using Gillray’s cartoons with Year 8
Teaching History feature
The past 30 years have seen a general revival in scholarly activity relating to ‘all aspects of 18th-century British history'. However, this increase in academic study, which has broadly coincided with the introduction and development of the National Curriculum in England, has not resulted in the period being studied in great...
Cunning Plan 152.2: using Gillray’s cartoons with Year 8
-
The Early Mediaeval State
Classic Pamphlet
In order to define the constitution of a state, theorists and historians still apply Aristotle's categories; monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. This method has obvious limitations; there can be no doubt that the formal sovereignty either of an individual or of a minority or a majority does not of itself suffice...
The Early Mediaeval State
-
Radicalism and its Results, 1760-1837
Classic Pamphlet
Radicalism with a large "R", unlike Conservatism with a large "C" and Liberalism with a large "L", is not a historical term of even proximate precision. There was never a Radical Party with a national organization, local associations, or a treasury. But there were, and there are, "Radicals", generally qualified...
Radicalism and its Results, 1760-1837
-
Using eighteenth-century material culture to develop evidential thinking in Year 8
Teaching History article
It seems that teapots really can talk. Eleanor Dimond took her undergraduate experience of studying material culture into the classroom, with startling results. Historians of material culture have developed distinctive evidential methods which, in stark contrast to typical GCSE and A-Level approaches, see a strong interplay between analysis of the physical attributes...
Using eighteenth-century material culture to develop evidential thinking in Year 8
-
Significant anniversaries: Windrush 75
Primary History article
It is 75 years since the ship called the Empire Windrush brought people from the Caribbean to begin a new life in the United Kingdom. Those who also arrived in the years leading up to 1971 are often referred to as ‘the Windrush generation’. Their contribution to Britain socially, culturally...
Significant anniversaries: Windrush 75
-
Benin: exploring an African empire at Key Stage 2
Primary History article
Karin Doull reminds us of the value in studying Benin as a non-European study area and suggests how it might be approached, stressing the importance of placing it in context through comparison. The article addresses worthwhile aspects, key concepts and questions as well as furnishing some key information including extracts...
Benin: exploring an African empire at Key Stage 2
-
Real Lives: Flora Sandes
Historian feature
Our series ‘Real Lives’ seeks to put the story of the ordinary person into our great historical narrative. We are all part of the rich fabric of the communities in which we live and we are affected to greater and lesser degrees by the big events that happen on a daily...
Real Lives: Flora Sandes
-
Real Lives: The Russian hermit of Cornwall’s caves
Historian feature
Our series ‘Real Lives’ seeks to put the story of the ordinary person into our great historical narrative. We are all part of the rich fabric of the communities in which we live and we are affected to greater and lesser degrees by the big events that happen on a daily...
Real Lives: The Russian hermit of Cornwall’s caves
-
Polychronicon 137: Bringing space travel down to Earth
Teaching History feature
It nearly began like this: ‘On Christmas Eve 1968, two episcopalians and a Roman Catholic were in orbit around the Moon.' I was writing a book called Earthrise, about the first views of Earth from space. Most other books about the Apollo programme of the 1960s and 1970s took an...
Polychronicon 137: Bringing space travel down to Earth
-
Baghdad: what were its connections across the medieval world?
Primary History article
Baghdad of the Abbasid Caliphate was an architectural marvel, a round city protected by huge walls and surrounded by an intricate canal system. At the centre lay the caliph’s palace with a cupola of green, and the Great Mosque. The city was a series of concentric circles. The surrounding walls were over 240...
Baghdad: what were its connections across the medieval world?
-
Significance
Primary History article
What makes a person or event significant? When looking at the past, some people or events stand out in our minds. Individuals such as Florence Nightingale or Walter Tull at Key Stage 1 or events such as the Blitz at Key Stage 2 may have particular resonance. However, if we...
Significance
-
The War of American Independence
Classic Pamphlet
In the two-hundredth year of American Independence, it is proper to ask: why did it occur? It need not have happened; it was the act of men, not immutable forces. But once the tensions became acute, the three thousand miles of ocean were a difficult chasm to bridge. The War...
The War of American Independence
-
The Reformed Electoral System in Great Britain, 1832-1914
Classic Pamphlet
The struggle for parliamentary reform between 1830 and 1832 has long been regarded as one of the decisive battles of British political history. The Tories lamented that the passage of the Reform Bill meant the destruction of the constitution.
Middle class Radicals welcomed the Reform Bill as the instrument that...
The Reformed Electoral System in Great Britain, 1832-1914
-
Adam Smith
Classic Pamphlet
Adam Smith 1723-1790
Adam Smith was so pre-eminently one of the master minds of the eighteenth century and so obviously one of the dominating influences of the nineteenth, in his own country and in the world at large, that is somewhat surprising that we are so ill-informed regarding the details...
Adam Smith
-
Using Lesson Study to make microimprovements in teaching Year 8 how to use sources
Teaching History article
A highly distinctive and structured approach to teacher development, Lesson Study emerged in Japan but has since been adopted much more widely and now sees growing interest in the UK. Tony McConnell, Davinia Daley, Rebecca Levy, Lisa Waddell and Richard Waddington describe the process by which their school first investigated...
Using Lesson Study to make microimprovements in teaching Year 8 how to use sources
-
Thinking about the ethical dimension
Teaching History article
Responding to concerns about Dutch students’ citizenship education, Tim Huijgen, Paul Holthuis, Roel Nijmeijer and Iris van den Brand set out to design online materials to help students understand the decisions and dilemmas faced by past actors. They focused on the life and actions of Rosie Glaser (1914–2000), a Dutch Holocaust survivor,...
Thinking about the ethical dimension
-
Out and about in Bolton - Industrial Revelation
Historian feature
Despite its old name of Bolton-le-Moors, the history of Bolton is tied up with the Industrial Revolution. Its population grew from 17,000 inhabitants in 1801 to nearly 181,000 in 1911. It is well known that the damp climate of England's north west was perfectly suited to the textile industry, and...
Out and about in Bolton - Industrial Revelation
