-
A sense of occasion
Historian article
It is appropriate, in this bicentenary year of Mendelssohn's birth, to remember a great day in Birmingham's musical and social calendar. A day when the composer's Oratorio, Elijah, especially commissioned for the city's 1846 Triennial Festival to raise money for the Children's Hospital, was first performed in the newly refurbished Town...
A sense of occasion
-
The spy who never spied
Historian article
Claire Hubbard-Hall takes us on a wartime journey across the Atlantic.
On 30 June 1942, the Swedish-American liner SS Drottningholm docked in New York Harbour. As a diplomatic ship it had just completed its run from Lisbon (Portugal) to America. Standing at 538 feet long and 60 feet wide, painted white...
The spy who never spied
-
The Historian 111: An Intimate History of Your Home
The magazine of the Historical Association
5 Editorial
6 An Intimate History of Your Home - Lucy Worsley (Read Article)
10 The Tale of Two Winstons - Warren Dockter (Read Article)
13 The President's Column - Jackie Eales
14 Drought, Dust and Despair: The Story of pioneering British settlers' heartbreaking struggle to survive in the Victorian Mallee - 1923-1936 -...
The Historian 111: An Intimate History of Your Home
-
The Historian 110: The Escape of the Prince in 1746
The magazine of the Historical Association
5 Editorial
6 The escape of the Prince in 1746 - A E MacRobert (Read Article)
12 Oxford's Literary War: Oxford University's servicemen and the Great War - Dr Stephen M. Cullen (Read Article)
18 Enter the Tudor Prince - Trevor Fisher (Read Article)
22 India and the British war...
The Historian 110: The Escape of the Prince in 1746
-
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
-
WWI and the flu pandemic
Historian article
In our continuing Aspects of War series Hugh Gault reveals that the flu pandemic, which began during the First World War, presented another danger that challenged people’s lives and relationships.
Wounded in the neck on the first day of the battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916, Arthur Conan Doyle’s son Kingsley...
WWI and the flu pandemic
-
The Pennsylvanian Origins of British Abolitionism
Historian article
It can have escaped the attention of very few people in the United Kingdom that 2007 marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in British ships. Slavery itself continued to be legal in Britain and its colonies until the 1830s, while other nations continued both to...
The Pennsylvanian Origins of British Abolitionism
-
The Historian 161: The Silk Roads
The magazine of the Historical Association
4 Letters – Ask The Historian
5 Editorial (Read article)
6 The ‘Silk Roads’: the use and abuse of a historical concept – Susan Whitfield (Read article)
14 From Norwich to Nara: reflections on Silk Road connections – Simon Kaner (Read article)
20 Sutton Hoo and long-distance contacts – Andy...
The Historian 161: The Silk Roads
-
In search of Alice Molland: an English witchcraft will o’ the wisp
Historian article
As the Historical Association runs its short course on Witchcraft, Werewolves and Magic in European History, Mark Stoyle investigates an apparent turning point in the history of English witchcraft: the case of a woman accused of witchcraft in seventeenth-century Devon.
We also include Mark Stoyle's 'Doing History' companion piece to his...
In search of Alice Molland: an English witchcraft will o’ the wisp
-
The Historian 72: Two Babies that could have changed world history!
The magazine of the Historical Association
Featured articles:
6 Two babies that could have changed world history - Geoffrey Chamberlain MD (Read article)
12 The origins of the local government service - Kenneth Poole (Read article)
22 ‘Spy fever’ in Britain, 1900 to 1914 - James Hampshire (Read article)
28 Why did the Dome Fail? - Lucy...
The Historian 72: Two Babies that could have changed world history!
-
The ‘Silk Roads’: the use and abuse of a historical concept
Historian article
The question of whether the ‘Silk Road/s’ is a useful concept for historical analysis, or too vague or too all-encompassing to have interpretative value, is one that scholars have been debating ever since the term moved into the cultural and scholarly mainstream. Although the use of the term in marketing does not often...
The ‘Silk Roads’: the use and abuse of a historical concept
-
Who only history know? Cricket, society, and the historical oversight of sport
Historian article
The early 2020s have seen various investigations and reports about discrimination in English cricket. As well as finding many examples of racial and gender prejudice, these investigations have unearthed a long history of social elitism in the sport. In this article, Duncan Stone explores some of the historical background to...
Who only history know? Cricket, society, and the historical oversight of sport
-
The Importance of Truth, Quality and Objectivity in the BBC German Service from 1938 to 1945
Historian article
Throughout the Second World War the BBC produced and transmitted regular broadcasts in German to Germany and other European countries occupied by the Germans. In this article Hattie Simpson evaluates the style and success of the BBC German Service. The article is based on her winning entry in the senior...
The Importance of Truth, Quality and Objectivity in the BBC German Service from 1938 to 1945
-
The circle of Ulster literary male friendships of author Forrest Reid
Historian article
Eminent Ulster novelist Forrest Reid was a complex character, reflecting a variety of attitudes in both his writing and his private life. In this article Michael Kelly examines how Reid and his circle of friends aimed to navigate their way through the changes of the early twentieth century, in both...
The circle of Ulster literary male friendships of author Forrest Reid
-
The Legacy of the Z Special Unit in World War II
Historian article
The Spirit of Normandy Trust Essay Competition is aimed at young historians and organised by the Historical Association (as part of the annual Young Historian Awards). The 2023 winner in the Key Stage 3 (lower secondary school) category is Ayan Sinha, a pupil at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Wakefield. In this abridged...
The Legacy of the Z Special Unit in World War II
-
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
-
Thomas Parkinson: the Hermit of Thirsk
Historian article
About the year 1430 the citizens of Thirsk decided that their ancient parish church of St. Mary was old-fashioned and unworthy of the developing town, so they decided to build a new one. As a result, over the next eighty years or so, they produced what Pevsner described as ‘without...
Thomas Parkinson: the Hermit of Thirsk
-
A history of Choral Evensong: the birth of an English tradition
Historian article
The apogee of the native church music tradition, Evensong is a jewel born of the English Reformation, but how did it come to be, asks Tom Coxhead?
Evensong is a miraculous success-story for the Anglican Church in an increasingly secular society. Midweek attendance at cathedrals, collegiate chapels, and larger churches...
A history of Choral Evensong: the birth of an English tradition
-
Crusade in Crisis: the Siege and Battle of Antioch, 1097–98
Historian article
On 28 June 1098, the forces of the First Crusade marched out from the great north Syrian city of Antioch to do battle with Karbugha, the Muslim ruler of Mosul. The odds were not in their favour: not only was the Muslim army vastly superior in size, but the crusaders had...
Crusade in Crisis: the Siege and Battle of Antioch, 1097–98
-
The year that lost eleven days
Historian article
From its Roman origins to the dating of the tax year, David Fleming describes how the changes made to the British calendar in 1752 came about and their effect on everyday life, both at the time and since...
The year that lost eleven days
-
From our branches: The Bristol Branch
Historian feature
It is always fascinating to find out about some of the many varied activities being undertaken by local branches of the Historical Association. Here Mary Feerick and Rob Pritchard relate the successes of the Bristol branch, which was only restarted in 2017. The branch has managed to engage local people...
From our branches: The Bristol Branch
-
Glacier Tours in the Northern Playground
Historian article
Glaciers are on the frontier of the climate crisis. Their ongoing disappearance is one of its most visible effects. In this article, Christian Drury explores how tourists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries viewed and understood glaciers, and what they contributed to the history of environmental thought...
Glacier Tours in the Northern Playground
-
Benjamin Jesty: Grandfather of Vaccination
Historian article
Commonly hailed as a discovery or a ‘medical breakthrough', vaccination against smallpox with cowpox exudate was a development of variolation i.e. inoculation with live smallpox matter - a technique popularised amongst the gentry in the early eighteenth century by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu who had observed the procedure in Turkey...
Benjamin Jesty: Grandfather of Vaccination
-
Out and About First World War memorials in the heart of London
Historian feature
The First World War had an enormous impact on society and on our landscape, perhaps not through war damage as was the case during the Second World War but through the erection of memorials. It doesn't matter where I am in the UK and often when abroad I will find...
Out and About First World War memorials in the heart of London
-
The Road to Dunkirk
Historian article
Seventy years after the outbreak of the Second World War, British foreign policy in the 1930s remains as controversial as ever. While appeasement is now a byword for political failure, the reasons for its adoption and the responsibility of the statesmen concerned are constantly debated. In general, opinion looks unfavourably...
The Road to Dunkirk
