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Real Lives: Commonwealth War Graves Commission memorial: Edward George Keeling
Historian feature
Trevor James introduces a victim of an earlier pandemic.
As we explore churchyards and appreciate the range of memorials that are revealed, they convey a variety of emotions and other messages. Sometimes they still contain quite unexpected surprises.
The single Commonwealth War Graves Commission memorial in the relatively remote rural Staffordshire village...
Real Lives: Commonwealth War Graves Commission memorial: Edward George Keeling
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Building St James's spire: Louth's guilds and popular piety in the later middle ages
Virtual Branch Lecture Recording
Medieval historian Dr Claire Kennan continued our Virtual Branch series with a local history talk on the building of St James's spire, Louth.
In her talk Kennan traces the important role that Louth's major guilds of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Holy Trinity played in the building of the St James’s spire. Throughout the...
Building St James's spire: Louth's guilds and popular piety in the later middle ages
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My Favourite History Place - Barnard Castle
Historian article
Paula Kitching invites us to look at Barnard Castle with new eyes.
Over the summer there was a lot of talk about Barnard Castle – I won’t go into the politics, but it did make me reflect on the actual town of Barnard Castle. Growing up, it was one of...
My Favourite History Place - Barnard Castle
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My Favourite History Place: The Beguinage at Bruges
Historian feature
Richard Stone introduces us to a quiet neighbourhood in Bruges which has played its part in the development of women’s independence.
Close to the Minnewaterpark, on the fringe of the bustling historic centre of Bruges, with its medieval buildings and atmospheric cobbled streets, the Beguinage is a tranquil haven. Cross the...
My Favourite History Place: The Beguinage at Bruges
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The last battle: Bomber Command’s veterans and the fight for remembrance
Historian article
Frances Houghton examines how and why the popular memory of the Second World War continues to be contested.
Early on the morning of Monday 21 January 2019, still-wet white gloss paint was discovered to have been thrown across the Bomber Command Memorial in London’s Green Park. The bronze sculpture of a...
The last battle: Bomber Command’s veterans and the fight for remembrance
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Out and About in Upper Weardale
Historian feature
Tony Fox introduces us to two battlefields and the work of the Battlefields Trust.
Stanhope takes its name from the ‘stony valley’ in which it sits. It is the most significant town in beautiful Upper Weardale. Like many towns in this area Stanhope’s growth accelerated in the nineteenth century as...
Out and About in Upper Weardale
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The burial dilemma
Historian article
The recent attacks on Karl Marx’s grave in Highgate Cemetery have added impetus to the public debate about how we memorialise the dead and the public and private costs of mourning.
The burial dilemma
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Out and About: Kennington and the Elephant and Castle
Historian feature
The HA's very own Martin Hoare takes us on a tour of Kennington and Elephant and Castle, to some lesser-known gems that ought to be higher on the London tourist trail.
Over the years of working for the HA I’ve quite often used my lunch break to take walks around the areas...
Out and About: Kennington and the Elephant and Castle
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The Diabolical Cato-Street Plot
Historian article
Richard A. Gaunt reminds us that it is still possible to visit the site of a notorious conspiratorial challenge to Lord Liverpool’s government, and why this event was so significant.
At around 7.30pm on Wednesday 23 February 1820, a dozen Bow Street Runners in plain clothes, led by George Thomas...
The Diabolical Cato-Street Plot
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Woodland in the East Staffordshire landscape
Historian article
Richard Stone explains that the natural landscape can be a resource for anyone exploring local topography.
The idea for researching this topic came while reading Oliver Rackham’s excellent Trees and Woodland in the British Landscape. Calculations based on woodland recorded in Domesday Book revealed my home county of Staffordshire, with...
Woodland in the East Staffordshire landscape
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Homes fit for heroes? James Cecil and the public interest
Historian article
Hugh Gault reminds us that the provision of adequate and price-accessible housing stock has been a matter of public debate and concern for over a hundred years. Economics and financial priorities have continued to undermine the methodologies and good intentions needed to solve the problem.
This year is the hundredth...
Homes fit for heroes? James Cecil and the public interest
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Havelock Hall: the East India Company college gymnasium at Addiscombe
Historian article
Trevor James emphasises the importance of this structure in England’s sporting landscape.
Tucked behind the houses in Havelock Road in the East Croydon suburb of Addiscombe is a seemingly unprepossessing building, known locally as ‘Havelock Hall’. Now converted into flats, it derives its name from its late nineteenth-century religious use,...
Havelock Hall: the East India Company college gymnasium at Addiscombe
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The Waggoners’ Memorial
Historian article
Paula Kitching introduces a very remarkable First World War memorial to a specific group of Yorkshire workers.
The Waggoners’ Memorial
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A European dimension to local history
Historian article
Trevor James raises the prospect of broadening our approaches to local history to take a wider European perspective.
When Professor W. G. Hoskins published his The Making of the English Landscape in 1955, he taught us how to observe and understand the topography of our landscapes, urban and rural, and...
A European dimension to local history
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George Eliot and Warwickshire history
Historian article
David Paterson explains how George Eliot’s vivid memory of her childhood in north Warwickshire is revealed through her novels.
George Eliot, born 200 years ago this year, is one of our greatest novelists, born and brought up in Warwickshire, a county in which she spent the first 30 years of...
George Eliot and Warwickshire history
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Out and About in Derry/Londonderry
Historian feature
Jenni Hyde was out and about in Derry in 2016 and describes how the sights of the city tell the story of a history which is so much more than just the legacy of the Troubles.
Out and About in Derry/Londonderry
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A year in the life of a branch coordinator
Historian article
Jenni Hyde takes us through an exciting year with the Bolton Branch and provides some great ideas for other branch secretaries.
A year in the life of a branch coordinator
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The German prisoner-of-war camp in Dorchester
Historian article
Dave Martin investigates why there is a war memorial for German soldiers, ‘buried in a foreign field’, in a Dorset churchyard.
The German prisoner-of-war camp in Dorchester
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The initial impact of the Battle of Jutland on the people of Portsmouth
Historian article
This local study by Steve Doe draws together the human effects of what happened at the Battle of Jutland in June 1916 with accounts of how the families of those who fought in the battle and the wider local community dealt with the tragedy.
The initial impact of the Battle of Jutland on the people of Portsmouth
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My Favourite History Place: The Guild Chapel
Historian feature
Trevor James highlights a very important building to visit and celebrate during the HA's Annual Conference in Stratford-upon-Avon in May 2018.
My Favourite History Place: The Guild Chapel
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Out and About in Oxford
Historian feature
The Sheffield Branch of the Historical Association is a very active one. In addition to our monthly meetings we organise a range of study visits, from one-day trips to longer residential tours in the UK and occasionally in mainland Europe. In recent years, these have included visits to Portsmouth, Lincoln and Newark, Newcastle and Northumberland, and the battlefields of Waterloo....
Out and About in Oxford
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My Favourite History Place: Edinburgh's Royal Mile
Historian feature
Maggie Wilson whets our appetite for exploration of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile.
Edinburgh’s Royal Mile runs between the Castle and Holyrood Palace. In addition to these and other well-known sites such as St Giles Cathedral, John Knox’s house, the Canongate Tolbooth and Canongate Kirk, and stories of Deacon Brodie, David Hume, James Boswell, Robert Burns and, obviously,...
My Favourite History Place: Edinburgh's Royal Mile
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The Great Yarmouth Suspension Bridge Disaster of 1845
Historian article
Many communities have cataclysmic disasters which tend to dominate or define their local history. Gareth Davies reveals that the sudden collapse of the Great Yarmouth Suspension Bridge is a telling example of this trend.
Beside the waters of the River Bure in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk stands a shiny black memorial...
The Great Yarmouth Suspension Bridge Disaster of 1845
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Film: Veteran Mervyn Kersh Talks about his experience of World War II
An HA film to mark the 75th anniversary of VE Day
Mervyn Kersh was a young man from South London whose army service included arriving into Normandy in the first few days of the invasion, crossing the Rhine and being a British Jewish serviceman in Germany when the war ended.
In this film released to commemorate VE Day Mervyn describes his...
Film: Veteran Mervyn Kersh Talks about his experience of World War II
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Short guides to Records
Multipage Article
A series of short guides to different types of public and other records, including rate books, wills, probate inventories and poll books.
Short guides to Records
