-
Grave matters
Historian article
Diana Laffin considers what study of the styles, planning and planting of Brookwood cemetery reveals about nineteenth century mindsets.
Graves are serious sources for historians. There is nothing casual about the choices made at death: the size and design of the monument, the text on the stone, even the location...
Grave matters
-
From Disraeli to Callaghan: Britain 1879 - 1979
Historian article
A previously unpublished survey of British history by A.J.P. Taylor. It is a characteristic piece, though marked by gloom about the then recent inflation. Introduced by Historical Association President Chris Wrigley.
From Disraeli to Callaghan: Britain 1879 - 1979
-
What is interesting about the world wars?
Article
In the past, the two world wars have been mainly studied as military history, focused on armies, campaigns and battles. Historians have concentrated on wars in Europe and in particular on the Western Front in 1914–18 and on the war with Nazi Germany in the west. This has given rise...
What is interesting about the world wars?
-
What have historians been arguing about... decolonisation and the British Empire?
Teaching History feature
Decolonisation is a contested term. When first used in 1952, it referred to a political event: a colony gaining independence; it has since come to describe a process. When, where and why this process began, however, and whether it has ended, are all fiercely debated. Is it about new flags...
What have historians been arguing about... decolonisation and the British Empire?
-
Out and About in Haworth
Historian feature
Kimberley Braxton takes a tour of Brontë country, through Haworth and onto the iconic Yorkshire Moors that were central to Wuthering Heights.
Haworth is a place for walkers; even before you reach the breathtaking moors it is likely your legs will already be burning from climbing the steep Yorkshire terrain....
Out and About in Haworth
-
Do historical anniversaries matter? Case study: Arnhem 1944
Historian feature
2019 has been quite a year for historical anniversaries – Peterloo 200, D-Day 75, Monte Cassino 75, Women MPs 100 years, Apollo Moon Landings 50 years and all following on the tail of four years of the First World War centenary – and that is not counting the anniversaries that...
Do historical anniversaries matter? Case study: Arnhem 1944
-
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
-
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
-
From Bedfordshire to the Arctic Circle
Historian article
Travelling from the Western Front to fight former Allies in Russia is not the usual story of 1919 for a British ‘Tommy’. Yet that was the story of some of those men still serving King and Country.
On 9 January 1918 the supplement to The London Gazette, an official paper...
From Bedfordshire to the Arctic Circle
-
The British soldier in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars
Historian article
Scum of the earth – or fine fellows?
Carole Divall asks whether the men of the British Army really were ‘the scum of the earth’, as often asserted, or willing soldiers who earned the respect of the French.
‘Soldiers were regarded as day labourers engaged in unsavoury business; a money...
The British soldier in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars
-
Lord Palmerston
Historian article
Lord Palmerston (1784-1865) has long interested (and confused) historians. A man of contradictions and paradoxes, he seemed both to embody modern Victorian Britain, and yet at the same time stand as a potent symbol of what had been lost.
Lord Palmerston
-
The Transport Revolution 1750-1830
Classic Pamphlet
The period 1750-1830, traditionally marking the classical industrial revolution, achieved in Great Britain what Professor Rostow has called the economy's "take-off into self-sustained growth". A revolution in transportation was part of the complex of changes - industrial, agricultural, mercantile and commercial - occurring roughly concurrently.The impetus to transport change is...
The Transport Revolution 1750-1830
-
'Spy Fever' in Britain, 1900 to 1914
Historian article
The decade and a half prior to the First World War saw Britain experience a virulent, some might say sordid phenomenon that has been referred to as ‘spy fever.’ This article traces the roots of spy fever, and examines its nature, before assessing its effects on Britain between 1900 and...
'Spy Fever' in Britain, 1900 to 1914
-
The Irish in Britain 1815-1914
Classic Pamphlet
Irish migration to Britain has a long and chequered history, yet only in recent years have historians examined this subject in depth, through a growing body of local, regional and national studies which have supplemented the earlier pioneering research of J. E. Handley and J. A. Jackson. These studies have...
The Irish in Britain 1815-1914
-
The Gallipoli Memorial, Eltham
Historian article
On April 13 2000 the Bishop of Oxford, the Right Reverend Richard Harris, gave the final Gallipoli Memorial Lecture in the Gallipoli Memorial Chapel at Holy Trinity Church, Eltham. The National Gallipoli Memorial was established there due to the effort and enthusiasm of Holy Trinity’s Vicar, the Reverend Henry Hall,...
The Gallipoli Memorial, Eltham
-
70 years – 70 ‘things’ that tell our story
Historian article
As part of the Historical Association’s recognition of our patron the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, The Historical Association asked our members and followers to put together a collection of 70 ‘things’ that tell the story of the last 70 years: how the UK and the world have changed; how they have developed;...
70 years – 70 ‘things’ that tell our story
-
Civilian expertise in war
Historian article
Philip Hamlyn Williams introduces us to the commercial and industrial background to modern-day warfare.
When I think of war, I immediately see men and women in one of three uniforms: Royal Navy, RAF and Army. My research over the past seven years into how the British army was supplied in two...
Civilian expertise in war
-
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
-
My Favourite History Place: Queen Square, Bath
Historian feature
Some years ago, on the shore of Loch Lomond, I met a Scotsman. As we started to converse he asked me where I was from. When I replied ‘Bath’, his response was ‘Ah, the most beautiful city in Britain,’ adding, out of patriotism or good judgement, ‘Edinburgh is second.’
The Roman...
My Favourite History Place: Queen Square, Bath
-
The Slave trade and British Abolition, 1787-1807
Historian article
In the 1780’s the British slave trade thrived. In that decade alone more than one thousand British and British colonial slave ships sailed for the slave coasts of Africa and transported more than 300,000 Africans. There was little evidence that here was a system uncertain about its economic future. If...
The Slave trade and British Abolition, 1787-1807
-
Ancient Athenian inscriptions in public and private UK collections
Historian article
Peter Liddel introduces us to a rich source of historical information and encourages us to make some purposeful visits to museums.
From the seventeenth to the mid nineteenth century, travellers from the UK explored the Mediterranean lands of ancient civilisations in search of trophies that demonstrated the achievements of the classical world. Highly...
Ancient Athenian inscriptions in public and private UK collections
-
My Favourite History Place: St James Church, Gerrards Cross
Historian feature
Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, is a well-to-do town in the Chilterns and a wealthy commuter dormitory for London. It also harbours what might be one of the most remarkable, under-appreciated churches of the mid-nineteenth century. St James, the parish church, was built for the ‘unruled and unruly’ agricultural labourers and traders who inhabited...
My Favourite History Place: St James Church, Gerrards Cross
-
At home with Amanda Ira Aldridge
Historian article
Stephen Bourne examines the life of Amanda Ira Aldridge, the multi-talented singer, composer and voice teacher.
Amanda Ira Aldridge may have lived a quiet life but she was a trailblazer in the world of music. After a career as a concert singer, she became a composer in a male-dominated profession, for which she adopted a male pseudonym, Montague Ring. In her...
At home with Amanda Ira Aldridge
-
My Favourite History Place: The Red House
Historian feature
Tim Brasier tempts others to visit the iconic Arts and Crafts Red House, home to William and Jane Morris in Bexleyheath, London.
This is a favourite historical venue of mine because it is so accessible. We literally live around the corner from the Red House in its location of the London...
My Favourite History Place: The Red House
-
What is interesting about the Cold War?
Article
Almost 30 years after the end of the Cold War, diversity is suddenly galvanising the field of scholarly research into the Cold War. As the historian Federico Romero has argued, older, simpler interpretations ‘seem to be giving way to a looser understanding of the Cold War as an era that encompassed...
What is interesting about the Cold War?
