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Real Lives: Harry Daley
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: Harry Daley
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Film series: Power and Freedom in Britain and Ireland, 1714–2010
New HA film series
From royal courts to radical protests, from industrial revolutions to global empires – this compelling new film series traces the dramatic evolution of power, rights, and freedom across three centuries of British and Irish history.
We will trace Britain and Ireland’s transformation from 1714 to 2010, unpacking power struggles, social revolutions, and...
Film series: Power and Freedom in Britain and Ireland, 1714–2010
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The ‘workless workers’ and the Waterbury watch
Historian article
Peter Hounsell looks at the role of the Waterbury Watch Company in both the Queen’s Jubilee and the attempt to record and alleviate unemployment in London in the 1880s.
In Britain generally, but for London in particular, 1887 was a year of great contrasts. On 27 June, Londoners lined the...
The ‘workless workers’ and the Waterbury watch
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Volunteers to a man: an industrial workplace goes to war
Historian article
In this article Edward Washington explores how the Royal Mint in Sydney, Australia was affected by the First World War, through the loss of professional staff and the legacy of experiencing conflict.
The Royal Mint, Sydney, which opened in 1855 in response to the Australian gold rushes, was the first...
Volunteers to a man: an industrial workplace goes to war
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Making and breaking Britain’s national energy order
Historian article
British history flows through energy. Changes to fuel sources, technologies, workplace organisation and power along with government policy and ownership have been defining turning points in British economic history. In this article Ewan Gibbs traces the making, development and subsequent breaking of a national British energy order across the second half of...
Making and breaking Britain’s national energy order
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What caused the decline of trams in West Yorkshire?
Historian article
In an article based on his award-winning essay for the Young Historian competition, Christopher Barnett describes the development, decline and potential resurrection of West Yorkshire’s tram network...
What caused the decline of trams in West Yorkshire?
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Imperial spaces of a ‘miniature world’: the case of Rugby School, c.1828–1850
Historian article
English public schools in the nineteenth century were training grounds not just for society’s elites but also for careers in Britain’s imperial service. In this article, Holly Hiscox explores the ways in which schools such as Rugby provided pupils with a miniature world of domestic and professional life which prepared...
Imperial spaces of a ‘miniature world’: the case of Rugby School, c.1828–1850
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Connecting poetry, philosophy and landscapes in Ancient China
Historian article
It is unusual for historians to focus primarily on poetry to provide insights into the past societies they are studying. Here Nicholas Tyldesley explains the value of poetry to help us understand the ideas, values and some important historical events in Ancient China, with a particular focus on poets Li...
Connecting poetry, philosophy and landscapes in Ancient China
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Recruiting volunteers to fight in the First World War
Historian article
‘Your Country Needs You’ and other posters are still remembered today as a prominent vehicle by which men were encouraged to fight in the First World War. Virtually absent from the literature, however, is analysis of the impact of thousands of recruitment meetings and their speakers. Robert Bullard explores the contribution...
Recruiting volunteers to fight in the First World War
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What Have Historians Been Arguing About... the consequences of the industrial revolution
Teaching History feature
The British industrial revolution stands out as a pivotal moment in human history. Its timing, causes and consequences have all been major topics of historical enquiry for well over one hundred years. Many of the great Victorian commentators – Engels, Dickens, Blake to name a few – who lived through...
What Have Historians Been Arguing About... the consequences of the industrial revolution
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Britain and the First World War: not just battles
Historian feature
When the First World War started in the summer of 1914 it began a series of events that would change the world for ever; it also accelerated changes and ideas that were already underway. In some cases, big issues appeared to be put to one side while the immediate needs of...
Britain and the First World War: not just battles
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Real Lives: Beatrice Alexander
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: Beatrice Alexander
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The Great Spa Towns of Europe: a UNESCO World Heritage Site
Historian article
Catherine Lloyd introduces us to an international heritage initiative to celebrate ‘spa’ culture.
From ancient times, people believed that gods and spirits brought the means of natural healing. Step back in time to imagine an eerie wilderness, a glade in a wood, or a pool by a river, where the snow...
The Great Spa Towns of Europe: a UNESCO World Heritage Site
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Harriet Kettle, Victorian rebel
Historian article
Harriet Kettle had a remarkable life. She was on the receiving end of everything that the institutions of social control in Victorian England could throw at her, but resisted, survived and fought back.
Harriet’s defiance earned her references in the records of a workhouse, two prisons, two asylums and, in...
Harriet Kettle, Victorian rebel
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Real Lives: the long life of Old Tom Parr
Historian feature
Our series ‘Real Lives’ seeks to put the story of the ordinary person into our great historical narrative. If you have any people that you think might also fit this category and would like to write about them, please do contact: martin.hoare@history.org.uk
In this article, Dexter Plato tells us about the...
Real Lives: the long life of Old Tom Parr
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Cinderella dreams: young love in post-war Britain
Historian article
In a lecture given to the Cambridge branch, Carol Dyhouse explains changing attitudes to marriage in the 1950s and 60s.
Women teachers in the 1950s and 1960s regularly complained about how hard it was to keep girls’ attention on their schoolwork. Educationist Kathleen Ollerenshaw pointed out that the prospects of marriage,...
Cinderella dreams: young love in post-war Britain
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The many queens of Ancient Egypt
Historian article
Joyce Tyldesley explains the significant but often hidden roles played by queens in Ancient Egypt.
For almost 3,000 years – from the unification of the land in 3100 BC to the arrival of Alexander the Great in 332 BC – the king (or pharaoh) of Egypt served as an essential...
The many queens of Ancient Egypt
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Piecing together the life and times of Charles I
Historian article
In this article, Chris R. Langley discusses the sources we use to reconstruct the life and times of Charles I. He explains how historians can use a wide range of sources in creative ways to understand different aspects of political, cultural and religious change in the mid-seventeenth century...
Piecing together the life and times of Charles I
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Mercurial justice: a Jesuit chaplain’s view of life in the prisons of sixteenth-century Seville
Historian article
Justice in the early modern period was discretionary, which meant it could be both violent and deeply unfair. Elites often escaped the most severe punishments inflicted on the poor and minoritised groups. Clare Burgess shows how a Jesuit chaplain in sixteenth- century Seville used his spiritual discretion and zealous belief...
Mercurial justice: a Jesuit chaplain’s view of life in the prisons of sixteenth-century Seville
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Schools of Vice: how a medical scandal led to the dismantling of Britain’s last prison hulks
Historian article
Hulks – former naval ships used as prisons for those convicted of serious crime and sentenced to transportation – were intended to be a temporary solution to a penal crisis caused by the American Revolutionary Wars. These ‘schools of vice’, or ‘floating hells’ lasted 80 years, casting a shadow over...
Schools of Vice: how a medical scandal led to the dismantling of Britain’s last prison hulks
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Finding Bad Bridget: the lives and crimes of Irish immigrant women in America
Historian article
From the early nineteenth century until the First World War, millions of Irish women emigrated to North America in search of better lives. Elaine Farrell and Leanne McCormick, co-leads for the AHRC-funded Bad Bridget research project, tell us how poverty, discrimination, isolation from family as well as greed and opportunism...
Finding Bad Bridget: the lives and crimes of Irish immigrant women in America
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Doing history: Contemporary narratives and the legacy of the Dagenham Ford Factory Strike of 1968
Historian feature
In this article, Zubin Burley looks at how a visit to the local archive can transform our understanding of an important event in British social history...
Doing history: Contemporary narratives and the legacy of the Dagenham Ford Factory Strike of 1968
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Eastern Nigeria market women and European businesses in colonial Nigeria 1900–29
Historian article
In this article Folusho Alabi reveals a relatively unknown story from the history of the British Empire. She analyses the issues and strategic manoeuvres in an ongoing struggle between Nigerian market women and the British colonial authorities in the early twentieth century. Despite an innate imbalance of power in this struggle,...
Eastern Nigeria market women and European businesses in colonial Nigeria 1900–29
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Coroners, communities, and the Crown: mapping death and justice in late medieval England
Historian article
Life in medieval cities could be violent and dangerous, and the records generated by state officials charged with regulating that violence offer invaluable insight into everyday life. Stephanie Emma Brown takes us behind the scenes of the recently launched Medieval Murder Map project, which was based on coroners’ rolls, to...
Coroners, communities, and the Crown: mapping death and justice in late medieval England
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James Macpherson: a Scottish Robin Hood
Historian article
James Macpherson led a notorious gang of robbers in late seventeenth-century Scotland, and he became infamous for robbing rich lairds to give to the poor. Anne-Marie Kilday explains how his notoriety is also significant for revealing how people in early modern Scotland could hold complex attitudes towards the Gypsy Roma...
James Macpherson: a Scottish Robin Hood
