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The Romanov Tercentenary: nostalgia versus history on the eve of the Great War
Historian article
The spring of 2013 was unusually significant for devotees of the Romanov dynasty. Though there was little international recognition of the fact, the season marked the 400th anniversary of the accession of Russia's first Romanov tsar. Historically, the story was a most dramatic one, for Mikhail Fedorovich had not seized...
The Romanov Tercentenary: nostalgia versus history on the eve of the Great War
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Women and the Politics of the Parish in England
Historian article
Petticoat Politicians: Women and the Politics of the Parish in England
The history of women voting in Britain is familiar to many. 2013 marked the centenary of the zenith of the militant female suffrage movement, culminating in the tragic death of Emily Wilding Davison, crushed by the King's horse at...
Women and the Politics of the Parish in England
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My Favourite Place - Beamish
Historian feature
Hopping off a tram at Beamish Museum, you're stepping straight into life in Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian times. What I really love about Beamish, the Living Museum of the North, is that it not only shows how communities in the region used to live - but also gives you a...
My Favourite Place - Beamish
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The Yeomanry, 1913
Historian article
The Territorial Force, as formed in 1908, had 54 cavalry regiments organised in 14 brigades and known collectively as the Yeomanry. This meant that the Yeomanry consisted of 1,168 officers and 23,049 other ranks in September 1913 out of a Territorial Force which numbered 9,390 officers and 236,389 other ranks....
The Yeomanry, 1913
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Round About A Pound A Week
Historian article
In this edition, we begin a new occasional feature, where we explore a classic text that had a major impact both at the time it was published, and since. Alf Wilkinson discusses a book first published in 1913, and still in print, and explains why he thinks it is as...
Round About A Pound A Week
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Franz Ferdinand
Historian article
The Kapuzinerkirche (Church of the Capuchins) in Vienna's Neue Markt is one of the more curious attractions of the city, housing as it does the Kaisergruft crypt in which the Habsburgs are entombed, or rather in which their bodies are entombed: the hearts are usually kept in the Loreto Chapel...
Franz Ferdinand
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Out and About in Shaftesbury
Historian feature
Shaftesbury in North Dorset is one of the highest towns in England, standing as it does at 750 feet above sea level. As with many high points in the area, the first settlement was established around 8000 years ago in the middle of the Stone Age. The town went on...
Out and About in Shaftesbury
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My Favourite History Place: Sutton Hoo
Historian feature
A Secret Uncovered, A Mystery Unsolved
Sutton Hoo is a sandy heathland overlooking the estuary of the River Deben in Suffolk. In Old English a ‘hoo' is a promontory, ‘sutton' is southern, and ‘tun' is a settlement. Historians have known for years that the fields were farmed in the Iron...
My Favourite History Place: Sutton Hoo
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Women, education and literacy in Tudor and Stuart England
Historian article
To booke and pen: Women, education and literacy in Tudor and Stuart England
As a student in the early 1970s, I became acutely aware that formal provision for women's education was a relatively recent development. I was at Bedford College, which originated in 1849 as the first higher education institution...
Women, education and literacy in Tudor and Stuart England
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Queenship in Medieval England: A Changing Dynamic?
Historian article
In the winter of 1235-6, Eleanor, the 12 year old daughter of Count Raymond-Berengar V of Provence and Beatrice of Savoy, left her native homeland. She travelled to England to marry King Henry III, a man 28 years her senior whom she had never met. The bride and her entourage...
Queenship in Medieval England: A Changing Dynamic?
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My Favourite History Place: Mountfitchet Castle
Historian feature
In the first of an occasional series Alf Wilkinson, HA CPD Manager, explores Mountfitchet Castle, in Essex - his favourite history place.
As every schoolchild knows, William the Conqueror landed near Hastings in 1066, pursuing his claim to the throne of England. He was accompanied by the Pope's blessing, but...
My Favourite History Place: Mountfitchet Castle
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1066: The Limits of our Knowledge
Historian article
As the most pivotal and traumatic event in English history, the Norman Conquest continues to generate controversy and debate, especially among those who know little about it or enjoy passing judgement on the past. Who had the better claim to the English throne, William the Conqueror or Harold Godwineson? Was...
1066: The Limits of our Knowledge
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Out & About in Swansea Castle
Historian feature
The ruins of Swansea Castle stand at the edge of Swansea's shopping centre and are generally ignored by shoppers and passers-by who just ... well ... pass by. But this was to change to some extent in 2012, and the HA's Swansea Branch adopted a very close relationship with the...
Out & About in Swansea Castle
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Papal Election and Murder
Historian article
Before the smoke clears: The longest papal election in history was marred by a brutal murder
Papal elections never used to be so short or easy. In 1268 Pope Clement IV died and the cardinals, divided between French and Italian factions, would be deadlocked for the next three years over...
Papal Election and Murder
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Marcus Morris and Eagle
Historian article
Marcus Morris and Eagle: Approved reading for boys in the 1950s & 1960s
The National Art Library of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London's South Kensington held an exhibition in the first five months of 2012 devoted entirely to British adventure comics of the 1950s and 1960s, many taken...
Marcus Morris and Eagle
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It's Murder On The Orient Express
Historian article
It was the most luxurious long distance rail journey in the history of travel. Royalty, aristocracy, the rich and the famous travelled regularly on the Orient Express. Gourmet chefs prepared exquisite meals, chandeliers, luxury compartments, staterooms and dining rooms on a par with famous hotels like the Ritz were all...
It's Murder On The Orient Express
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Travel
Historian article
Perhaps I should start by saying what impels me to visit remote places, and that means saying what I'm not. I'm not an anthropologist: I have attempted to read anthropological texts, and confess to finding them amazingly dull when compared with what they're attempting to describe. There are exceptions: Piers...
Travel
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Kristallnacht
Historian article
Why Reichskristallnacht?
In The Third Reich Michael Burleigh writes: ‘We should be cautious in seeing spontaneity where frequency suggests instigation from a central source.' He comments on ‘a dialectic between "spontaneous" grassroot actions and "followup" state sponsored measures.' These remarks relate to 1935, the time of the Nuremberg Laws [the...
Kristallnacht
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The Fall of Singapore 1942
Historian article
Churchill called it "the worst disaster and the largest capitulation in British history" and the Fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942 has certainly gathered its own mythology in the past 70 years. Was it all the fault of General Percival; were the guns pointing the wrong way; did the...
The Fall of Singapore 1942
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The Urban Working Classes in England 1880-1914
Historian article
On reading the title of this article, any reader at all familiar with the social history of late Victorian and Edwardian England is likely to think of the revelations at the time of the extent of urban poverty. Two major enquiries, one into London poverty, and the other into poverty...
The Urban Working Classes in England 1880-1914
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An Intimate History of Your Home - Lucy Worsley
Historian Article
‘You've gone over to The Dark Side'.
These were the words of a well-respected historian to whom I'd been enthusing about the pleasures and perils of Dressing Up.
During 2009-10 I spent several months in historic costume, recreating the habits and rituals of domestic life in the past. It was...
An Intimate History of Your Home - Lucy Worsley
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My Favourite History Place: David Pearse explores St Petersburg
Historian feature
If you want to understand Russian history from Peter the Great up to at least the 1917 Revolutions, you have to visit St Petersburg. Like Versailles, St Petersburg was built for an absolute monarch, on an unsuitable site, at the cost of many labourers' lives. Unlike Versailles, it was designed...
My Favourite History Place: David Pearse explores St Petersburg
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How can there be a true history?
Historian article
"How can there be a true history, when we see no man living is able to write truly the history of the last week?" (Thomas Shadwell)
Indeed! Once when I had to give a talk in Spain, I found this quotation by looking up ‘history' in the Oxford English Dictionary....
How can there be a true history?
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Cyprus: another Middle East issue
Historian article
Although Cyprus, the third largest Mediterranean island, remained nominally under Turkish suzerainty until 1914, the British were established there after the 1878 Congress of Berlin. The idea then was that, from this base, Britain could protect Turkey against threats from Russia, while ensuring that the Turks reformed their treatment of...
Cyprus: another Middle East issue
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Neville Chamberlain: Villain or Hero?
Historian article
Perhaps no other British figure of the twentieth century has been as vilified or as celebrated as Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister from 1937 to 1940. In 1999, a BBC Radio 4 poll of prominent historians, politicians and commentators rated Chamberlain as one of the worst Prime Ministers of...
Neville Chamberlain: Villain or Hero?
