Leslie James, Queen Mary University of London leslie.james@qmul.ac.uk By Leslie James, Arista Ajidele, Matheus Da Silva-Armson, Naimah Islam and Shi Jinh Yang In May 2024 the QMUL School of History, with assistance from the Social History Society BME Grant Scheme, ran our first intake of a new programme, ‘Widening Histories’. This programme includes a … Continued
Joe Moran, Liverpool John Moores University J.Moran@ljmu.ac.uk My new article for Cultural and Social History, ‘An Intimate History of Social Mobility in Post-War Britain’, focuses on the lives of my parents. My mum and dad were baby boomers, beneficiaries of the 1944 Education Act and the opening of new universities in the 1960s. But my … Continued
Alice Tomlinson, University of Manchester @alice_the_ant When I started researching women’s changing work patterns in the early modern period for an essay last autumn, I had no idea the rabbit hole I would end up exploring. Initially, I found that much work on women’s employment suggests that either women have been marching slowly towards emancipation … Continued
Rosanne M. Baars @RosanneBaars ‘Never was there a time more suited for the dissemination of rumours. After all, people mostly follow their emotions; they forge and shape news reports as they like to favour their own party, by adding something, leaving fragments out, even by inventing news reports and re-creating them from their own imagination. … Continued
Jasmine Kilburn-Toppin, Cardiff University Kilburn-ToppinJ@cardiff.ac.uk There are few heritage sites as iconic as the Tower of London. For most twenty-first century Londoners and tourists, the Tower is associated with famous prisoners, grisly executions, and the Crown Jewels. To the early modern mind, the Tower had a more varied range of associations. As well as being … Continued
Ellen Smith, University of Leicester ecss3@leicester.ac.uk @EllenCSSmith We are pleased to share this blog by Ellen Smith, runner up in the 2020 SHS Postgraduate Prize. Several times during my research project, on family life in British India during the long nineteenth century, I have reflected on how privileged I am to read, almost daily, personal … Continued
Dr Henry Irving, Leeds Beckett University @drhenryirving Is the toilet roll shortage a chapter or a footnote? The last few days have involved a lot of discussion of what ‘future historians’ will make of the UK government’s response to Covid-19, but there has been far less of the practical decisions that those working in the … Continued
Dr Victoria Kelley, University for the Creative Arts vkelley@uca.ac.uk Cheap Street tells the story of London’s street markets: Petticoat Lane, Berwick Street, Lambeth Walk and many others. From the 1850s, anything that could be bought in a shop could also be bought in the street markets – they were the butcher, baker, greengrocer, provision … Continued
Dr Henry Irving, Leeds Beckett University @drhenryirving One of the most important things I learned during my undergraduate degree was that academics read differently. Critical analysis, the lecturers’ said, was as important as comprehension. I still remember feeling shocked when one explained that they would begin marking an essay by looking at the bibliography. “But, … Continued
