Hassun El-Zafar @hassunelzafar MIRPUR VR is an immersive experience which shares memories of Kashmir’s Mirpur district before the submersion of hundreds of villages under the Mangla Dam in the 1960s. According to the latest census, 70% of British Pakistanis have a heritage in Mirpur, with many families using compensation to travel to the UK during … Continued
Kwaku @kwakubbm I’m an independent researcher with a particular interest in global and British African history; and a historical musicologist, with a particular interest in black music. I work with a small pan-London grouping of community organisations known as BTWSC/African Histories Revisited. During the 2020 pandemic, I developed a number of Zoom events, including the … 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
Hester Barron, University of Sussex H.Barron@sussex.ac.uk Most of the writing for my new monograph, The Social World of the School: Education and Community in Interwar London, was done during the pandemic. The lockdowns were a strange time to be writing anything, but to be completing a book which reflected on the purpose of school felt … Continued
Anna Maguire, Queen Mary, University of London a.maguire@qmul.ac.uk @AnnaMaguire24 In his oral history, A Chief is a Chief by the People (1975), Stimela Jason Jingoes, who served with the South African Native Labour Corps, recalled arriving in Liverpool in 1917. When we boarded the train, before we left Liverpool, the girls of that place arrived … 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
Clare Burgess and Olivia Wyatt, University of York @clareburgess6 @oliviawyatt1999 At the end of February, amid staff strikes and growing rumours about an as-yet unfamiliar disease, we stood at the front of an auditorium and opened a conference that had been nearly a year in the making. We were nervous, and felt a little like … Continued
Kate Brooks, Bath Spa University K.Brooks@bathspa.ac.uk We are pleased to share this blog by Kate Brooks, the winner of the 2020 SHS Postgraduate Prize. In 1851, Joseph Lowe was working as a barber in Willenhall, Staffordshire, with four children and a house servant named Jane. Willenhall was an overcrowded, impoverished district, known for locksmithery and … Continued
Dr Fanny Louvier, University of Oxford fanny.louvier@balliol.ox.ac.uk In the first half of the twentieth century, domestic service was one of the main occupations for women in both France and Britain. We often imagine these women wearing black dresses, white aprons and white caps on their heads. This popular image is not too far from the … Continued
Dr Wendy Ugolini is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Edinburgh. Her research interests focus on the relationship between war and identity in the twentieth century. Her first monograph, ‘Experiencing War as the “Enemy Other”: Italian Scottish Experience in World War II’ (Manchester University Press, 2011), was awarded the Royal Historical Society’s Gladstone Prize.
In her contribution to the Research Exchange, she discusses the dual Welsh and British identity she explores in her recent article for Cultural and Social History: ‘The “Welsh” Pimpernel: Richard Llewellyn and the Search for Authenticity in Second World War Britain’.
