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
Rosemary Hayes, Writer @HayesRosemary Like many people (possibly as many as one in six in England), I have Huguenot ancestry. No-one knows the exact genesis of the word Huguenot but it is thought to have originated in Germany and later become a term of insult by French Catholics towards French Protestants. In time, it was … Continued
Alice Naylor, University of Portsmouth and Science Museum Group alice.naylor@myport.ac.uk This blog reflects on a performance held as part of the 2022 Being Human festival, which won the Social History Society’s 2023 Public History Prize. The Kenwood Manufacturing Company Ltd was co-founded by Kenneth Wood and Roger Laurence in 1947. It is a historic British … Continued
Hannah Dennett, University of Warwick Hannah.Dennett@warwick.ac.uk This blog reflects on Hannah Dennett’s work to produce the ‘Tiny Traces’ exhibition, which was given a special commendation in the Social History Society’s 2023 Public History Prize. After a long campaign by its founder Thomas Coram, London’s Foundling Hospital opened its doors on 25 March 1741 to receive … Continued
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
Shahenda Suliman ‘Sudan Prison Exhibition: Memories of Kober and Beyond’ was a one-day exhibition held in London in September 2022, focusing on prisons and prisoners in Sudanese history. Showcasing work harking back to the late 19th century and Anglo-Egyptian occupation, the exhibition aimed to highlight the role of prisons in colonial and post-colonial Sudanese political … Continued
Dr Michael Lambert, Lancaster University m.lambert3@lancaster.ac.uk @GrandCamouflage The current erosion of welfare state institutions – the National Health Service (NHS), social services, and schools – caused by years of underfunding and political intervention exposed by the pandemic, mean that many hark back to a time when things were different. A time when there was a … Continued
JC Niala, University of Oxford Jc.niala@stcatz.ox.ac.uk @jcniala This blog describes a public engagement project that won the SHS’s 2022 Public History Prize. You can read the announcement here. I was already researching urban allotments in Oxford before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Oxford did not have a city-wide waiting list before the pandemic started. … Continued
JC Niala, University of Oxford Jc.niala@stcatz.ox.ac.uk @jcniala African history tends to be characterised by its silences. The history that is known internationally is often framed in relation to European history meaning that tragic events and contested histories are foregrounded. In contrast, many diasporic African historians work to tell a history that is centred on the … Continued
