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The Society is pleased to announce the 8 recipients of its new programme of Workshop Grants. Each award is for £1000 per workshop, to support the creation and running of a day event on the chosen topic. Workshops bring together historians at all career stages to engage in detail with a shared project, leading to publications, project development, grant applications and networking, among other outcomes.

One set of 4 Workshops will lead to publication of articles in the Society’s journal, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society.

A second set of 4 Workshop Grants support projects with a wider range of potential outcomes: for example, beginning and testing a research idea, pilot work, grant applications, networking, or publishing and communication in other formats.

Both programmes will run again in 2023, with further details announced on the Society’s website in due course.

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Transactions Workshops

In summer 2022, Harshan Kumarasingham and Kate Smith — co-editors of the Society’s academic journal, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society — issued a call for funded workshops leading to publication of research in the journal. Four awards have now been made in this category. Recipients will hold their events in 2023 and then work with the journal’s co-editors to develop content for publication in Transactions:

• ’80 Years of the Bengal Famine (1943): Decolonial Dialogues from the Global South’ — lead organisers: Priyanka Basu and Ananya Jahanara Kabir (King’s College London)
• ‘Transnational Activism in a Divided World: the Regional within the Global’ — lead organisers: Daniel Laqua (Northumbria) and Thomas Davies (City, University of London)
• ‘The Future of Our Past: Where is Environmental History Heading?’ — lead organiser: Alexander Hibberts (Durham)
• ‘Parliamentary Culture in Colonial Contexts, c.1500 – c.1700’ — lead organisers: Paul Seaward (History of Parliament Trust), Pauline Kewes (Oxford) and Jim Van der Meulen (Ghent)

 

As editors of ‘Transactions’, Harshan and I were really pleased to receive so many high quality applications covering a span of different histories and approaches. We are excited to see how the chosen workshops develop and look forward to working with the organisers to further their publication ideas and plans for the journal in 2023.

Kate Smith, Co-Editor, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society

Further details of the Transactions Workshops for 2023-24 will be announced in Spring 2023.

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Royal Historical Society (RHS) Workshops

The call for proposals produced a large number of very high quality applications. Wishing to support more of these, the Society has therefore decided to fund a further four Workshops to enable researchers to develop their projects. The following four RHS Workshops will also take place in 2023.

• ‘Early Modern Error’ — lead organiser: Alice Leonard (Coventry)
• ‘Women and Plantations: New Directions in Tudor and Stuart Colonial History’ — lead organiser: Lauren Working (York)
• ‘Beyond the ‘Good’ / ’Bad’ Migrant Dichotomy: ways forward for early modern and contemporary history’ — lead organiser: Kathleen Commons (Sheffield)
• ‘Unboxing the Family Archive: New Approaches to Intergenerational Collections’ — lead organiser: Imogen Peck (Birmingham)

 

Many congratulation to all eight recipients of the Society’s Workshop awards for 2022-23. The breath and creativity of the applications we received was very striking, and the Society is delighted to make possible these opportunities for historians to meet and discuss their shared research in detail. 

Supporting research and building research networks — between historians at different institutions and careers stages — is a priority for the Royal Historical Society. This year’s applications show clearly the value of such support. We look forward to continuing this new programme in 2023: both to enable publishing in ‘Transactions’ and to enhance knowledge and connections within our research communities.

Emma Griffin, President of the Royal Historical Society

 

Further details of the RHS Workshops for 2023-24 will be announced in Summer 2023.

For more on this new programme, please see the Workshop Grants page of the website.

 

Each year the Society publishes two volumes of primary source materials, edited by historians who’ve worked closely with these documents. The volumes appear in the Society’s Camden Series of scholarly editions and make new sets of primary sources available for research.

Each volume, compiled and edited by a specialist in the subject, includes an Introduction and full references and annotations. Camden Society volumes are published online and in print for the Society by Cambridge University Press.

The Camden Series volumes, 2022, provide primary sources on everyday life in Early modern England and high politics in Britain, Ireland and Germany in the interwar years.

 

Volume 64: The Diary of George Lloyd (1642-1718), edited by Daniel Patterson (November 2022)

Virtually unknown to scholarship, Lloyd’s diary is not a record of notable events. Rather, it is a uniquely quotidian text consisting of regular daily entries documenting the activities and experiences of an individual far removed from great events.

Lloyd’s diary will be an invaluable resource for scholars studying many aspects of early modern English social and cultural history, including sociality, fashion, religious observance, courtship, food and drink, and working life.

The Diary of George Lloyd, 1642-1718 is now available online and in print from Cambridge University Press. RHS Fellows and Members may purchase hardback print copies directly from the Society for £16 per volume or £25 for both 2022 Camden Series volumes. To do so please email: administration@royalhistsoc.org.

Read the Introduction to The Diary of George Lloyd, 1642-1718.

Here, the editor Dr Daniel Patterson introduces George Lloyd and his world, on the Society’s blog, ‘Historical Transactions’.

 

Volume 63: Aristocracy, Democracy, and Dictatorship. The Political Papers of the Seventh Marquess of Londonderry, edited by N. C. Fleming (September 2022).

The seventh Marquess of Londonderry (1878–1949) corresponded with the leading political figures of his day, including Winston Churchill (his second cousin), Neville Chamberlain, Stanley Baldwin and Ramsay MacDonald. Londonderry’s amateur diplomacy in the 1930s meant that his regular correspondents also included Hermann Göring, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Franz von Papen.

Aristocracy, Democracy, and Dictatorship is now available online and in print from Cambridge University Press. RHS Fellows and Members may purchase hardback print copies directly from the Society for £16 per volume or £25 for both 2022 Camden Series volumes. To do so please email: administration@royalhistsoc.org.

Read the Introduction to Aristocracy, Democracy, and Dictatorship. The Political Papers of the Seventh Marquess of Londonderry.

Here, on the Society’s blog, ‘Historical Transactions’, the volume’s editor Professor Neil Fleming introduces the interwar political networks of the Marquess of Londonderry.

 

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About the RHS Camden Series

 

 

The Royal Historical Society’s Camden Series is one of the most prestigious and important collections of primary source material relating to British History, including the British empire and Britons’ influence overseas. The Society (and its predecessor, the Camden Society) has since 1838 published scholarly editions of sources—making important, previously unpublished, texts available to researchers. Each volume is edited by a specialist historian who provides an expert introduction and commentary.

Today the Society publishes two new Camden volumes each year in association with Cambridge University Press. The series is available via Cambridge Journals Online and full access is available to the Society’s Members and Fellows, as part of new member benefits from 2022. We welcome proposals for new Camden volumes: for more on how to submit an idea to the editors, please see the Camden Series page of the RHS website.

 

We are very pleased to announce publication of the new-look 2022 volume of the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (volume 32, sixth series). The latest volume contains 11 articles and an Introduction from the Society’s President, Emma Griffin.

The 2022 volume includes a number of changes for the journal being the first:

• to be edited by an external editorial team, led by the journal’s co-editors, Dr Harshan Kumarasingham (University of Edinburgh) and Dr Kate Smith (University of Birmingham)
• to ‘open up’ the journal to include articles submitted by historians for consideration; this replaces the journal’s former policy, established in 1872, of limiting articles to those first delivered as lectures or papers to the Society
• to be published in paperback print (as well as online), and to include a new design and cover illustration. This year’s cover — ‘Elephant and man’, by an unknown Burmese artist (1897 © The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford) — illustrates Jonathan Saha’s article in the volume: ‘Accumulations and Cascades: Burmese Elephants and the Ecological Impact of British Imperialism’.

Publication of the 2022 volume also marks the 150th anniversary of the first volume of Transactions, which was published in November 1872. You can read more of the journal’s early years and development in Emma Griffin’s introductory essay, ‘An Anniversary and New Departure: Transactions, 1872–2022′.

To mark the 150th anniversary of the Transactions, and the changes introduced in 2022, please join us for a panel discussion, ‘Futures for the History Journal: Reflections and Projections’, at 5pm GMT on Tuesday 6 December. An international panel of historians, editors, digital innovators and publishers will discuss possible futures for the History journal, along with insights from an online audience. Booking for this event is now open.

Contributing to Transactions of the Royal Historical Society

Submissions to Transactions are welcome from historians at any time. As a ‘generalist’ journal, Transactions welcomes content covering all aspects of the global past, and is especially keen to receive articles reflecting interdisciplinary collaboration and new forms of historical practice. The editors also welcome a range of article formats, including shorter form articles, roundtables and statements on research methods and pedagogy in the profession, within and beyond the higher education sector.

Further information on the journal, and how to submit article for review, is available here.

New articles are published online soon after acceptance via the FirstView platform of Cambridge University Press. Articles then appear each November in the annual print volume of Transactions. The next volume (vol. 1, seventh series) will be published in November 2023.

Fellows and Members of the Royal Historical Society receive Transactions as a member benefit. All those requesting the print edition of TRHS (2022) will receive this by post from Cambridge University Press in late November / early December 2022.

 

Over the past five years, the Royal Historical Society (RHS) has become a prominent and important voice for equality in the discipline and profession. This is particularly so on the subject of race and ethnicity, due in large part to the impact of the Society’s 2018 Report, ‘Race, Ethnicity & Equality in UK History’.

Between 2019 and 2022 the Society’s race work was co-ordinated by an RHS Race, Ethnicity and Equality in History Fellowship, generously funded by the Past & Present Society.

The Fellowship—held by two early career historians, Dr Shahmima Akhtar (2019-20) and Dr Diya Gupta (2020-22)—enabled the Society’s equalities programme to develop in the wake of the 2018 Report and its follow-up papers.

Both Fellows have now gained permanent academic posts, with Diya’s move to a Lectureship coinciding with the Fellowship coming to a close in October 2022. The Society wishes Shahmima and Diya well in their academic careers, and is very grateful to all those who’ve contributed to the programme in recent years.

 

 

To mark the end of this phase, ‘Race, Ethnicity and Equality in History. A Review and Look Ahead’ (released on 3 November 2022), offers a summary of the Society’s recent race work.

The report also looks forward, with details of the Society’s current and forthcoming activities in the area of race, ethnicity and equality in History.

 

 

This current and future work is integral to the Society’s Council, originating both from within the Society and in partnership with external organisations. It’s our intention that in these ways we maintain the Society’s commitment to greater equality in History.

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You can learn more about the Society’s current and ongoing Equalities work here. These initiatives include:

• Masters’ Scholarships: for early career historians from groups underrepresented in academic history. The programme, seeks to actively address underrepresentation and encourage Black and Asian students to consider academic research in History. By supporting Masters’ students, the programme focuses on a key early stage in the academic training of future researchers.
• ‘Positive action’ workshops for early career historians of colour: these workshops offer one-to-one guidance and group discussion. Sessions cover CV writing, applications, and proposals for funded research, among other topics, for up to 30 historians at a time. This workshop runs annually, with a report from the first meeting (2021) available here.
• ‘Writing Race’, featuring new research on histories of research from guest contributors.
• Funding for external projects including grants and prizes offered by the British Association for Nineteenth-Century American Historians and the Social History Society.

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We also welcome ideas and proposal for new partnerships, allowing us to work collaboratively and pragmatically to address areas of need. If you would like to propose ideas for activities or partnerships please contact president@royalhistsoc.org.

 

In July 2022, the Royal Historical Society launched its new Masters’ Scholarship programme.

The Scholarships provide financial support to students from groups currently underrepresented in academic History. Each Scholarship is worth £5000. The programme seeks to actively address underrepresentation and encourage Black and Asian students to consider academic research in History. By supporting Masters’ students the programme focuses on a key early stage in the academic training of future researchers.

This year the Society has made awards to six Masters’ students, with one of these generously funded by an anonymous donor. We’re very pleased that all of the award holders for 2022-23 have now begun their courses:

• Amber Cross, studying for MA in medieval and early modern history at the University of Lancaster
• Gemma Jackson, studying for a Masters, with a focus on medieval queenship, at the University of Nottingham
• Henna Khanom, studying for an MA in History, specialising in American race relations, at University College London
• Louis Kill-Brown, studying for an MPhil in Political Thought and Intellectual History at the University of Cambridge
• Ahmed Lalljee, studying for a Masters, specialising in South Asian history, at the School of Oriental and African Studies
• Daniel MacDonald, studying for an MSc in modern world history at the University of Strathclyde

We wish Amber, Gemma, Henna, Louis, Ahmed and Daniel well for their studies, and will be keeping in touch with them as their courses progress.

Masters’ Scholarships, 2023-24

The Scholarship programme will next run for students beginning MA courses (full- or part-time) in September 2023. The call and timetable for 2023 applications will be announced by the Society in early 2023.

Supporting the Scholarships programme from 2023

In 2022, the first year of the programme, the Society awarded 6 Scholarships and will provide a further four awards, annually from 2023. In this first year, interest in the scheme was very strong, with many fundable applications. From 2023 onwards, the Society seeks to offer as many Scholarships as we can to talented eligible early career historians.

If you or your organisation would like to help us, please email president@royalhistsoc.org to discuss options with the RHS President , Professor Emma Griffin.

 

In November 2022, we mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of the first volume of the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society. The anniversary will include:

• online and print publication of the latest (145th) volume of Transactions, with its new format and design.
• online special issues of Transactions, highlighting developments in the journal from its origin in 1872 to the present day.
• a free online panel discussion (5pm GMT, Tuesday 6 December) on ‘Futures for the History Journal: reflections and projections’, which is booking now. The panel brings together editors, historians and publishers, from the UK and US, to consider the role and future pf the history journal as a means of scholarly communication.

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First published in 1872, Transactions is the longest-running English-language academic history journal, predating first publication of the English Historical Review (1886) and the American Historical Review (1895), among other titles.

Since 1872, 144 volumes of Transactions have been published, with the 145th available from mid-November.

 

 

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November 2022 sees important changes to the current Transactions. This year’s volume will come with a new design and paperback format.

It’s also the first in 150 years to include external submissions not previously read to the Society; the first to be edited by historians who are not members of RHS Council; and the first to engage an editorial board.

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Journals remain central to the communication of historical research. As a publishing form, they’ve proved remarkably durable, with developments typically taking place within an established framework of article types and formats.

At the same time, the recent history of journals points to quickening and more disruptive change — most notably in terms of online access and publishing models; but also with reference to innovations of form, tone and purpose.

In ‘Futures for the History Journal: Reflections and Projections’ (6 December) our panel and audience will consider the extent, impact and outcomes of these recent changes, together with possible futures for a popular publishing form.

 

 

 

 

 

 

At its latest meeting on 16 September 2022, the RHS Council elected 64 Fellows, 59 Associate Fellows, 57 Members and 59 Postgraduate Members, a total of 239 people newly associated with the Society. We welcome them all.

The majority of the new Fellows hold academic appointments at universities, specialising in a very wide range of fields; but also include curators, teachers, and independent researchers and writers. The Society is an international community of historians and our latest intake includes Fellows from Australia, India, Ireland, Spain and the United States.

Our latest intake includes a number of historians working outside History departments, in cognate disciplines in higher education: a reminder that the Fellowship is open to all whose research provides a scholarly contribution to historical knowledge.

The new Associate Fellows include not only early career historians in higher education but also historians with professional and private research interests drawn from broadcasting, archives, museums and teaching.

The new Members have a similarly wide range of historical interests, and include individuals employed in universities, and as bankers, civil servants, the clergy, lawyers and members of the judiciary and teachers – together with independent and community historians. Our new Postgraduate Members are studying for higher degrees in History, or related subjects, at 30 different universities in the UK, China, Germany, Ghana, Singapore and the United States. All those newly elected to the Fellowship and Membership bring a valuable range of expertise and experience to the Society.

September 2022 sees the admission of our fifth set of Associate Fellows and Postgraduate Members — two new membership categories introduced in late 2021. These changes to membership (about which you can read more here) enable more historians to join the fellowship, and facilitate more focused support for RHS members at the start of their careers.

New Fellows and Members are elected at regular intervals through the year. The current application round is open and runs to Monday 31 October 2022, with the next closing date being Friday 13 January 2023. Further details on RHS Fellowship and Membership categories (Fellow, Associate Fellow, Member and Postgraduate Member), the benefits of membership (including new benefits added from August 2022), deadlines for applications throughout 2023, and how to apply, are available here.

New Fellows, elected September 2022

• Timothy Alborn
• Athanasios Antonopoulos
• Ritajyoti Bandyopadhyay
• Gordon Barclay
• Jochen Burgtorf
• John Burke
• Stephen Catterall
• Jessie Childs
• Stephen Clarke
• Sophie Cooper
• Alexander Craven
• Sonya Cronin
• William Dalrymple
• Callan Davies
• Sara Dominici
• Scott Eaton
• Amy Edwards
• Penelope Edwards
• Francisco Eissa-Barroso
• Corisande Fenwick
• Fernanda Gallo
• Austin Glatthorn
• Felicia Gottmann
• Zoe Groves
• Tanya Harmer
• Felicity Hill
• Matthew Alan Hill
• Sarah Irving
• Martin Johnes
• Emma Kay
• Jill Kirby
• Daniel Knowles
• Alice Leonard
• Amy Livingstone
• Simon Mahony
• James Mansell
• Katharine Massam
• David McInnis
• Marcus Meer
• Gavin Miller
• Gillian Mitchell
• Alexia Moncrieff
• Eva Moreda Rodríguez
• Federico Paolini
• Simon Parkin
• Chelsea Phillips
• Lydia Plath
• Tanja Poppelreuter
• Matthew Powell
• Lynda Pratt
• Eoin Price
• Dieter Reinisch
• Stephen Ridgwell
• Jesús Sanjurjo
• Jayita Sarkar
• Leo Shipp
• Rebecca Simon
• Elaine Sisson
• Jean Smith
• Agnieszka Sobocinska
• Kenneth Stewart
• Nino Strachey
• Tom Ue
• Samuel Garrett Zeitlin

 

New Associate Fellows, elected September 2022

• Rowena Abdul Razak
• SJ Allen
• Alan Anderson
• Ed Armston-Sheret
• Matthew Ball
• Gad Barnea
• Lisa Berry-Waite
• Tobias Bowman
• John Broom
• Hayley Brown
• Esther Brown
• Anna Cusack
• Wim De Winter
• Iain Farquharson
• Rosaria Franco
• Pauline Gardiner
• Milo Gough
• Tim Guile
• Gabriel Gurian
• Julia Hamilton
• Terra Han
• Antony Harvey
• Matthew Hedges
• Joseph Higgins
• Deb Hunter
• Baher Ibrahim
• Emily Ireland
• Malarvizhi Jayanth
• David Jones
• Sebastian Jones
• Kathryn Lamontagne
• Christopher Lewis
• Sundeep Lidher
• Mark Liebenrood
• Rosanagh Mack
• Nenad Marković
• Eva Charlotta Mebius
• Debora Moretti
• George Morris
• Janet Morrison
• Anna Muggeridge
• Levin Opiyo
• Manolis Pagkalos
• Chris Perry
• Stuart Pracy
• Richard Purkiss
• Maurice Robinson
• Linda Ross
• Vincent Roy-Di Piazza
• Kanika Sharma
• Gabrielle Storey
• James Taylor
• Floris van Swet
• Robert Wilde-Evans
• David Williamson
• Jon Winder
• Malgorzata Wloszycka
• Lucy Wray
• Xuduo Zhao

 

New Members, elected September 2022

• John Allen
• Muhammad Ashraf
• Tom Baldwin
• Ruman Banerjee
• Jennifer Barlow
• Tyler Bender
• Lara Bevan-Shiraz
• Luca Boschetti
• John Chan
• Kim Cliett Long
• Lucy Coatman
• Rory Cooper
• Eleanor Coppard
• Ian Davidson
• James Edwards
• John Leopoldo Fiorilla di Santa Croce
• Gordon Fisher
• Kate Gibson
• Michael Gillibrand
• Adhila Hameed
• Chengwei Han
• Graham Haynes
• Elaine Huggett
• James Humphrey
• Malcolm Johnston
• Matteo Lai
• Chi Lau
• Barry MacNeill
• Laura Leigh Majernik
• Birahim Mbow
• Hanjia Miao
• Leonardo Monno
• David Moshier
• Ernest Mudzengerere
• Frederick Newell
• Ali Nihat
• Michal Fryderyk Nowacki
• Finnian Orders
• David Owen-Jones
• Kannen Ramsamy
• Ian Rummery
• Christopher Said
• Steffi Santhana Mary
• Stephanie Saunders
• Simon Scruton
• Vinod Sharma
• Zhe Tian
• Khosrow Tousi
• David Vanegas
• Andrew Varga
• Ioannis Vougioukas
• James Watson
• Richard Whitaker
• Karen Witt
• Zehan Zhang

 

New Postgraduate Members, elected September 2022

• Tristan Alphey
• Sydney Arnold
• Mathew Ayamdoo
• Jennifer Baillie
• Daniel Banks
• Sarah Bernhardt
• Tom Brautigam
• Janette Bright
• Michelle Castelletti
• Santorri Chamley
• Ying Sum Chan
• Francesca Chappell
• Ram Choudhury
• Natali Cinelli Moreira
• Scott Connors
• Mairead Costello
• Amber Cross
• Henry Daramola-Martin
• Clemmie de la Poer Beresford
• Chris Doyen
• Kim Embrey
• Nicholas Fitzhenry
• Jamie Gemmell
• Rebecca Goldsmith
• Irene Hallyburton
• Julia Helman
• Ho Hin Ho
• Gemma Jackson
• David Karoon
• Urvi Khaitan
• Henna Khanom
• Emma Kiey
• Louis Kill-Brown
• Thomas Kingston
• Daniel MacDonald
• Micah Mackay
• Perseverence Madhuku
• Joshua Madrid
• Jayne Martin
• Graham Moore
• Erin Newman
• Alison Norton
• Raphael Oidtmann
• Allan Pang
• Kirsten Parkin
• Ahmed Patrick-Lalljee
• Ann Pomphrey
• Ollie Randall
• Robert Runacres
• Beckie Rutherford
• Victoria Sands
• Alexander Sherborne
• Caitlín Smith
• Avery Sprey
• Sadie Sunderland
• Joanne Watson
• Grace Whorrall-Campbell
• Gary Willis
• Xiwen Yang

 

Header Image: Turquoise Bowl with Lute Player and Audience, attributed Iran, late 12th–early 13th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, public domain.

 

 

Following recent elections to the RHS Council, we are very pleased to announce the appointment of three new councillors — Dr Kate Bradley, Dr Helen Paul and Professor Olwen Purdue — who will take up their roles from January 2023. We look forward to working with Kate, Helen and Olwen.

Three serving trustees will step down from the Council at the end of the year after their four-year term: Dr Adam Budd, Professor Chris Marsh and Professor Helen Nicholson. We are very grateful to Adam, Chris and Helen for their considerable contribution to the Society during this time.

 

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Dr Kate Bradley (University of Kent)

I am a Reader in Social History & Social Policy in the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research at the University of Kent. Broadly speaking, I work on the history of social policy in the 20th century, and how voluntary, state and private welfare services are accessible (or not) to citizens. My most recent book is Lawyers for the Poor: Legal Advice, Voluntary Action and Citizenship in England, 1890-1990 (Manchester UP, 2019).

I stood for election to the RHS Council for two reasons: first, history ‘outside’ history; and second, keeping the Society’s momentum going with EDI.

Whilst I actively chose to be a historian outside a history department, institutional restructures have meant that historians can find themselves working in broader social sciences or humanities units. I want to demonstrate how and ensure that researchers’ identity as historians can be maintained in these working contexts, and how we communicate what history as a discipline has to offer. It is important to continue to hear from history department heads, but how can we also ensure we are hearing the voices of historians outside of this model on key issues?

The RHS has led the way amongst learned societies in looking at issues of equality, diversity and inclusion. It is important that we keep the momentum with this and look at disability and caring. There is much to do in terms of thinking about how history can be done inclusively, from our expectations about research to how we teach and support students. I approach this through my experiences of having ADHD, and I am really keen to learn about other experiences.

I have served the historical community in various ways – co-founding History Lab in 2005, co-convening History UK in 2015-16, and being a member of the Social History Society committee – along with experience of being a charity trustee for a multi-academy trust since 2017.  I am very much looking forward to drawing upon and building on these experiences with the RHS.

 

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Dr Helen Paul (University of Southampton)

I am an economic historian based at the University of Southampton. I began my undergraduate career in Economics and Management and was not encouraged to do History at A level, let alone as a degree subject. Although I teach maths and economics, my research is not ‘mathsy’ and includes social history. I work primarily on the South Sea Company and enslavement. I have recently finished a six-year stint as Honorary Secretary of the Economic History Society. Before that I was chair of the EHS Women’s Committee.

I wanted to run for Council to ensure that historians in departments other than History were represented. For many of us, our research is still judged by different standards to our colleagues. For instance, economic history research is evaluated with regard to its ‘relevance to Economics’ (whatever that may mean).

Much of the advice given to historians relates to the History panel of the REF. I would like to advocate for people who are in a range of different departments but who are all historians. Sometimes they are the only one in their department and the only person who can teach history to ‘non-historians’. The Society can help to support them, particularly with regard to the REF.

 

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Professor Olwen Purdue (Queen’s University Belfast)

I am Professor of Modern Social History at Queen’s University, Belfast where I work on the social history of nineteenth and early twentieth-century Ireland with a particular focus on social class, urban poverty and welfare. I am also increasingly interested in public history, particularly its role in divided societies.

Since the publication of my first monograph, The Big House in the North of Ireland: Land, Power and Social Elites, 1870-1960 (Dublin: UCD Press, 2009), I have turned my attention to poverty and welfare in the industrial city and have published several articles and edited collections on the subject, including, most recently, The First Great Charity of this Town: Belfast Charitable Society and its Role in the Developing City (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2022). A new monograph, Workhouse Child: Poverty, Child Welfare and the Poor Law in industrial Belfast, 1880-1918, is due out with Liverpool University Press in 2023. I was formerly international editor for The Public Historian and am currently series editor for Liverpool University Press’ Nineteenth-Century Ireland series.

I direct the Centre for Public History at Queen’s University and run the MA in Public History, and believe strongly in genuinely collaborative research. I’m a member of the Board of Directors of the Irish Museums Association, a member of the advisory board for the Ulster Museum, and a Governor of the Linen Hall Library.

As a new member of Council, I intend to work with colleagues to promote robust scholarship, advocate for the importance of the discipline, and equip emerging scholars with the tools to effectively communicate the significance of their work beyond academia and to engage with different public audiences in a range of ways.

 

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Joining the RHS Council

 

Each year the Society holds elections to appoint three new councillors to serve as trustees of the Society for a four-year term. The Society encourages its Fellows to consider standing for election, in 2023 or at a later date. Enquiries about the role of an RHS Council member may be sent to: president@royalhistsoc.org.

For more on the work of the Council, please see our brief guide (June 2022)

 

 

 

The Royal Historical Society is profoundly saddened by news of the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

The Queen was the Patron of the Royal Historical Society and a supporter of its work for 70 years. The Society, past and present, is very grateful to the late Queen for this long and important association. Her Majesty’s death comes three months after the 150th anniversary of the granting of the Royal title to the Society by Elizabeth II’s great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria. 

Elizabeth II’s reign spanned a momentous era in British, Commonwealth and world history, during which the Queen provided great constancy and coherence. Today’s sad news marks another significant moment in that history and in the private lives of many who mourn the loss of an individual and a connection with the past.

We are confident historians will serve an important and valued role in documenting, explaining and interpreting this week, and the long reign of Queen Elizabeth II, for present and future generations.

Professor Emma Griffin, President of the Royal Historical Society

 

The Royal Historical Society (RHS) is delighted to announce the award of six Masters’ Scholarships, each worth £5000, to students from groups underrepresented in academic History, who will begin an MA degree at a UK university, 2022-23.

The Masters’ Scholarships seek to address underrepresentation and encourage Black and Asian students to consider academic research in History. By doing so, we hope to improve the educational experience of six early career historians engaging in a further degree from September 2022.

The scheme initially intended to offer four Scholarships in 2022; however, the quality of applications was such that awards are being made to a further two students for this inaugural year. Five of these awards will be supported by the Society. We are extremely grateful to an anonymous donor who will fund the sixth scholarship.

The Society received many strong applications from students from underrepresented groups looking to train as historians. The Masters’ programme will continue in 2023 with a new round of awards, and we hope other organisations will join with us to ensure more Masters’ students may be funded in 2023-24.

The six recipients of this year’s Scholarships will study, full- or part-time, for MAs in History at the universities of Cambridge, Lancaster, Nottingham, the School of Oriental and African Studies, Strathclyde and University College London. Recipients will also become Postgraduate members of the RHS.

 

The Royal Historical Society is very pleased to offer this first set of Masters’ Scholarships, and to provide additional financial support to six talented early career historians as they progress to postgraduate study.

This year’s programme has made clear the very real need for such support. The Society will continue the scheme for 2023-24, and we now seek ways to assist more students from underrepresented groups to consider and pursue a Masters’ course in History. By collaborating with partner organisations, we can help to address the inequalities that prevent many talented undergraduate historians from continuing in higher education.

We wish this year’s six recipients well in their studies, and look forward to welcoming them in the Society and hearing more about their work in the coming months. We are also extremely grateful to the generous donor who has made possible a sixth award in 2022.

Professor Emma Griffin, President of the Royal Historical Society

 

Individuals and organisations interested in partnering with the Society for the 2023 programme, in whatever way they can, are welcome to get in touch: president@royalhistsoc.org. Further details of the Masters’ Scholarships programme are available here.