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At its latest meeting on 6 May 2022, the RHS Council elected 119 Fellows, 82 Associate Fellows, 61 Members and 72 Postgraduate Members, a total of 334 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 journalists, teachers, lawyers, archivists and archaeologists. The Society is an international community of historians and our latest intake includes Fellows from Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Ukraine and the United States.

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, digital humanities, teaching, archives, museums, galleries, heritage and journalism.

The new Members have a similarly wide range of historical interests, and include individuals employed in universities, and as curators, teachers, physicians, surgeons and local government officers – together with independent and community historians. Our new Postgraduate Members are studying for higher degrees in History, or related subjects, at 42 different universities in the UK, Belgium, India, Ireland, Germany, New Zealand and the United States. All those newly elected to the Fellowship and Membership bring a valuable range of expertise and experience to the Society.

May 2022 sees the admission of our third 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 6 June 2022, with the next closing date being Monday 22 August 2022. Further details on RHS Fellowship and Membership categories (Fellow, Associate Fellow, Member and Postgraduate Member), the benefits of membership, deadlines for applications throughout 2022, and how to apply, are available here.

 

New RHS Fellows, elected May 2022

• Nathen Amin
• Caroline Ashcroft
• Edwin Bacon
• William Bainbridge
• Christine Ball
• Guru Saday Batabyal
• Daniel Beer
• Rhys Bezzant
• Uri Bialer
• Melanie Bigold
• Nelson Block
• Michael Breidenbach
• Morris Brodie
• Stephen Brumwell
• Federico Brusadelli
• Nicholas Cambridge
• Mark Celinscak
• Tim Clayton
• Sharon Connolly
• Annie Coombes
• JGH Corrigan
• Imogen Corrigan
• Daniel Curtis
• Jonathan Cutmore
• Leonardo Davoudi
• David Day
• Margaret Dismore
• Aaron Donaghy
• James Downs
• Patrick Doyle
• Tom Duggett
• Dina Fainberg
• Mark Felton
• Ariane Fennetaux
• Michael Fleming
• Samuel Foster
• Sarah Frank
• Eamonn Gearon
• Francesca Granelli
• Ailsa Grant Ferguson
• Derwin Gregory
• Emily Guerry
• Peter Hamilton
• James Hannam
• Siobhán Hearne
• Cees Heere
• Jack Hepworth
• Catherine Hewitt
• Yuliya Hilevych
• Kei Hiruta
• Mary Hollingsworth
• Gemma Hollman
• Laure Humbert
• Helen Hyde
• Robin Jackson
• Karl James
• Lyndsey Jenkins
• Pia Jolliffe
• Heather Jones
• Claire Jones
• Simon Jones
• Edward Jones Corredera
• Sakiko Kaiga
• Diarmaid Kelliher
• Rachel Kerr
• Robert Kershaw
• Olesya Khromeychuk
• David Kim
• Craig Lamont
• Frank Ledwidge
• Amy Licence
• Itay Lotem
• Anna Maguire
• Mia Martin Hobbs
• Linda Maynard
• Jonathan McGovern
• Duncan Money
• Graham Mooney
• Kathryn Morrison
• Aparajita Mukhopadhyay
• Sarah Murden
• Sherra Murphy
• Pramod K Nayar
• Alexa Neale
• Elizabeth Norton
• Maeve O’Riordan
• Jennifer Orr
• Ozan Ozavci
• Olena Palko
• Niels Petersson
• Linda Risso
• Brianna Robertson-Kirkland
• Gavin Schwartz-Leeper
• Ian Scott
• Simone Selva
• Ophelie Simeon
• Haig Smith
• Karen Smyth
• Marco Soresina
• Antony Spawforth
• Anba Suriel
• Tim Tate
• Danielle Terrazas Williams
• Dominic Thomas
• Sonja Tiernan
• Luca Trenta
• James Ungureanu
• Guido van Meersbergen
• Polina Verbytska
• Adriano Vinale
• Alexander Wakelam
• Felix Waldmann
• Martin Walsh
• Sophie White
• Jack Whytock
• Alexandra Wilson
• Deborah Woodman
• John Woolf
• Kelly Yates

New RHS Associate Fellows, elected May 2022

• Oludamola Adebowale
• Christopher Bahl
• James Barnaby
• Mark Bennett
• Christopher Booth
• Bastiaan Bouwman
• Stuart Boydell
• Shawn Bullock
• Claire Burridge
• Rachel Calder
• Katherine Carter
• Alexia Clark
• Matthew Clark
• Hannah-Louise Clark
• Marc Collinson
• Charles Coutinho
• Christopher Cunliffe
• Nigel Davies
• Lauren Davies
• John Davies
• Lucia Diaz Pascual
• Reuben Duffy
• Sarah Fry
• Natalee Garrett
• Sheldon Goodman
• Eloise Grey
• Stephen Griffin
• Catherine-Rose Hailstone
• Natacha Henry
• Julie Holder
• Fiona Holter
• Elizabeth Hunter
• Ciaran Jones
• Mike Jones
• Amit K Suman
• Matthew Key
• Naomi Lloyd-Jones
• Coleman M Ford
• Maria Christina Mairena
• Sumantra Maitra
• Valentina Mann
• Rebecca Mason
• Philip McCarty
• Neil McIntyre
• Charlotte Mears
• Nick Mols
• Toni Mount
• Eoin Ó Donnchadha
• Frances O’Morchoe
• Rudi Papa
• James Perry
• Rachael Pymm
• Chinya Ravishankar
• Olivia Robinson
• Michelle Rosenberg
• Adam Sammut
• Jason Sannegadu
• Joseph Saunders
• David Seymour
• Matthew Simons
• Karan Singh
• Jack Skelton Wallace
• Frederick Smith
• Adele Sykes
• Donna Taylor
• David Thomas
• Jessica Tomkins
• Chika Tonooka
• Margot Tudor
• Momoko Uchisaka
• Mrinalini Venkateswaran
• John Vickerstaff
• James Watts
• Michael Weatherburn
• Rachael Whitbread
• Arthur Whittall
• Tim Wingard
• Matthias Meng Yan Wong
• Matthew Woolgar
• Jingyue Wu
• Michael Wuk
• Sha Zhou

New RHS Members, elected May 2022

• Tony Agnew
• Chuka Anatogu
• David Andrew
• Ian Armitage
• Imogen Bahl
• Muhammad Muneeb Baloch
• Alan Borthwick
• Adrian Broomhall
• Dupinder Buttar
• David Cairns
• Chris Capstick
• Sharmin Jahan Chowdhury
• Werner Coetzee
• Silvester Danóczy
• Thomas Davies
• James Davis
• Souhardya De
• Esley Rodrigues de Jesus Teixeira
• Emilio Elesbao dos Santos Neto
• Alan Gick
• Matthew Godwin
• Clare Grange
• Luke Horwitz
• Alan Keegan
• Joachim Keppler
• Kamakshi Krishna
• Abhay  Kulkarni
• Cheong Lam
• Zihan Li
• Carla Linford
• Joshua Lynbeck
• Tom Lyon
• John Malpass
• Grace Mathews
• Ollie McDaid
• Rebecca Mowbray
• Colin Nash
• Christopher Netherclift
• Phil Norwood
• Robert Owen
• Abbie Owen-Jones
• Debby Palti
• Lee Price
• Riela Provi Drianda
• James Robinson
• Yuji Sato
• Jamie Selig
• Neil Smith
• Kevin Stephison
• Laura Stone
• Diane Taylor
• Beatrice Taylor
• James Threlkeld
• King Lok Tsoi
• Htoo Wei
• Jason Williams-James
• Jacob Woodhouse
• Nathaniel Yeboah
• Rahel Yeoh
• Lucas Zanani
• Shiyao Zhang

New RHS Postgraduate Members, elected May 2022

• Ruth Barton
• Louise Bell
• Amy Blaney
• Nicola Bradbury
• Kensa Broadhurst
• Emma Buckley
• Robert Butt
• Jethro Calacday
• Christina Chatzitheodorou
• Ioannis Chountis
• Simon Clark
• Holly Conway
• Ashlyn Cudney
• Sarah Curry
• Alessandra De Mulder
• Juliette Desportes
• Victoria Downey
• Ellen Durban
• Ngozi Edeagu
• Elizabeth Egan
• Charlie Fenton
• Max Ferrer
• Mirabelle Field
• James Fox
• Louise Furse
• Erin Geraghty
• Nathan Hazlehurst
• Lucy Henry
• Alexander Hibberts
• Zoe Jackson
• Arielle Jasiewicz-Gill
• Joseph Kaminski
• Emma Kavanagh
• Emily Lalande
• William Law
• Ewan Lawry
• Gary Lawson
• Maksymilian Loth-Hill
• Roberto Lozano Mansilla
• Daniel McAteer
• Kelly McClinton
• Eddie Meehan
• Stephen Meyer
• Cheryl Midson
• Omar Nasr
• Tamara Newton
• Emma Orchardson
• Julia Phillips
• Carole Pinnington
• Julia Pohlmann
• Adam Quibell
• Joshua Rice
• Noble Shrivastava
• Aisha Shukat-Khawaja
• Myles Smith
• Isabella Smith
• Indiana Sobol
• Swathi Srinivasan
• Peter Stiffell
• Ellen Stokes
• Elvira Viktória  Tamus
• Helena Trenkic
• Alistair Trigg
• Sylvia Valentine
• Arlen Veysey
• Rebecca Watterson
• Johanna Wetzel
• Lynette White
• Joshua Whiteman-Gardner
• Christopher Whittell
• Kirsty Wright
• Yi-Jia Zeng

 

HEADER IMAGE: Bowl with a continuous landscape with scholars, anonymous, c. 1700, Rijksmuseum, public domain

 

 

The Royal Historical Society is very pleased to announce the award of fellowships to seven Ukrainian historians and Slavonic and East European Studies scholars unable to continue their work at home universities. The seven recipients will take up their positions at UK and European universities very shortly, with the hope of several more fellowships to follow in the near future.

The Ukraine ‘Scholars at Risk’ programme began in March 2022 with a partnership between the Royal Historical Society and the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES) who jointly pledged to fund four fellowships, with assistance from the Past & Present Society (P&P).

Additional funding from two more learned societies — the German Historical Society and the Ecclesiastical History Society — has made further fellowships possible. An extra position has been generated through public donations to a recent fundraising campaign by the Royal Historical Society and BASEES. At the time of writing, the Society of Antiquaries of London has also elected to support the scheme and will be providing an additional, eighth Fellowship.

In each case, the fellowships will be matched by a host university which will also provide the Ukrainian scholars with an academic mentor, office and library use, and opportunities to collaborate with departmental specialists, for a period of at least three months.

Four ‘general history’ fellowships — supported by the RHS and P&P — will be held by Ukrainian researchers at history departments at the University of Sheffield, Roehampton University, and the University of the West of England, and at the University of Bremen, Germany.

The German History Society fellowship will support a scholar of the German past at the University of Aberdeen, with an additional fellowship in the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh, funded by the Ecclesiastical History Society. The seventh fellowship — held by a scholar at the Centre for Russian, Soviet, Central and East European Studies, University of St Andrews — is funded by BASEES.

Each of the fellows will also receive membership of the Royal Historical Society and of BASEES, for 12 months in the first instance.

 

The Royal Historical Society is delighted to be part of the Ukraine fellowships programme, and to have worked so collaboratively and effectively with other learned societies of history and area studies.

It’s been heartening to see other groups join the original RHS / BASEES scheme, and to receive such creative and generous applications from history departments across the university sector.

We are very grateful to these organisations, and also to the many RHS members and supporters who generously contributed funds for an additional Fellowship. We hope these placements offer refuge for scholars driven from their home universities in recent months.

The Society and its partners will be keeping in touch with each of the new fellows, and we’re sure they’ll receive a warm welcome from the historical community.

Professor Emma Griffin, President of the Royal Historical Society

 

The growth of this scheme since it was launched by BASEES and the RHS is a credit to the academic community.

Learned associations, scholars, and universities in the UK and beyond have come together to show active solidarity with their Ukrainian colleagues. These fellowships will make a real difference to those scholars at risk and their dependents.

Dr Matthias Neumann, President of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies

 

 

 

 

 

The Research Excellence Framework (REF), undertaken by the UK’s four HE funding bodies, provides a review and assessment of research in higher education. The results of the latest assessment (REF2021) were published on 12 May 2022.

To accompany publication of the results, Professor Mark Jackson and Professor Margot Finn — respectively chair and deputy chair of the History sub-panel for REF2021 — offer an overview of this latest review, its headline findings for History, and their reflections on disciplinary developments since REF2014.

Mark and Margot’s article reflects on some of the main processes and outcomes of the History sub-panel in its assessment of Outputs, Impact, and research Environments.

Fuller details will be provided in the Sub-panel and Main Panel D (Arts and Humanities) reports published later in May. Over the summer, REF will place further information in the public domain on its website. This will include the text of all submitted Impact Case Studies and Environment statements, providing extensive information about historical practice in the UK.

 

On 8 April Goldsmiths, University of London, announced a series of redundancies among academic and academic-related staff. Sixteen staff are included in this announcement. Five historians (covering 2.8 full-time teaching roles), along with the department’s administrator, are among those whose posts will end in July, unless alternative employment is found at the university.

We are extremely disappointed by this decision. Despite repeated representations from many organisations, including the Society, Goldsmiths is taking steps deeply damaging to the careers of individual historians. We now expect those affected to be fully supported by the University and all options considered, to retain the skills and expertise of as many people as possible.

Equally, as a national and international community of historians, we need now to support those colleagues who remain in post, and who will shape the future of History at Goldsmiths. As they and their colleagues have shown, Goldsmiths offers a unique and vital contribution to historical research and teaching—as part of the wider University of London and humanities education nationally.

For many History students, for many reasons, and from many parts of the UK, Goldsmiths offers—and will continue to offer—the best place to study and research.

We are sure many in the Society will join in providing what support we can to all colleagues at Goldsmiths, now and in the immediate future. We owe this to all History staff, as well as to the students they educate and the communities with whom they work.

The President and Council of the Royal Historical Society

 

At its latest meeting on 4 February 2022, the RHS Council elected 55 Fellows, 52 Associate Fellows, 46 Members and 93 Postgraduate Members, a total of 246 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 oral historians, geologists, teachers, journalists and editors. The Society is an international community of historians and our latest intake includes Fellows from Australia, Austria, China, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and the United States.

The new Associate Fellows include not only early career historians in higher education but also historians with professional and private research interests drawn from the civil service, teaching, archives and libraries, museums and galleries, heritage and conservation, and journalism.

The new Members have a similarly wide range of historical interests, and include individuals employed in universities, and as curators, teachers, physicians, surgeons and local government officers – together with independent and community historians. Our new Postgraduate Members are studying for higher degrees in History, or related subjects,  at 39 different universities in the UK, Ireland, Australia, China, Germany, Kuwait and the United States. All those newly elected to the Fellowship and Membership bring a valuable range of expertise and experience to the Society.

February 2022 sees the admission of our second 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 4 April 2022. Further details on RHS Fellowship and Membership categories (Fellow, Associate Fellow, Member and Postgraduate Member), the benefits of membership, deadlines for applications throughout 2022, and how to apply, are available here.

 

New RHS Fellows, elected February 2022

• Stuart Anderson
• Richard Ansell
• Malcolm Atkin
• Hester Barron
• Elizabeth Biggs
• Myra Bom
• Antje Bosselmann Ruickbie
• Toby Burrows
• Ian Conrich
• Elizabeth Crawford
• John Curran
• Peter Doyle
• Anastasia Dukova
• Sarah Dunstan
• Andrew John Flack
• John Flood
• Emma Folwell
• Charles Forrester
• Jonathan Fruoco
• Howard Fuller
• Dai Gao
• Joseph Harley
• Marieke Hendriksen
• John Hinks
• Vicky Holmes
• Kirsty Hooper
• Robert Hopkins
• Stuart Jennings
• David Kohnen
• Bill Leadbetter
• Eric Lee
• Tamsin Lewis
• Jason Lim
• Sarah Lynch
• Alan Mayne
• Elaine McGirr
• Xueqin Mei
• James Newman
• Dorian (Dusty) Nicol
• Wioletta Pawlikowska-Butterwick
• Imogen Peck
• Erin Peters
• Adrian Phillips
• Michael Reeve
• George Roberts
• Ian Sanders
• Geoff Simpson
• Benjamin Snook
• Peter Speiser
• Iain Taylor
• Leah Tether
• Rosa Vidal Doval
• Shalva Weil
• Beth Williamson
• Richard Wragg

 

New RHS Associate Fellows, elected February 2022

• Jak Allen
• Amanda Callan-Spenn
• Jasmine Calver
• James Chetwood
• Alexander Courtney
• Katherine Davison
• Jonathan Eaton
• John Edwards
• Hannah Elias
• Laura Flannigan
• Lynsey Ford
• Duncan Frost
• Albert Gallon
• Andrew Graham
• Tristan Griffin
• Samuel Grinsell
• Dorothy Halfhide
• Lily Hawker-Yates
• Christopher Heath
• Stephen Huggins
• Eloise Kane
• Edward Keazor
• Meg Kobza
• Simon Lambe
• David Lane
• David Lees
• Andrew Lind
• Thomas Martin
• Scott Meyer
• Christopher Moore
• Rachel Murphy
• Robert Nantes
• Maria Newbery
• Doga Ozturk
• Giuseppe Paparella
• Vivek Pathak
• Alison Pedley
• Ellie Reid
• Elisabeth Rolston
• Louise Ryland-Epton
• Iida Saarinen
• Sheila Seymour
• Sube Singh
• Vaibhav Singh
• Jeannette Strickland
• Rowan Thompson
• Vikram Visana
• Anthony Wakeford
• Kristy Warren
• Paul Williams
• David Worsley
• Mingjie Xu

 

New RHS Members, elected February 2022

• Conor Allcock
• John Beech
• Francis Calvert
• Maria Carvalho
• Salvador Claflin
• Basil Cleveland
• Xavier Cottier
• Tim Cripps
• Lauren Curry
• Grace Egan
• Stephen Evans
• Jeremy Ganz
• Chiu Gavin
• Devan Green
• Dylan Harrison
• Angela Hatton
• Ian Hawking
• Kyle Hubert
• Susan Ingmire
• Steven Jenkins
• Simay Karasakal
• Thomas Kelsall
• Andreas Koureas
• Seann Macnamara
• Elizabeth MacPherson
• Jack Maskell
• Luke McDonald
• Calum Mercer
• Mark Murawski
• Ed Myatt
• Patrick O’Shaughnessy
• Junbin Pan
• Praveen Pathak
• Rachel Rowlands
• Andrew Ruddle
• Robert Senior
• Declan Sheehan
• Morwenna Silver
• Paul Thomas
• Peter Van der Heyden
• Charles Veale
• Richard Warrington
• Tony Williams
• Andrew Williams
• David Wood
• Spencer Wright

 

New RHS Postgraduate Members, elected February 2022

• Rosalind Acland
• Benjamin Anderson
• Antonia Anstatt
• Shera AviYonah
• Laura Bailey
• Barnabas Balint
• Holly Bamford
• David Bonner
• Jacob Brandler
• Clare Burgess
• Thomas Burnham
• Ksenia Butuzova
• Zara Christmas
• Clare Victoria Church
• Minna  Colakis
• Juliana Coulton
• Maria Florencia Denti
• Laurie Dighton
• Thomas Dobson
• Michael Donnay
• Megan Doole
• Taryn Duffy
• Judith Dunkling
• Elias Forneris
• Travis D. Frain
• Katharina Friege
• Jacqueline Grainger
• Shreya Gupta
• Lucy Haigh
• Felicity Hall
• Leif Bjarne Hammer
• Annabel Hancock
• Thomas Harper
• Jordan Harris
• Hans Erik Havsteen
• Tanya Heath
• Simon Sai-hau Ho
• Ffion Hughes
• Jonathan Hutchinson
• Eve Jeffery-Wilson
• Zhixia Jin
• Pierce Jones
• Alexander Kelleher
• Mohammed Kharshan
• Kajetan Kubala
• Nur Laiq
• Simon Lam
• Eve Lang
• Josh Lappen
• Maelle Le Roux
• Helen Leighton-Rose
• Joel Littler
• Zongyue Liu
• Yicen Liu
• Nicholas Logan
• Vittorio Maresca di Serracapriola
• Chloë Mayoux
• Catriona McAvoy
• John Merrington
• Mohamed Mohamady
• Conor Murphy
• Olga Nikonenko
• Kevin Noles
• Kirsty Peacock
• Kathrina Perry
• Daniel Phillips
• Megan Price
• Jan-Willem Prügel
• Will Ranger
• Serena Rattu
• Elizabeth Rees
• Nate Richardson-Read
• Laura Roberts
• Matthew Selheimer
• George Simmonds
• James Squires
• Swathi Srinivasan
• Michelle Staff
• Warren Stanislaus
• Pavel Stepanov
• Iria Suarez Martinez
• Thomas Swailes
• Chun Hin Lucas Tse
• Noé Vagner-Clévenot
• Amber Vella
• Ziyi Wang
• Amanda Westcott
• Caitlin Williams
• Gillian Woodcock
• Anna Wright
• Yihuan Xu
• Zhao Zhiyuan
• Anna Zhukova

 

In January 2022 the Society publishes a new catalogue of its papers of George W. Prothero (1848-1922), historian, literary editor and President of the RHS between 1901 and 1905. The Prothero collection runs to more than 1000 items and is the largest named collection in the RHS archive.

To accompany the launch, a new blog post features highlights and selected images from the collection.

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About the Prothero catalogue

The new 252-page catalogue, which is available on the Archive pages of the Society’s website, provides item-level listings of Prothero’s correspondence, professional papers and manuscripts, dating from the late 1860s to the early 1920s.

In addition to the writing of a new catalogue, the Prothero project has included a conservation review of the collection, new storage, and the rediscovery and incorporation of 10 bundles of letters previously thought lost.

The Society is very grateful to the Marc Fitch Fund for co-funding this project, and to those who catalogued the collection: Dr Eilish Gregory, Imogen Evans and Zoë Karens, who also wrote the catalogue.

The collection runs to 20 storage boxes, and is accompanied online by a new ISAD(G) compliant catalogue to replace an earlier paper version written in the late 1960s. The new catalogue also directs researchers to other holdings of Prothero papers elsewhere in the UK.

About the Prothero collection

The principal series in the Society’s collection comprise personal and professional correspondence sent to Prothero. These cover his time as editor of the Quarterly Review and President of the Royal Historical Society, and include letters from the publisher John Murray, historian Oscar Browning, and Conservative politician and prime minister, Arthur Balfour.

These letters demonstrate Prothero’s commitment to promoting History as a serious, professional discipline of wide-ranging civic value. Between 1914 and 1922, exchanges with European and North American correspondents also reveal Prothero’s interest in British foreign policy and his contribution to the Versailles Peace Conference and post-war settlement.

Highlights from the collection include:

• letters from the 1860s and 1870s detailing Prothero’s undergraduate career at Cambridge and his bid to become one of the University’s first lecturers in History;
• a book of testimonials from leading historians in support of Prothero’s application to become Professor of History at Edinburgh University in 1894;
• personal and professional letters on the course of the First World War and the Versailles Peace Conference, including correspondence from friends on the death of family members in conflict;
• information on Prothero’s engagement in organisations such as the Village Children’s Historical Play Society, of which he was a council member; and his involvement with The New East journal, to promote understanding of Japan and Japanese culture.

About the RHS Archive

Following completion of the Prothero catalogue, the Society is currently reviewing other parts of its archive, including papers relating to the Camden Society (1838-97), the Royal Historical Society (from 1868), and the publications and literary estate of the Tudor historian, Sir Geoffrey Elton (1922-94).

Our aim is to publish new online catalogues and selected scans for each of these, and other, collections in the archive during 2022.

More broadly, we hope this availability — starting with the new G.W. Prothero Catalogue — will bring the RHS archive to wider public attention, as an important statement on the development and membership of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century historical profession in Britain and overseas.

For more information on this, please see the Library & Archive pages of the RHS website.

 

On the Society’s blog today, RHS President Professor Emma Griffin considers the cuts and closures that have affected UK History departments over the past 12 months.

Presently there’s close attention on Goldsmiths, University of London, where proposed cuts to History  threaten 7 full-time posts in a department of 14 historians. Goldsmiths follows similar cases earlier this year: at Aston University, where the History programme was saved from closure (though regrettably this was not the outcome for other departments), and at Kingston University where the History departments was closed and talented, full-time members of academic staff made redundant. Meanwhile, at London South Bank University (LSBU) the History Degree ended this April, as did Sunderland’s after the shutting of its faculty in 2020. Recent months have also seen threats to History provision and staffing at Chester, Hull and Leicester.

In this extended post, Emma Griffin outlines the Society’s response to proposed cuts or closures, and sets out the RHS’s current defence of History and historians at Goldsmiths. The post also asks that historians submit to the Society information on recent cuts, redundancies and closures, to enable the RHS to better understand the patterns of departmental change since the mid 2010s.

The challenges facing many History departments owe much to a removal of the cap on student intake, per institution. The result is considerable instability, disruption and vulnerability: declining figures at some universities, greatly enhanced numbers at others, and cycles of uncertainty for many more. This is an environment, Professor Griffin argues, that far exceeds the capacities of a single organisation or discipline, requiring closer collaboration by national organisations and learned societies in the humanities.

Read ‘Goldsmiths, Aston, Kingston, LSBU …. Confronting History’s Cuts and Closures in 2021′ on the RHS blog, Historical Transactions (2 November 2021).