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Registration is now open for the next lecture in the Royal Historical Society’s 2025 programme. On Friday 2 May, we welcome Professor Mark Stoyle (University of Southampton) to speak on ‘Remembering Rebellion in the Tudor South West’.

This event is open to all with booking now available for in-person attendance (Mary Ward House, London) and online. Please use one of these links to register for a place.

In this lecture, Mark Stoyle explores how those in the English South-West looked back on two major risings which broke out against Henry VII in Cornwall in 1497; the short-lived revolt against Edward VI’s religious changes in West Cornwall in 1548; the full-blooded protest against those same changes which convulsed Devon and Cornwall in 1549, and, finally, the abortive attempt to stir up a rebellion in Devon against Mary I’s impending marriage to Philip of Spain in 1554.

Mark’s lecture studies both elite and popular memories of the rebellions which occurred in the Tudor South West and will argue that those memories proved surprisingly long-lived.

 

More particularly, it will argue that the Western Rising of 1549 — ‘the Commotion Time’, as that protest was termed by contemporaries, ‘the Prayer Book Rebellion’ as it is popularly known today — was remembered by local people as a key caesura in the region’s history, and that it remained a live issue in West Country society right up until the eve of the English Civil War.

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Mark Stoyle is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Southampton and has particular research interests in the British crisis of the 1640s; in witchcraft; in urban society; and in Tudor rebellions. Mark has written many monographs and scholarly articles and his most recent book — The Western Rising of 1549 –– was published in paperback by Yale University Press in 2024.

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Previous Society Lectures in the Events Archive

Video and audio recordings are available for many of the Society’s events, including our lectures. The RHS Events Archive includes recent lectures by, among others, Lucy Noakes, Natasha Hodgson, Janina Ramirez, Julia Laite, Tom Holland, Brenda Stephenson, Caroline Dodds Pennock and Levi Roach.

 

On 5 March 2025, the Royal Historical Society will co-host the this year’s History and Archives in Practice day conference (HAP25), jointly organised with our partners The National Archives and Institute of Historical Research. HAP is an opportunity for historians and archivists to come together to discuss current projects and the intersection between historical and archival practice.

This year’s event takes the theme of ‘Working with Memory: History, Storytelling and Practices of Remembrance’ and brings together 28 presentations from historians and archivists. The programme for this year’s event, which is fully booked, is now available.

This year’s History and Archives in Practice takes place at Senate House, University of London. In alternate years, HAP is held in association with a fourth UK partner institution and details of the partner and, following an open call, the location for HAP26 will be announced on 5 March.

 

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The following is a joint statement from the Historical Association, History UK, Institute of Historical Research, and the Royal Historical Society following the most recent meeting of this quartet of organisations.

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It’s been an especially grim start to 2025 for many in UK higher education. News in early January of cuts and job losses at the universities of Canterbury Christ Church, Northampton and Staffordshire has been followed by announcements from Cardiff, Durham, Newcastle, Reading, Sheffield, and, once again, Kent. This, moreover, is only a selection of the institutions currently pursuing cuts to staffing, reductions in course provision, restructures and mergers. 

While few subject areas are immune to what is now a full-blown financial crisis in UK higher education, the arts and humanities continue to bear the brunt. This includes history which is the discipline represented, in schools and universities, by our four organisations: the Historical Association, History UK, the Institute of Historical Research, and the Royal Historical Society.

The problems facing education far exceed the capacity of any single subject association. On the ground, case-by-case, each of us provides support and speaks for our distinctive memberships and constituencies, through targeted research and campaigns. But it’s also the case that the concerns and priorities on which we focus, individually, are shared by this quartet of historical organisations. 

When we meet together—or with organisations including the British Academy and Arts and Humanities Alliance, which pursue similar agenda—our work highlights common areas for attention. These include the ‘pipeline’ between school and university, and why some students are being turned away from history; a loss of support for history teacher training in UK universities; and the need to articulate more forcefully and clearly the skills—professional, personal and civic—inherent to the study of history. Here, we work to connect with communities, from students and parents to teachers and politicians, who are sometimes unaware of or resistant to these positives. 

Despite history’s immense popularity at large—evident in the public appetite for historic sites, podcasts, film or television, and private research—the health and vitality of our subject in schools and universities cannot be taken for granted. While history remains attractive at GCSE, A-Level and Scottish Highers, in higher education in particular it is under growing pressure. In addition to the challenges posed by an over-marketised, increasingly broken HE infrastructure, history is increasingly vulnerable to uninformed comment about its value compared with other areas of study.

Here our four organisations have common cause. 

While engagement with our particular constituencies continues, we’re also working closely and strategically for history across and beyond education. These activities include the sharing of information, to understand the changing environment in which history is studied, taught and practised; identifying and communicating the value of history education; demonstrating the diversity of a subject which is now as likely to involve big data analysis as it is a visit to an archive; and working to close the gap between ‘popular history’ and the specialist teaching and research on which this depends. 

In these ways, we seek a more co-ordinated approach to advocacy, so that we might better campaign and speak up for history. Collaboration, between historians, and with fellow humanities organisations, has never been more necessary. If you wish to help us, please get in touch.

Claire Langhamer, Director of the Institute of Historical Research

Lucy Noakes, President of the Royal Historical Society

Antonio Sennis and Sarah Holland, Co-chairs of History UK

Alexandra Walsham and Rebecca Sullivan, President and CEO of the Historical Association

 

At its latest meeting on 7 February 2025, the RHS Council elected 47 Fellows, 35 Associate Fellows, 49 Members and 86 Postgraduate Members, a total of 215 people newly associated with the Society, from today.

The majority of the new Fellows hold academic appointments at universities, specialising in a wide range of fields; but also include curators, librarians, heritage specialists, independent researchers and writers. The Society is an international community of historians and our latest intake includes Fellows from nine countries: Australia, Canada, Germany, Malta, Poland, Sweden, South Africa, the United Kingdom, 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 heritage, learned societies, libraries and archives, teaching, and public and community history.

The new Members have a similarly wide range of historical interests, and include individuals working in universities, culture and heritage, education, the civil service and broadcasting – together with independent and community historians and genealogists.

Our new Postgraduate Members are studying for higher degrees in History, or related subjects, at 45 different universities in the UK, Australia, Canada, China, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Italy, the Netherlands, Taiwan, and the United States.

All those newly elected to the Fellowship and Membership bring a valuable range of expertise and experience to the Society.

New Fellows and Members are elected at regular intervals through the year. The current application round is open and runs to 24 March 2025 with the next deadline being 26 May 2025. Further details on RHS Fellowship and Membership categories (Fellow, Associate Fellow, Member and Postgraduate Member); benefits of membership; deadlines for applications; and how to apply, are available here.

 

New Fellows, elected February 2025

• Shahmima Akhtar
• Tim Allender
• Marie Allitt
• Michelle Arrow
• Callum Barrell
• Jonas Berthod
• Lino Bianco
• Randy Browne
• David Callander
• Brycchan Carey
• Maurice J. Casey
• Amal Chatterjee
• Suryakanthie Chetty
• Nancy Cushing
• Stuart Elden
• Paul Ellison
• Richard Firth-Godbehere
• Matthew Ford
• Sally Frampton
• Matthew Gabriele
• Midge Gillies
• Alasdair Grant
• Louise Hampson
• Jack Hodgson
• Mohammed Kharshan
• Łukasz Korporowicz
• Sumantra Maitra
• Henry Midgley
• Moritz Mihatsch
• Jonah Miller
• Julian Molina
• Sophie Nicholls
• Nikki Taylor
• Beatrice Penati
• Charlotte Purkis
• Joanna Pylat
• Ian Rapley
• Natasha Ruiz-Gómez
• Matthew Rule-Jones
• David Santiuste
• Tehila Sasson
• Richard Stone
• Laurie Stras
• Katharine Sykes
• Lorna Waddington
• Angus Wallace
• Rowan Watson
• Chris Williams
• Jenny Woodley
• Susannah Wright
• Arash Zeini

New Associate Fellows, elected February 2025

• Evren Altinkas
• Valentina Boretti
• Katherine Burns
• Nancy Calvert-Koyzis
• Sara Camacho Felix
• Ka-lai Chan
• Qiuyang Chen
• Carly Collier
• John Curatola
• Ana del Campo
• Caroline Douglas
• Paul Dudman
• Saffron East
• James Fox
• Carol Grose
• Helen Hickey
• Damian Kell
• Megan King
• Fabian Krautwald
• Oleksandr Kravchuk
• Kate Lawton
• Carrie Long
• Susannah Lyon-Whaley
• Marzia Maccaferri
• Chloë McKenzie
• Stephen Moore
• Rebecca Morrison
• Joanne Norcup
• Olusegun Olaniyi
• Jonathan Powell
• Catherine Scheybeler
• Lili Scott Lintott
• Gillian Stewart
• James Tuck
• Samantha Woodward
• Ahamad Jama’ Amin Yang

New Members, elected February 2025

• Ronald Aitchison
• Cameron Aitken
• Anne Ambrose
• Ayuub Amin
• Darrell Ashworth
• Peter Barber
• Peter Barrett
• Vladyslav Besedovskyy
• Julie-anne Birch
• Florian Burnat
• Peter Cairney
• Michael Carrier
• Alan Chadwick
• Claudio Chittaro
• David Clark
• Pedro Coelho
• Alessio Corbo
• Daniel E Long
• Lindsay Hardcastle
• Daniëlle Harens
• Gareth Hill
• Phil Jeffery
• Trent E. Kane
• Ignatios Kranidiotis
• Valeriy Lukanov
• Ian McGeachie
• George Mcleavy
• Jared Meade
• Zoe Melabianaki
• Simon Moore
• Brian Nicholls
• Oluwaferanmi Odejayi
• Bidyut Patar
• Leon Pätzold
• Morag Peers
• Kurtis Pope
• Sophie Quill
• Kimberly Qvale
• Patrick Russell
• Evan Shereshevsky
• Jonathan Smith
• Jake Smith
• Barbara Stewart-Evans
• William Thatcher
• Neil Thomas
• Ian Urquhart
• Beautiful A’Queen Valverde-Priester
• Colin van Geffen
• Harry Veness
• Wenjun Wang
• Ashley A Waterhouse
• Nicholas Wells
• Matthew Weston
• Leah Williams-McIntosh
• Charlotte Wood

New Postgraduate Members, elected February 2025

• Lucy Allan
• James Allen
• Mark Allen
• Sally Ames
• Janet Barrie
• Sthira Bhattacharya
• Jacobin Bosman
• Frederick Bricknell
• David Brown
• Jake Brown
• Peter Burrows
• Onuralp Çakır
• Jamie-Lukas Campbell
• Tara Chilcott
• Raghav Chopra
• Deborah Cooban
• Shibani Das
• Camilla de Koning
• Emily Deal
• Wanxin Du
• Munazza Ebtikar
• Marisa Filipe
• Michael George
• Alice Goldsney
• Excy Hansda
• William Hatfield
• Josef Havránek
• Isobel Hogan
• Cameron Huggett
• Ali Izzatdust
• Caroline Kreysel
• Samantha Lanevi
• Yuetong Li
• Zhen Hao Liew
• Katherine Mackinnon
• Sadie Mansfield
• George Marten
• Ajith Maruthaveeran
• Olivia McCabe
• Victoria McIntyre
• Sara McQuaid
• Benoit Abraão Mes
• Supriya Misra
• Jim Morris
• Helen Murphy
• Isabelle Nagle
• Yari Nayam
• Chinweuju Nzewi
• Friday Ogunretin
• Stephen Oliver
• Isabella Ozuna
• Ruoran Pei
• Elisabeth Phillips
• John Pullin
• Claudia Renzi
• Jane Riddell
• Lea Cecelia Sejdiu
• Ian Smith
• Mitchel Stuffers
• John Sullivan
• Simon Tacke
• Geoffrey Torry
• Kento Umeda
• Joanne Watson
• Bethan Watts
• Ming Kit Wong
• Tristan Wood
• Hannah Wygiera
• Siyuan Yang
• Jamie Yee
• Yu Hsuan Yeh
• Weiyu Yuan
• Ζoe Τsiami

 

HEADER IMAGE: Drury Lane Theatre, Various artists / makers, 1808; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, public domain

 

We are very grateful to Dr Natasha Hodgson for her Royal Historical Society lecture delivered on Friday 7 February. In her lecture — ‘Dangerous Journeys: Framing Women’s Movement in the Medieval World’ — Natasha demonstrated the expanding patterns of women’s movement and migration, as governed by subsistence crises, the growth of urban centres, and a search for new trade routes as well as lands to settle.

Watch the video of Natasha’s lecture

Listen to the audio version of the lecture

 

The journeys made by medieval women are at odds with prevailing accounts of restrictions on women’s power and movement. Those who were able to transcend these barriers are typically considered ‘exceptional’. In her lecture, Natasha questioned the value and accuracy of exceptionality as a category of analysis for those women who left their homes and travelled, whether temporarily or to migrate, and who undertook the ‘dangerous journeys’ of pilgrimage and crusade central to this paper.

In making these journeys, many women faced criticism, or at the very least concerns about the dangers posed to their personal and spiritual safety. However, this did not prevent a substantial number of women from all social classes moving around the medieval world.

Natasha’s lecture also drew on her work in schools history, as co-founder of teachingmedievalwomen.org—a collaborative initiative to expand and revitalise the teaching of women’s history in medieval studies. New research on and understanding of women’s lives is yet to appear in the teaching or assessment of medieval history in schools. As Natasha argued, exploring ‘dangerous journeys’ provides one means to bring the vibrancy and nuance of historical research to the classroom.

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Dr Natasha Hodgson is an Associate Professor in History and Director of the Centre for Research in History, Heritage and Memory Studies (CRHHMS) at Nottingham Trent University in the UK.

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Other recordings of Society events

Recording are available for many of our events, including lectures, panel discussions and workshops on professional practice and development. The RHS Events Archive includes recent lectures by, among others, Janina Ramirez, Julia Laite, Tom Holland, Brenda Stephenson, Caroline Dodds Pennock and Greg Jenner, and guides to History and Gen AI, writing a first monograph, and history podcasting.

 

The steering group for REF2029 recently issued a call for individuals to nominate themselves as members of subject panels, including that for History.

While the RHS encourages its members to consider applying, and will be running an information event for potential nominees on Friday 7 March 2025, we — together with other organisations who have been asked to nominate potential participants in the past — have some serious concerns about the implications of the new self-nomination policy. 

Although we welcome REF’s strong statement on diversifying panels for 2029, and its appreciation of ‘the critical role that inclusive representation plays in ensuring the REF assessment process reflects the breadth and vitality of UK research’, we are concerned that the current funding crisis and extensive inequalities in working conditions seen across UK HE will mean that the greater number of panel members are drawn from an increasingly small number of institutions.

There is currently little detail from the REF steering group on how its new self-nomination model will work in practice, or on how gaps in panel membership will be addressed; and there is confusion about the time commitment panel membership will require. As many former History panellists confirm, membership is very rewarding in terms of learning about our discipline and its current practice. But being a panellist is also hugely time-consuming and will far exceed the ‘approximately 40 to 60 days of time over the course of the exercise’ currently stated on the REF2029 website. 

Colleagues in a growing number of HE institutions are unlikely to be able to access the kind of teaching and administrative relief identified as necessary by past panellists in order to participate fully in membership of a REF2029 panel. We are concerned that in the current environment it will prove difficult, if not impossible, for many aspirant panellists to convince their institutions of the merits of panel participation.

REF’s current ‘Build it and they will come’ approach sits awkwardly with the current realities and reduced opportunities of academic life, especially for those in the humanities. At best, it is a risky approach to fostering diversity of panel membership. Without further attention it may fail.

 Please see here to read our longer blog post on this subject.

 

The President, Officers and Council of the Royal Historical Society

February 2025

 

The Society’s annual lecture in global history, held in partnership with the German Historical Institute, London, was given on 21 January 2025 by Roland Wenzlhuemer, professor of modern history at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and a director of the Käte Hamburger Research Centre global dis:connect.

Roland’s lecture — ‘Raise, Reuse, Recycle: Global History and Marine Salvage in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century’ — is now available online. You can listen to it here:

 

Our thanks to Roland Wenzlhuemer for his lecture and to the German Historical Institute, London for their partnership.

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The Society is very pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Paul Readman as the new co-editor of the Society’s journal, Transactions.

Paul is Professor of Modern British History at King’s College London and joins the journal’s current editor, Dr Jan Machielsen (Cardiff University) who is a specialist in the history of early modern Europe.

 

I’m delighted to be joining Jan Machielsen as co-editor of Transactions of the Royal Historical Society.

Over the next few years, Jan and I hope to see Transactions further strengthen its position as a leading generalist journal. Our core mission is clear: the publication of stimulating and accessible articles by a diverse range of scholars on a diverse range of topics, covering all geographical areas and the whole span of history.

Beyond this, however, I am keen that we build on the tremendous success of the journal’s ‘Common Room’ section. Rapidly becoming an important space for provocative reflections on pedagogy, historiography, methodological trends and approaches, and topical issues facing historians across the world today, it is now one of the distinctive features of Transactions. We continue to welcome contributions for historians regardless of their career stage or background, so if you have an idea, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Paul Readman

 

Paul is a historian of British national identity and historical culture. His books include Storied Ground: Landscape and the Shaping of English National Identity (2018) and Land and Nation: Patriotism, National Identity and the Politics of Land (2008).

As a very experienced co-editor, his collections include Walking Histories, 1800–1914 (2016), Restaging the Past: Historical Pageants, Culture and Society in Modern Britain (2020), and – most recently – Culture, Thought and Belief in British Political Life since 1800: Essays in Honour of Jonathan Parry (2024). Paul previously served as a member of the Transactions’ UK editorial board, 2022-24.

 

Paul has been an invaluable member of our UK editorial board since its inception. I look forward to working alongside him for the remainder of my term as editor.

His appointment also marks a key moment in the development of the journal. Editors serve for two-year renewable terms. Paul’s appointment, a year after mine, sets up a phased system that will ensure a continuous editorial presence. The Society’s decision to appoint a co-editor therefore builds resilience and supports the Transactions on its exciting journey as an Open Access journal, welcoming submissions from across the historical discipline.

Jan Machielsen

 

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Submitting an article to Transactions 

 

The journal’s co-editors and editorial board welcome submission of research articles and commentaries for review. Transactions publishes new research on a wide range of historical subject areas, chronologies and geographies, and invites comment and opinion essays on approaches to historical study, within and beyond higher education.

We welcome submissions from historians at all career stages of academia and those working historically in related sectors, such as museums, heritage, archives and public history.

Since August 2024, all articles accepted for publication are published Open Access, with no charge to the author. and therefore accessible to the widest possible readership. TRHS editors offer a prompt, efficient and friendly review process, with all accepted content appearing initially online, via CUP’s FirstView, and then in annual online and print volumes.

For more on the Transactions, and how to submit an article for consideration, please see here. Articles for review may be submitted here to the co-editors and editorial board.

 

The Society’s annual lecture in global history, held in partnership with the German Historical Institute, London, was given yesterday by Roland Wenzlhuemer, professor of modern history at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and a director of the Käte Hamburger Research Centre global dis:connect.

Roland’s lecture — ‘Raise, Reuse, Recycle: Global History and Marine Salvage in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century’ — considered the history of maritime salvage as an act of material reclamation, entrepreneurship, memorialisation and national gesture, as seen in the gifting by Britain in 1880 of the ‘Resolute desk’, made from the timber of HMS Resolute, to the US President, Rutherford B. Hayes.

In turn, Roland discussed salvage as a means to consider the purpose, value and current state of global history today. Wrecks represent a breakdown of networks and infrastructures, and are examples of the disruptions and lost connections integral to a study of the global past. Lost ships point to the limitations of global interconnection, while salvage promotes alternative connections, material, cultural and memorial over time.

An audio recording of Roland Wenzlhuemer’s lecture is available here (via the GHIL podcast).

Our thanks to Roland Wenzlhuemer for his lecture and to the German Historical Institute, London for their partnership.

 

The Royal Historical Society is very pleased to launch its new publishing series: ‘Elements in History and Contemporary Society’ and to invite proposals for forthcoming titles.

‘Elements in History and Contemporary Society’ explores the value, use, discourse, and impact of history in contemporary society and culture. It draws attention to the roles played by a variety of institutions and individuals in the making and use of historical knowledge.

The series is part of Cambridge Elements, a set of short monographs (20,000 to 30,000 words max), published online and in hard and paperback print editions by Cambridge University Press.

‘Elements in History and Contemporary Society’ is edited for the RHS by Richard Toye (University of Exeter) and Vivienne Xiangwei Guo (King’s College London). Its first commissioned title is by Catriona Pennell on the Anxiety of Forgetting.

The series editors now welcome proposals for future titles in the series. Proposals may be submitted via this form and sent to rhs.elements@royalhistsoc.org.

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About the series

‘Elements in History and Contemporary Society’ covers a wide range of topics across geographical regions and historical periods, while addressing the following four principal themes:

• Uses of the past in contemporary politics, ideology, or public policy
• Contemporary institutions of historical knowledge
• New technologies and historical knowledge
• Memory, mass culture, and public opinion

Contributions to the series address questions of the use, understanding and value of history in contemporary society, and are open to discussion in any culture or region worldwide.

Similarly, the Series Editors also encourage contributions from those working in sectors beyond Higher Education (including heritage, public policy, politics, teaching, the media, and community history), where discussions of the value and application of historical knowledge are especially prominent.

Each book in this new Elements Series will be published free, Open Access on Cambridge Core, with no charge to the author. All costs for Open Access publication are covered by the Royal Historical Society.

To submit an application, please use the Author Proposal Form for ‘Elements in History and Contemporary Society‘.

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I’m excited to be co-editing the Royal Historical Society’s new series, ‘Elements in History and Contemporary Society’. We hope that by addressing how historical knowledge is created, disseminated, and applied in contemporary society, books in the series will achieve influence across the discipline as well as of being useful to policy makers.

The Society’s commitment to Open Access will ensure that our authors’ insights are accessible to all, amplifying the impact of historical scholarship in addressing today’s pressing challenges.

Professor Richard Toye (Series Editor)

 

As Editors, we believe this new series will serve as a platform where the profession and practice of historical writing meet the most dynamic and pressing issues that concern our society and life today.

‘Elements in History and Contemporary Society’ will also provide a channel for historians, academics, policy makers, cultural specialists, artists—and, indeed, people from all walks of life—to exchange opinions regarding what the past means for our future.

Dr Vivienne Xiangwei Guo (Series Editor)

 

Ever since I was a student of History and Politics, I’ve championed the need to think about the two disciplines in dialogue. Doing so allows us to think about the relationship of past, present, and future and to understand them not as a fixed set of facts (moving in a linear, ever improving, direction) but as a problem to approach with curiosity and criticality.

The Royal Historical Society’s new series will shine a spotlight on some of the uses (and abuses) of history in contemporary society.

Professor Catriona Pennell (author of the forthcoming title, Anxiety of Forgetting)