RHS News

Calls to join the editorial boards of two RHS publications: Transactions and New Historical Perspectives

 

The Royal Historical Society invites applications from historians to join the editorial boards of two of its publications: the Society’s academic journal Transactions and its New Historical Perspectives book series for early career historians. Applicants will be current Fellows of the Society, resident in the UK or worldwide.

The closing date for applications is Friday 4 December 2026 with new editorial members to take up their roles by 1 March 2027 or soon after. Board members are expected to serve for a period of two years (to March 2029) with the option to extend for a further two years (March 2031).

Additional details of both calls are provided below. Please follow the links for further details on the roles and how to submit an application.

Transactions of the Royal Historical Society

The Society seeks to appoint up to six new members to the editorial board of its academic journal, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, published by Cambridge University Press. Earlier this year, the Society launched a new-look editorial board for Transactions. On that occasion, 14 new appointments were made to the 20-person board.

The Society now looks to complete revision of the editorial board with this second call. Applications are welcome from historians who are current Fellows of the Society and resident in the UK or worldwide.

As before, this latest call seeks to reflect the breadth of historical interests and backgrounds within the Society and the wider profession, including gender, race, career stage and geographical location. In the interests of maintaining breadth and in view of Board retirements this year, we particularly welcome expressions of interest from colleagues working in medieval history. Fellows who are precariously employed or working outside higher education are especially encouraged to apply. 

Applicants will be current Fellows of the Royal Historical Society, resident in the UK or worldwide.

More about this role and how to apply.
Applications may be made via the RHS Applications Portal.

 

The closing date for applications is Monday 4 December 2026.

Transactions is the flagship journal of the Royal Historical Society. As a generalist journal, it includes historical content on a wide range of subjects, chronologies and geographies from historians at all career stages and backgrounds. In addition to traditional 10,000-12,000 word research articles, Transactions welcomes shorter, innovative comment articles on topics of historical approaches, practice and debate. These commentaries appear in the ‘Common Room’, section of the journal.

From 2024, all articles accepted for publication in Transactions automatically appear Open Access, with no charge to the author, ensuring the widest possible circulation and readership for new work.

The journal’s editorial team provides prompt responses and peer review. Articles are published with Cambridge University Press, online via CUP’s FirstView, and in an annual online and print edition, which is next published in November 2026.

 

New Historical Perspectives

The Society also invites applications for up to 10 historians to join the editorial board of its successful ‘New Historical Perspectives’ book series, run in partnership with University of London Press and supported by the Institute of Historical Research and Economic History Society.

New Historical Perspectives publishes first monographs by early career historians within 10 years of completing a PhD. Titles are made available Open Access and in hardback and paperback print editions. Having launched in 2019, the series is nearing its 30th published title, with more than 200,000 book downloads to date.

Applications are now invited from current Fellows of the Society, in the UK and worldwide, to join the editorial board and help shape NHP in the coming years. This opportunity arises as existing Board members complete their four year terms. With this call, the series editors are also keen to extend the range of subject expertise among an expanded Board, with particular focus on the medieval and early modern periods, and those with a specialism in modern political history and twentieth-century history, but interested Fellows working on all periods are encouraged to apply.

Applicants will be current Fellows of the Royal Historical Society, resident in the UK or worldwide.

More about this role and how to apply.
Applications may be made via the RHS Applications Portal.

 

The closing date for applications is Monday 4 December 2026.

 

HEADER IMAGE: iStock photo: Credit: Dimanchik

 

Calls for research funding from the Royal Historical Society: October 2026 to March 2027

 

The Society currently invites applications for the following six schemes — open to historians at a range of career stages — with closing dates from 30 October 2026 onwards.

 

  • RHS / Social History Archive Partnership*, providing free access to the online resource, The Social History Archive, published by DC Thomson: to enable up to 30 researchers per session, without existing institutional access, to use this resource for a six-month period. Next closing date: Friday 30 October 2026
  • Postgraduate Research Support Grants, 2026-27* offering awards of either £500 or £1,000 to support Postgraduate students (Master’s and PhD degrees) without access to research funding to undertake activities such as visiting archives, historical sites and conducting interviews. Grants are available to current members of the Royal Historical Society. Next closing date: Friday 4 December 2026
  • Early Career Research Support Grants, 2026-27* offering awards of either £500 or £1,000 to support Early Career Researchers, within five years of completing a doctorate in history, to undertake activities such as visiting archives, historical sites and conducting interviews. Grants are available to current members of the Royal Historical Society. Next closing date: Friday 4 December 2026
  • PhD Fellowships** offering awards of £8,500 each to two historians to complete a doctorate in history or a cognate field over a 6-month period. Fellowships are held at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London. Next closing date 31 January 2027.
  • Applied History Fellowships** offering awards of £12,250 each to two historians wishing to develop the wider impact and application of their academic work. These Fellowships are provided in partnership with the Institute of Historical Research and the publisher DC Thomson. Next closing date: Friday 31 January 2027.
  • David Berry Fellowship in the History of Scotland and the Scottish People* offering an annual award of up to £2,500 to undertake research on the history of Scotland and the Scottish people worldwide. Grants are available to current members of the Royal Historical Society. Next closing date: Friday 5 March 2027

*Open to current Fellows and Members of the Royal Historical Society.

**Open to all, including those who are not current Fellows and Members of the Royal Historical Society.

 

Becoming a member of the Society

If you wish to join the Society, as a Fellow, Associate Fellow, Member or Postgraduate Member please see here for details and the benefits of RHS membership. Applications are welcome at any time.

The next closing date for receipt of applications is Monday 14 December 2026.

Details of current holders of Royal Historical Society Fellowships and Grants are available here.

All enquiries about Research Funding should be sent to: [email protected].

 

HEADER IMAGE: Egg cup, probably British, 18th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain.

 

Two new trustees to join the Society’s Council from November 2026

The Royal Historical Society is pleased to announce the election of two new members to its governing Council. These appointments follow this year’s election round for new Councillors in autumn 2026.

The newly elected Councillors will take up their roles following the next meeting of the Society’s Council on 27 November and will hold their posts for four years.

Dr Myra Bom and Professor Susan R. Grayzel will replace two serving Councillors who next month step down at the end of their terms: Dr Helen Paul and Professor Olwen Purdue.

Dr Myra Bom

Myra Bom specialises in the history of Western Europe and the Latin East in the twelfth century. She has published on medieval women, the military orders, and the French crown.

Her latest titles include Constance of France. Womanhood and Agency in Twelfth-Century Europe (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022); ‘The Crusades Regesta: Evolution, Adaptation, and Resilience,’ (with Anna Gutgart) in Digital Medieval Studies. Crusades and Computers, ed. L. K. Morreale and S. Gilsdorf (York: Arc Humanities Press, 2026): 19-34; and ‘King Louis VII of France’s Crusader Manuscript (BnF lat. 14378)’, in The Crusaded Eastern Mediterranean, ed. M. El-Mehreb and J. Wilson (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming): 83-108.

Myra is an Honorary Research Associates at Royal Holloway, University of London, and teaches medieval history at the University of Cambridge. She is also an editor of the conference proceedings of the Society of the Crusades and the Latin East and a member of the editorial board of the Crusades Regesta, an online research tool.

 

I am looking forward to working with historians of different interests, backgrounds and careers to shape our collective professional future. Financial pressures and artificial intelligence challenge the current practice of history, but this change will also bring opportunities, and I see a bright time ahead.

 

Professor Susan R. Grayzel

Susan R. Grayzel (Sue) is Professor of History at Utah State University, teaching courses in modern European history, the cultural history of modern, total war, and gender and women’s history. She also co-directs the Bringing War Home Project: Object Stories, Memory, and Modern War; this co-curated community history project partners with localities and engages university students in the digital collection and preservation of both objects and stories about the things carried to and from the sites of armed conflict.

Her books include Women’s Identities at War: Gender, Motherhood, and Politics in Britain and France during the First World War (UNC Press, 1999); Women and the First World War (2002, 2nd edition Routledge 2024); At Home and Under Fire: Air Raids and Culture in Britain from the Great War to the Blitz (Cambridge, 2012); The First World War: A Brief History with Documents (Bedford St Martins, 2012, 2nd Edition, 2021); and the co-edited volume Gender and the Great War (Oxford, 2017) with colleague Tammy Proctor.

Her latest monograph, The Age of the Gas Mask: How British Civilians Faced the Terrors of Total War (Cambridge, 2022), uses one material object — the civilian gas mask — to explore how the state and individuals responded to the first weapons of mass destruction.  More recently, she was co-editor with Ann-Marie Einhaus and Catriona Pennell for the Special Issue ‘Teaching the First World War in the Twenty-First Century: Pedagogies in Dialogue’, First World War Studies 17: 1-2 (2026).

Sue’s current scholarly interests include a new project on experiences of pregnancy during the Second World War along with other research on sexual violence and international law; gender, citizenship, and civil defense; and the intersections among gender, emotions, and wartime technology.

 

I am very grateful for the trust shown in me by the members who supported my joining the RHS Council. I feel privileged to have the opportunity to join in the work of the RHS as it plays a key role in facilitating conversations to defend and promote access to resources for history and applied history across national borders in this critical moment.

 

Society launches second year of Applied History Fellowships, with the Institute of Historical Research and DC Thomson

The Society is pleased to launch a second year of its Applied History Fellowships, to support recent post-doctorate historians, held in partnership the Institute of Historical Research (IHR) and publisher DC Thomson.

This initiative responds to three pressing challenges:

  • the need to build sustainable bridges across different parts of the history community;
  • the deeply challenging academic job market; and
  • the need to advocate for the utility of history beyond the HE sector. The new Applied History Fellowships seek to expand the range of futures open to early career historians and to enhance the applied skills of those who do pursue a university career.

The Fellowships offer a bursary of £12,250 per award for a 6-month period. Fellowships for this second year will normally be held between April and September 2027.

Applications for the second round of Applied History Fellowships are now invited between 15 October 2026 and 31 January 2027.

Further information about the 2027 programme is available here.

Applications for 2027 Fellowships may be submitted via the applications portal of the Institute of Historical Research.

Fellowships will provide financial and practical support for those wishing to develop the wider impact and application of their academic work. The Fellowship provides time to develop publication, impact and engagement profiles. It also facilitates a two-day a week online placement with The Social History Archive so that Fellows can develop skills within a commercial history context.

Successful Fellows will become members of the IHR and be offered a 12-month free Associate Fellowship of the Society, whose Councillors will also provide professional mentoring. Fellows will also receive 12-month free access to The Social History Archive.

Holders of the Applied History Fellowships for 2026

  • Dr Sadie Levy Gale whose project focuses on record collections concerned with social welfare, including material relating to healthcare, urban development, and social reform.
  • Dr Matthew Stephens who is curating new collections for The Social History Archive Primary Source Series. This work will focus on digitised newspaper archives which are central to Matthew’s own research.

 

 

 

Latest title in Society’s book series explores prostitution and social welfare in Renaissance Florence

The Society is very pleased to announce publication, today, of the 27th title in its ‘New Historical Perspectives’ book series: Prostitution, Repentance and Social Welfare in Renaissance Florence. The Monastery of Sant’Elisabette delle Convertite, by Gillian Jack.

As the longest enduring monastery for repentant prostitutes, Sant’Elisabetta is an integral part of the history of nuns and of prostitution in the medieval and early modern periods, and had an important place in municipal responses to social welfare and civic morality. From the fourteenth century, prostitutes in Florence were encouraged to leave their profession and spend their lives in repentance at the monastery of Sant’Elisabetta delle Convertite. Many did over its 500 years, and the monastery was soon one of the most populous in Florence.

Gillian’s is the first book-length study to put Sant’Elisabetta into its full historical context. It establishes the place of this often-overlooked nunnery in the wider world of medieval penitential piety, renaissance charity and early modern social welfare, Drawing on diverse archival sources, the book’s long chronological scope offers valuable insights into the broader histories of the relationship between the Florentine state and monastic institutions, public policy, welfare and women in the long Renaissance.

To accompany publication, Gillian also writes about the monastery of Sant’Elisabette delle Convertite for the Society’s blog.

 

 

As with all 27 titles in the New Historical Perspectives series, Prostitution, Repentance and Social Welfare in Renaissance Florence. The Monastery of Sant’Elisabette delle Convertite, is published as a free Open Access download and in paperback print by University of London Press.

Recent titles in the series also include: Organised Militarism in Interwar Britain. The Navy League and the Air League of the British Empire, by Rowan Thompson; Forging Fraternity in Late Medieval Society. The Palmers’ Guild of Ludlow, by Rachael Harkes and Gareth Roddy’s Atlantic Isles: Travel Identity in the British and Irish West, 1880-1940.

 

About New Historical Perspectives

‘New Historical Perspectives’ is a collaborative publishing project of the Royal Historical Society, University of London Press and the Institute of Historical Research, with further support from the Economic History Society. Previous generous support for the series was also provided by the Past & Present Society.

The series publishes new work by early career historians within 10 years of completing their PhD, from a UK or Irish university, in the form of monographs and edited collections.

Founded by the historians Simon Newman and Penny Summerfield in the mid 2010s, the Series is now co-edited by Elizabeth Hurren (University of Leicester) and Sarah Longair (University of Lincoln), assisted by an editorial board.

All authors contracted to the series receive mentoring from members of the NHP editorial board. In addition, they receive a workshop, with specialist readers and co-editors, to review and discuss a near complete manuscript before a final draft is submitted to the publisher.

All titles in the series are published Open Access, as pdf downloads and in a Manifold Reader editions, with no charge to the author, to ensure the widest possible dissemination of new historical research. As of early 2026, titles in the NHP series have been downloaded on more than 200,000 occasions.

The Series Editors and Editorial Board welcome proposals for new NHP titles via the NHP book proposal form. Completed proposal forms should be submitted to the University of London Press publisher, Dr Emma Gallon: [email protected].

 

 

HEADER IMAGE: The penitent Mary Magdalene, copy after Titian, 1550 – 1750.

 

 

Society elects 213 new Fellows, Associate Fellows, Members and Postgraduate Members

At its latest meeting on 25 September 2026, the RHS Council elected 70 Fellows, 59 Associate Fellows, 27 Members and 59 Postgraduate Members, a total of 213 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 sixteen countries: Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Ireland, Italy, Israel, Malaysia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, 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 43 different universities in the UK, Australia, China, Crete, Germany, Greece, New Zealand, Pakistan, 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 next deadline for applications is Monday 14 December 2026.

Those interested in applying to join the Society (as a Fellow, Associate Fellow, Member or Postgraduate Member) should consult the Join Us pages of the RHS website. Full details of the benefits of Fellowship and Membership are available in the Society’s new Guide for Members.

 

New Fellows, September 2026

  • Mette Maria Ahlefeldt-Laurvig
  • Lisa Bitel
  • Boris Briones-Soto
  • Hilary Buxton
  • Ciara Chambers
  • Apurba Chatterjee
  • Lindsay Chervinsky
  • John Chircop
  • John-Henry Clay
  • Jeanne Clegg
  • Will Clement
  • Simon Constantine
  • Christopher Coome
  • David Crankshaw
  • Lucy Curzon
  • Surekha Davies
  • Inge Dornan
  • Elodie Duché
  • Lorren Eldridge
  • Raphael Franck
  • Robert Frank
  • Helen Frisby
  • Helen Fry
  • Ming Gao
  • Abigail Green
  • Nicoletta Gullace
  • Riya Gupta
  • Sally Hadden
  • Mirjam Hähnle
  • Sandip Hazareesingh
  • Mary Horbury
  • Thomas Albert Howard
  • David Johnson
  • Vandana Joshi
  • Hazel Kent
  • Uganda Kwan
  • Marie-Louise Lillywhite
  • Karen Lipsedge
  • Anna Lively
  • Shane Lynn
  • Christos Lynteris
  • Christopher Massey
  • Charles-Francois Mathis
  • Ciaran McDonough
  • Kate McLoughlin
  • Simon Mills
  • Sharifah Faizah Syed Mohammed
  • Brian Murphy
  • James Naus
  • Debra Parish
  • Lucia Patrizio Gunning
  • Simon Peplow
  • Nabi Sahak
  • Stefano Serafini
  • Adam Sisman
  • Anthony Smart
  • Mark Smith
  • Anna Snaith
  • Erika Stalcup
  • Rachel Stone
  • Kirsten Tambling
  • Tristan Taylor
  • Lucy Taylor
  • Natasa Thoudam
  • Graeme Tobyn
  • Guðrún Dröfn Whitehead
  • Yinrui Xie
  • Oliver Yule-Smith
  • Alessandra Zanetti
  • Tommaso Zerbi

 

New Associate Fellows, September 2026

  • Akhil A R
  • Amrita Ajay
  • David Austen
  • Christopher Bates
  • Leonie Bausch
  • Katy Bennett
  • Richard Braude
  • Janette Bright
  • Thomas Brown-Warr
  • Victoria Burns-Price
  • Neil Chatelain
  • Rajesh Chauhan
  • Samuel Cheney
  • Heeral Chhabra
  • David Francisco de Moura Penteado
  • Louise Earnshaw
  • Gabriella Eőry
  • James Gallacher
  • Elena Ghiggino
  • David Hall
  • Brittany Hanlon
  • Jennifer Harland
  • Rosalind Hayes
  • Cheng He
  • Matthew Hurst
  • Michael Joalland
  • Anouska Lester
  • Zongyue Liu
  • Helen Lockhart
  • Saptarshi Mallick
  • CJ Manjarres-Wahlberg
  • Joseph Manock
  • Arvand Mirsafian
  • Saarang Narayan
  • Alice Naylor
  • Samantha Nelson
  • Roberto Nigro
  • Megan Palmer
  • Justine Pick
  • Roslyn Potter
  • Indu Prasad
  • Daniel Rignall
  • Jude Rowley
  • John Russell
  • Ben Sandell
  • Brigitta Kinga Schvéd
  • Daniel Seal
  • Heloise Senechal
  • Eleanor Stephenson
  • Anna Talley
  • Adefolatomiwa Toye
  • Sophie Turbutt
  • Hazel Vosper
  • Stephanie Wanga
  • Robert Williamson
  • Faye Wills
  • Samantha Wilson

 

New Members, September 2026

  • Sarah Ahmed
  • Mansour Al-Rumaih
  • Nicholas Bebb
  • Stephen  Bell
  • Margaret Bramwell Doyle
  • Alison Brown
  • Ashley Byford-Bates
  • Celia Carrington
  • Christopher Carroll
  • Casey Christall
  • Nina Dickens
  • John Dolan
  • Lachlan Finlayson
  • David Harries
  • Lesley  Hewett
  • Sarah Jones
  • Kanhai Kaj
  • Marie-Louise Leonard
  • Thomas Old
  • Rhys Peregrine
  • Elizabeth Power
  • Aryan Pratap Singh
  • Dipesh Raithatha
  • Muhammad Arif Soomro
  • Tobias Aleksander Sveum Isaksen
  • Deeksha Tyagi
  • Aswin Vijayan

 

New Postgraduate Members, September 2026

  • Neo-Aidan Allert
  • Naif Alrogi
  • Sophie Appleby-Taylor
  • Reuben Baldwin
  • Iyanu Bankole
  • Janina Bechtold
  • Inigo Bing
  • Kelly Bosomworth
  • Eliza  Cane-Honeysett
  • Rosie Charles
  • Emily Christaki
  • Theo Christodoulidis
  • Lynsey Cowlishaw
  • Kim Davies
  • Elizabeth DeBold
  • Isabel Dennis
  • James Dranfield
  • Elisa Duriavig
  • Rebeka Erdélyiová
  • Richard John Glass
  • Craig Grant
  • Paulo Vitor Guedes de Souza
  • John Harpour
  • Robert Houghton
  • Muminah Hussain
  • Mats Inauen
  • Isabella Inskip
  • Evgeniya Ivanova
  • Joe Jones
  • Ehsan Ahmad Khan
  • Daniel Kinsey
  • James Kutin
  • John Lees
  • Timothy Li
  • Isabel Mangum
  • Ryan Marlowe
  • Helen-Eva McCamley
  • Neil McClelland
  • Anthony Mills
  • Anamika Mohanta
  • Kristen Nelson
  • Olga Nikonenko
  • Linka (Caroline) Nowell-Wheeler
  • Idris Olabode
  • Georgia Platt
  • Ioannis Psifas
  • Muskan Rawat
  • Lilja Ruismäki
  • Eleanor  Schling
  • Pragya Sharma
  • Lisa Stokes
  • Alicia Vine
  • Elaine Warriner
  • Oliver Whiteman
  • Joe Williams
  • Deyu Yan
  • Usama Zafar
  • Marco Zamattia
  • Xiangtai Zeng

 

HEADER IMAGE: Piece from a Kosode with Chrysanthemums and Leaves, Japan, Edo period (1615–1868), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, public domain

 

Autumn lecture programme from the Royal Historical Society

The Society’s autumn lecture programme offers talks by leading historians working in British, European and world history. The autumn programme began on Friday 25 September and runs to 8 December 2026.

We have recently hosted our first two lectures: ‘In All Our Footsteps? Rights of Way and the Battle for the Land after the 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act’, by Glen O’Hara (which is available watch again here), and ‘Visualizing Difference: Amelia Newsham and the Art of Race-Making’, by Meleisa Ono-George.

Booking is now available for the remaining four lectures in our autumn season, with events open to all. We look forward to welcoming you in person or online for one or more of these events.

 

  • Sathnam Sanghera: ‘What History is NOT’ – the Society’s 2026 Public History Lecture, held in association with Gresham College London, at 6pm, Tuesday 3 November 2026 (in person at Gresham College, London, and online. In person attendance is now fully booked, but online is available.

 

 

Amy’s lecture recommences the Society’s International Fellows’ lecture programme, with an opportunity to hear about the latest research of an RHS Fellow working outside the UK. This year’s lecture will be co-hosted with the Economic History Society to mark the centenary of its foundation (July 1926).

 

For a full list of our remaining events in 2026, please see here.

Many of our lectures are also recorded, with videos and audio versions available here.

 

HEADER IMAGE: iStock Photo: credit, BerndBrueggemann

 

Royal Historical Society Book and Article Prizes, 2027: submissions now invited

The Royal Historical Society invites applications for its First Book Prize, 2027 and Early Career Article Prize, 2027. The call for submissions opened on Monday 28 September and runs to Monday 14 December 2026. Applications for each of these prizes may be made via the Society’s application portal:

  • RHS First Book Prize, 2027, for first history monographs published in 2026 by early career historians who received a PhD from a UK or Irish university.
  • RHS Early Career Article Prize, 2027, for history articles / book chapters, published in 2026 by authors who are either current PhD students at, or within three years of having received their doctorate from, a UK or Irish university.

The Society looks to make two awards, in 2027, for the RHS First Book Prize (worth £1,000 per award) and a further two awards for the RHS Early Career Article Prize (each worth £250).

Further information on eligibility and how to submit an application for both prizes is available here: for first monographs and for early career articles.

Submissions for both prizes are by self-nomination by the author via the Society’s applications portal.

The Society expects to award the 2027 prizes in July of next year. The winners of the 2026 awards were as follows:

First Book Prize

Early Career Article Prize

General enquiries about Society’s Prizes should be sent to: [email protected].

 

HEADER IMAGE: Library Bookcase, from Chippendale Drawings, Vol. II, Thomas Chippendale, British (1753), Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, New York, public domain.

 

Glen O’Hara gives latest RHS lecture on ‘Rights of Way and the Battle for the Land’

On Friday 25 September the Society hosted the latest lecture in its 2026 programme. Our great thanks to Professor Glen O’Hara (Oxford Brookes University) who spoke on: ‘In All Our Footsteps? Rights of Way and the Battle for the Land after the 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act’.

 

Watch this lecture

Listen to this lecture

 

Glen’s lecture considered the origins and impact of the 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, the post-war Labour government’s plan for the land.

In this plan development would be controlled and its profits nationalised; National Parks would be established; access agreements reached. Most importantly the country would be opened up for everyone, everywhere, via a Definitive Map containing every right of way in England and Wales. In his lecture, Glen detailed the long struggle to realise those plans, and their uncertain fate as successive governments argued and puzzled over how practical and desirable that expansive vision really was.

Professor Glen O’Hara is Professor of Modern and Contemporary History in the School of Education, Humanities and Languages at Oxford Brookes University. He is author of New Labour, New Britain? How the Blair Governments Reshaped the Country (2026) and The Politics of Water in Post-War Britain (2017).

Our great thanks to Glen for his lecture, and to all who attended this event in person and online.

RHS Events Archive

Glen’s lecture is one of many recent Royal Historical Society events now available to watch or listen to again via the RHS Events Archive.

Recent speakers include the historians Charles West on medieval queenship, Sasha Handley on eighteenth-century ghost stories, Jane Ohlmeyer on early modern Irish women, and Rebecca Earle on the circulation of goods in an age of revolution.

Forthcoming RHS  lectures in autumn 2026

Glen’s lecture is the start of the Society’s autumn series of events held in London, Glasgow and Bristol, and also online. Coming soon, and available for booking, we have:

  • Dr Meleisa Ono-George (University of Oxford): ‘Visualizing Difference: Amelia Newsham and the Art of Race-Making’, on Wednesday 7 October 2026 and part of the Society’s visit to historians at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow (in person only).
  • Sathnam Sanghera: ‘What History is NOT’ – the Society’s 2026 Public History Lecture, held in association with Gresham College London, on Tuesday 3 November 2026 (in person at Gresham College, London, and online, with online booking now available). In-person booking will open on 3 October 2026.
  • Professor Hanna Diamond (Cardiff University):  ‘From Cabaret Star to Gaullist Spy: Josephine Baker’s Secret War’ – the Society’s 2026 Anniversary Lecture at 6.00pm, Friday 27 November 2026. Booking for this lecture is now available in-person at the Institute of Historical Research, London and for online attendance.
  • Professor Amy Froide (University of Maryland, Baltimore County): ‘The Charitable Corporation Scandal of 1732 and the Female Shareholders who stood up to Financial Fraud’ – the Society’s annual International Fellows’ Lecture, at 4pm Friday 4 December 2026 (NB: online only). Co-hosted with the Economic History Society.
  • Professor Martin Thomas (University of Exeter): ‘A World Remade by Decolonisation?’, on Tuesday 8 December 2027, and part of the Society’s visit to historians at the University of the West of England, Bristol (booking for this event will open soon).

Details of these and other Society events in 2026 are also available via our Events page. Our events are free and open to all.

 

Society launches new programme for researchers, in partnership with The Social History Archive

The Society is pleased to launch a new programme for researchers, in partnership with The Social History Archive, published by DC Thomson. The Social History Archive is a comprehensive online archive of British, Irish, and former empire historical resources for academic research and teaching.

This new scheme offers researchers, at all career stages, 6 months free access, via the Archive, to online primary source materials otherwise not available to them via an existing institutional affiliation or subscription.

Full details of The Social History Archive, the programme, and how to apply are available here.

The Social History Archive combines a newspaper collection of more than 2,800 historical titles and over 100 million pages published between 1699 and 2014, as well as nearly 3,000 record sets (comprising almost 500 million images), spanning primary sources from the thirteenth century to 2025. In addition, the Archive provides 40 themed primary source sets, bringing together content on chosen topics.

The RHS / Social History Archive Partnership provides access for historians –- who are Fellows and Members of the Society* –- who require the Archive for research but do not have access to this resource via an existing institutional affiliation.

Calls for the Partnership take place twice a year, with up to 30 researchers receiving free access to The Social History Archive for a 6-month period in each round. The first call opens on 21 September and runs to 30 October 2026, with access beginning for six months from 1 January 2027.

In creating this partnership, we seek to support research across the Society’s membership, including established independent historians and those who have recently completed or left higher education and whose access to online content is much reduced.

For more on contents of The Social History Archive and how to apply for access , please see here.

Extending researchers’ access to other online resources

The Royal Historical Society is very grateful to The Social History Archive and DC Thomson for their involvement in this partnership.

The Society welcomes similar partnerships with other publishers and providers of online primary research content. If you are a publisher and wish to discuss this, please contact the Society’s President, Professor Lucy Noakes: [email protected].

*How to apply to join the Society

Applications to join the Royal Historical Society as a Fellow, Associate Fellow, Member or Postgraduate Member are welcome at any time.

Further details of each category of membership are available here. More on how to apply, and the benefits of membership for each category, is also available.

 

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