RHS News

Applications are now invited for the Society’s annual Martin Lynn Scholarship in African history. The Scholarship supports graduate students undertake doctoral research in Africa during the academic year 2026-27.

The Scholarship is made possible thanks to the generosity of the Lynn family and is named for the late Martin Lynn (1951-2005), Professor of African History at Queen’s University, Belfast. Appointed to this position in 2002, Professor Lynn was the first scholar to hold a chair in African history in Ireland.

Professor Lynn’s scholarly career was devoted to the history of West Africa and he published most extensively and importantly on the 19th- and 20th-century history of Nigeria. This award reflects Professor Lynn’s interests.

Applications for the Scholarship are now invited, from current Postgraduate Members of the Society, before the closing date of Friday 4 September 2026. applications should be made via the Society’s online applications platform.

 

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Other funding calls from the Society, July to September 2026

Details of the Society’s other calls for applications are available here. These programmes are again open to current Fellows and Members of the Society.

Information on how to join the Society — as a Fellow, Associate Fellow, Member or Postgraduate Member — is available here.

 

The latest volume in the Society’s Camden Series of primary source materials is The Correspondence of Katherine Jones, Viscountess Ranelagh, 1640–1691, edited by Evan Bourke.

Published on 11 June, this new volume is available online and in print from Cambridge University Press.

Fellows and Members of the Royal Historical Society may purchase a print copy at this — and other recent Camden volumes — at the discounted price of £16 per volume. To do so please email: [email protected], marking your email Camden.

The Correspondence of Katherine Jones, Viscountess Ranelagh presents selected correspondence of Lady Ranelagh (1615–1691) bringing attention to the important role she played in the intellectual and political circles of seventeenth-century England and Ireland.

 

 

The letters chart Ranelagh’s life, from her besiegement in Athlone in 1641 until her death in 1691. Lady Ranelagh has often been considered alongside her famous brother, Robert Boyle (1627–1691), but the correspondence in this edition highlights how Ranelagh had a scholarly reputation in her own right — showcasing the wide and varied nature of Ranelagh’s writing. This includes prophetical discussions with Benjamin Worsley (1618–1673), theological discussions with John Beale (c.1608–1683), a discourse on the philosopher’s stone, and discussions with Anthony Dopping (1643–1697) on the production of the first version of the Old Testament in Irish.

The volume also includes familial correspondence that engaged with important political events of her time, as well as illuminating Lady Ranelagh’s role in offering medical, educational, and financial advice to family members and close friends.

To mark publication, the Introduction to Evan Bourke’s new edition is now available, free to read, on the CUP website until 15 September 2026.

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Ordering a copy of the latest Camden volume: Fellows and Members of the Society

The Correspondence of Katherine Jones, Viscountess Ranelagh, 1640–1691, edited by Evan Bourke, is now available online and in print Cambridge University Press.

Fellows and Members of the Society may order print copies at the reduced price of £16 per volume. To order a copy please contact: [email protected], marking your email ‘Camden’.

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Those without membership to Society may purchase this and other recent Camden volumes direct from Cambridge University Press.

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The volume’s editor, Dr Evan Bourke is a Lecturer in English Literature at Maynooth University, Ireland. He is a specialist in early modern English and Irish literature, women’s writing, cultural analytics, and network analysis.

Evan’s recent publications include Decolonial Deep Mapping (co-written with Patricia Pamer and Philip Mac a’Ghoill) and Spenser and the Filidh in Early Modern Ireland (co-edited with Deirdre Nic Chárthaigh and Philip Mac a’Ghoill).

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About the Camden Series

The Society publishes new volumes in the Camden Series each year.

Three volumes were published in 2025: The Papers of Admiral George Grey, edited by Michael Taylor (June 2025), The Holograph Letters of Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots (1489-1541), edited by Helen Newsome-Chandler (August 2025), and  A Collector Collected. The Journals of William Upcott, 1803-1823, edited by Mark Philp, Aysuda Akan and Curtis Leung.

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 complete Camden Series now comprises over 390 volumes of primary source material, ranging from the early medieval to late-twentieth century Britain.

 

 

In July 2027 the Royal Historical Society and Institute of Historical Research will come together to convene a nations-wide Festival of History.

Lasting two weeks, the Festival will run from Monday 5 July to Friday 16 July inclusive. It will also coincide with the IHR’s hosting of the North American Conference on British Studies, in London, from 13-16 July 2027. The aim is to celebrate the joy of making history whilst also showing why history matters to individuals, parishes and communities, in towns and cities, and across the nations that make up the UK.

We are looking for groups, organisations, and businesses who want to celebrate history with us. We hope to offer a number of small bursaries that will enable participants to host events and activities that are free and open to all during the two week Festival.

If you or your organisation are interested in supporting the Festival — for example through a financial donation, and event or support in kind — please contact Professor Lucy Noakes, President of the Royal Historical Society, [email protected] or Director of the IHR, Professor Claire Langhamer, [email protected].

All of our supporters will be recognised on the Festival website. Further details about the Festival will be circulated later in the year.

 

 

 

Even for those familiar with bleak times, this has been a particularly bad few weeks in UK higher education.

Confirmed job losses at the University of Essex were followed by further bad news from Hertfordshire and Nottingham. In each, cuts and redundancies extend across multiple faculties and subject areas, making clear—as has long been evident—that this is a crisis for the future provision and purpose of post-18 education. As these latest announcements show, very few institutions—be they from the Russell Group or a Pre- or Post-92—are now immune from the shockwaves that follow a decade of rampant marketisation and political neglect.

For historians, the chaos wrought over this decade is especially evident in the case of Hertfordshire. In the 2014 REF, UoH History was ranked first for impact and fifth overall for research excellence in this unit of assessment. This outstanding performance, seen in previous and subsequent assessments, was and remains a model of excellent scholarship, grant capture and impact. Now, a decade on—after the lifting of caps on student numbers, managerial boosterism, and years of pervasive political hostility towards the humanities within HE—Hertfordshire seeks to close its undergraduate History programmes alongside those in Philosophy, English Language and Linguistics, English Literature and Creative Writing.

In late 2023, Councillors from the Royal Historical Society spent a day with Hertfordshire’s historians. We saw at first hand the quality, creativity and distinctiveness of the teaching, research and engagement being undertaken. It was clear that Hertfordshire historians continue to pioneer forms of creative public and community-based history and maintain their reputation as leaders in this field. We were told by a (now departed) senior manager that UoH History and its historians were ‘a portfolio the university will guard very carefully’.

The closing of programmes in History, and the wider humanities, is a squandering of distinctive scholarly assets for which Hertfordshire, rightly, has received praise and funding over the past decade. Everyone appreciates that numerous UK universities face financial difficulty. Yet, according to its new Vice Chancellor, Hertfordshire is in ‘a stable financial position’, with cuts to History and the humanities ‘not being taken in response to an immediate financial crisis, but as part of a responsible approach to maintain a strong, focused and sustainable academic portfolio’.

The impact of proposed programme closures is extensive: for staff; for partners with whom they work in the region; for the local economy; and, of course, for current and potential students. The ‘East of England’, the HESA region in which UoH sits, already has few degree opportunities for those wishing to study History. The negative regional effect of cuts and course losses at East Anglia and now Essex, will be exacerbated if Hertfordshire ends its undergraduate programmes. It’s not just about loss of subject choices. In addition to its reputation for quality scholarship and engagement, Hertfordshire History stands out in government data as a department teaching local first generation students who go on to earn salaries above the median for graduates in our discipline.

Each university action is local and specific—be it Essex, Hertfordshire, Nottingham or one of the other institutions with which the Society is in contact. But we’ve now had years of such actions, and the consequences are cumulative and huge. A thousand cuts result in a skilled, expert profession being diminished and demoralised by job losses and repeated restructures. They lead to a diminished student experience, as degree options are dropped or programmes closed where cold spots emerge. They mean the erosion of historical knowledge, understanding and judgement when there’s urgent need for context, civic understanding and humanity.

History, as taught and researched in our universities, is fundamental to this. We need to be clearer and more vocal about the consequences of these losses. Governments in Scotland and Wales have finally realised that a viable, meaningful higher education sector needs greater oversight and control, and cannot be left wholly to the market. Now Westminster needs to wake up to this need for joined-up thinking, if we are to limit the number of future Essexes, Hertfordshires and Nottinghams—to name just three. UK universities are a precious commodity. Ten years of dropping this commodity to see where the pieces land is not an education policy worthy of the name. It is neglect bordering on vandalism.

 

The President, Officers and Councillors of the Royal Historical Society

 

This week the Society announced the Shortlists for its annual First Book and Early Career Article Prizes. The shortlists follow an open call for early career historians to self-nominate a first history monograph, published in 2025, or a journal article / essay published last year and written within three years of completion of a PhD.

The shortlists include eight titles each, selected by the Society’s judging panels from longlists drawn up in March. Further details of the sixteen books and articles included are available via the links below.

• Royal Historical Society First Book Prize Shortlist, 2026
• Royal Historical Society Early Career Article Prize Shortlist, 2026

Two final winners will be chosen from each category in June, with announcement of this year’s four recipients to be made in early July.

In 2025, the Society’s book and article prizes were awarded to:

First Book Prize

• Royal Justice and the Making of the Tudor Commonwealth, 1485-1547, by Laura Flannigan (Cambridge University Press, 2024)
• Segregated Species: Pests, Knowledge, and Boundaries in South Africa, 1910–1948, by Jules Skotnes-Brown (Johns Hopkins University Press 2024)

Early Career Article Prize

• William Jones, “You are going to be my Bettman”: Exploitative Sexual Relationships and the Lives of the Pipels in Nazi Concentration Camps’, published in The Journal of Holocaust Research (2024)
• Michaela Kalcher, ‘The Self in the Shadow of the Guillotine: Revolution, Terror and Trauma in a Parisian Diary‘, published in History Workshop Journal (2024)

 

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HEADER IMAGE: iStock Photo: ambassador806

 

The Royal Historical Society and partners, the Institute of Historical Research and DC Thomson, are very pleased to announce Dr Sadie Levy Gale and Dr Matthew Stephens as the recipients of a new programme of Applied History Fellowships.

The Fellowships are an initiative by the Society, the IHR and the publisher DC Thomson to support early career historians who have recently completed a PhD.

The Fellowships seek both to expand the range of professional futures open to post-doctorate historians, and to enhance the applied skills of those who do pursue a university career. Fellowships offer a bursary of £12,000 per award, generously provided by DC Thomson, for a 6-month period. Sadie and Matthew take up their Fellowships from May 2026.

The programme provides financial and other support for historians to develop the wider impact and application of their academic research. It also includes a two-day per week online placement with DC Thomson’s The Social History Archive (TSHA) to enable Fellows to gain skills and experience within a commercial history context. In addition, Applied History Fellowships provide time for holders to develop publication, impact and engagement profiles.

During her Fellowship, Dr Sadie Levy Gale will focus on record collections concerned with social welfare in The Social History Archive, including material relating to healthcare, urban development, and social reform. Sadie will also work on publications based on her doctoral research, which examined the visual culture of social reform in early twentieth-century Britain.

I am delighted to be starting as a fellow in Applied History at the Institute of Historical Research, in partnership with The Social History Archive. TSHA has a vast and fascinating digital archive that I’ll be curating, alongside working on my own research. A dream role that I can’t wait to begin.

During his Fellowship, Dr Matthew Stephens will curate new collections for TSHA Primary Source Series. This work will focus on digitised newspaper archives which are central to Matthew’s own research.

I’m thrilled and excited to be starting my role as an Applied History Fellow, which will give me the opportunity to contribute to the ongoing development of vital digital historical archives, working with an incredible network of people in the Royal Historical Society, the Institute of Historical Research and publisher DC Thomson.

On the appointment of the Applied History Fellowships, Lee Wilkinson, Managing Director DC Thomson History said:

We are delighted to announce this partnership between DC Thomson History, the Institute of Historical Research, and the Royal Historical Society, bringing together three organisations committed to rigorous, impactful historical scholarship. This fellowship programme will give two exceptional early career historians dedicated time at The Social History Archive, working with our teams to develop commercial collections from our archival holdings.

By embedding early career historians directly in the creation of new products, we are supporting their professional development and demonstrating how the study of history can be applied in a commercial context, while ensuring our collections are shaped by those at the forefront of research, for the benefit of academics and students alike.

In addition to the Fellowships, Sadie and Matthew will become Fellows of the IHR and be offered a 12-month Associate Fellowship of the Royal Historical Society, where they will receive professional mentoring from members of the Society’s Council. Both Fellows will also be invited to become members of the TSHA editorial board.

By collaborating on this initiative and partnering with DC Thomson History, the Institute for Historical Research and the Royal Historical Society are supporting work that develops and showcases the value of applied history.

 We are pleased to be working with early career historians who are demonstrating the range of skills developed through historical practice, helping to bring the collections held by The Social History Archive together in new and exciting ways while engaging with the practice of history in a commercial context. We look forward to supporting them throughout their projects, and to extending opportunities for other historians to apply their professional skills outside of academia.

Claire Langhamer, Director, Institute of Historical Research

Lucy Noakes, President, Royal Historical Society

 

 

At its latest meeting on 1 May 2026, the RHS Council elected 116 Fellows, 77 Associate Fellows, 81 Members and 89 Postgraduate Members, a total of 345 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, Belgium, China, Cyprus, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Norway, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, 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 61 different universities in the UK, Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Portugal, Ukraine, Switzerland, 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 rounds are open and run to 27 July and 5 October 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, May 2026

• Abdul-Azim Ahmed
• Karl Alvestad
• Alex Antoniou
• Alessio Arena
• Tom Arnold-Forster
• Nicholas Attfield
• Christopher Bahl
• Jenny Bangham
• Eleanor Barnett
• Melanie Bassett
• Nick Batho
• Richard Batten
• Jose Bellido
• Meg Bernstein
• Audrey Borowski
• Dauvit Broun
• Anna Calori
• Maria Cannon
• Patrick Carter
• William Cavert
• Kuan-Jen Chen
• Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell
• Joanne Clarke
• Jessica Clarke
• Fabiola Creed
• James Crossley
• Leith Davis
• Carolyn Day
• Abel de Lorenzo Rodríguez
• Henry Dee
• Emma Dillon
• Emily Dolmans
• Marta Dominguez Diaz
• Paul du Quenoy
• Hannah Elias
• Paul Elliott
• Xin Fan
• Bethan Fisk
• Joan Fitzpatrick
• Rosaria Franco
• Amy Froide
• Samuel Fullerton
• Mark Geldof
• Lorna Gibb
• Sheldon Goodman
• Ian Gordon
• Nicholas Halmi
• Stefan Hanß
• Sophie Hatchwell
• Douglas Hope
• Purba Hossain
• Pablo Irizar
• Jacob Ivey
• Stefanos Katsikas
• Stephen Kelly
• Toslima Khatun
• Neha Khetrapal
• Karl Kinsella
• Hiram Kümper
• John Latham-Sprinkle
• Marzia Maccaferri
• Shinobu Majima
• Richard Marks
• Ainsley McIntosh
• Kiran Mehta
• Tom Menger
• Vanesa Miseres
• Stephen Moore
• Alain Naef
• Matteo Antonio Napolitano
• Consuelo Naranjo-Orovio
• Kalathmika Natarajan
• John Nott
• Adrastos Omissi
• Leah Orr
• Giuseppe Paparella
• Ellen Paterson
• Bruce Peter
• Malcolm Petrie
• Julia Phillips
• Adrian Pole
• Adolfo Polo y La Borda
• Stuart Pracy
• Diana Bullen Presciutti
• Antonina Puchkovskaia
• Joan Redmond
• Justin Roberts
• David Ruderman
• Antoninus Samy
• Peter Saunders
• Brandy Schillace
• Anita Sethi
• Victoria Shepherd
• Annie Skinner
• Matthew Smith
• Callum Smith
• Paul Smith
• Hannah Smyth
• Peter Stanley
• Ana Stevenson
• Danica Summerlin
• Rachel Swallow
• Rowan Thompson
• Moya Tönnies
• Shao Kai Tseng
• Jo Tucker
• Sonia Tycko
• Jelmer Vos
• Monica Ann Walker Vadillo
• Andrew Wells
• Richard Whitecross
• Selena Wisnom
• Teresa Witcombe
• Robert Andrew Yee
• Charlton Yingling
• Patrick Zamarian

New Associate Fellows, May 2026

• Vincent okwudiba Anyika
• Eleanor Bailey
• Stefan Bernhardt-Radu
• Meghmala Bhattacharya
• Joshua Bilton
• Huw Bradbury
• Daniel Breeze
• Katie Broomfield
• Alun Burge
• Carlos Leao Cheong
• Lauren Davies
• Júlio Cesar De Souza Dória
• James Deitch
• Andrea Dimitri
• Ellen Durban
• Elias Forneris
• Amy Freeborn
• Ross Fulton
• Witali Gerber
• Becca Grose
• Haley Guepet
• Carrie Hammond
• Annabel Hancock
• Cynthia Hatch
• Nathan Hazlehurst
• Mary Hitchman
• Gavin Holman
• Esther Howard Cuadros
• Scholastica Jacob
• Mohammed Jafari
• Catherine Jenkinson
• Henry Jones
• Elliot Jordan
• Bhaskar Kumar Kakati
• Urvi Khaitan
• Chana Kotzin
• Larissa Kraft
• Frederica Law Turner
• Felix Liber
• Joshua Madrid
• Karen Mailley
• Richard Mammana
• Niall Martin
• Fraser McGowan
• Eddie Meehan
• Nicola Miles
• Katy Mortimer
• Christian Nathen Ng
• Lesley Niezynski
• Alessia Pannese
• Emma Pearce
• Serena Qihui Pei
• Eve Pennington
• Samuel Plaxton
• Aine Poland
• Emma Powell
• Maciej Pulaczewski
• William Rees
• Zoe Screti
• Richard Senior
• Elizabeth Simmons
• Joshua J. Smith
• Daniel Smith
• James Squires
• Philip Stephens
• Annabel Storr
• Ana Struillou
• Melita Thomas
• Judith Tulfer
• John Van Wyk
• Ningfen Wang
• Oluwaseun Williams
• Philip Winterbottom
• Konstantinos Xypolytos
• Peng Zhang
• Shuai Zhang
• Kunyan Zheng

New Members, May 2026

• Heather Adams
• Michela Alessandroni
• Kwesi Amoah
• Danielle Amos
• Damola Awoyokun
• Christopher Bennett
• Anthony Berryhill
• Siman Boaz
• Bruno Boldrini
• Debra Butler
• Simon Clark
• Elspeth Clark
• Mithra de Kleijn
• Tracey Donkin
• Victoria Down
• Ffion Easton-Wilcox
• Peter Edwards
• Rania Elsayed
• Brett Exton
• Paul Foster
• Scott Fotheringham
• Tracey Gaitt
• Oyeshi Ganguly
• Roger Gilboy
• Diana Gordon
• William Guerin
• Umut Guner
• Zoë Hay
• Svitlana Hey
• Duncan Hill
• Yasser Hussain
• Peter Jeffreys
• Mark Jenkinson
• Vinolen John
• Paisley Jones
• Victoria Jung
• Seeun Kim
• Alison Kirke
• Nat Knight
• Gregor Kowalski
• Kyela Leakey
• William Lewis
• Richard Lingwood
• Sasha Madgwick
• Varunpal Mandair
• Mark McAleer
• Sarah McCulloch
• Ian McDougall
• Allyson McElwaine
• Barbara McGee
• Joseph Molto
• Kazka Nadira
• Sean O’Regan
• Oscar Oruche
• Samantha Perrin
• Michael Pitfield
• Kashnar Rakhi Anjan
• Muskan Rawat
• Margaret Rodgers
• Philip Rowe
• Sergiy Saranov
• Luke Seaford
• Oliver Shillinglaw
• Chris Shirley
• Jordan Sieden
• Beverley Simmons
• Matthew Simpson
• Lola Stakenburg
• Christopher Stone
• Harry Tan
• Hugh Thornton
• Craig Truscott-Robins
• Dmytro Tupchiienko
• Isabella van de Grampel
• Jeffrey Wang
• Martha Wood
• Qiyan Wu
• Muhammad Anas Yasir
• Celemet Yener
• Fadilah Zaini
• Weronika Zgryska

New Postgraduate Members, May 2026

• Ayodeji Adegbite
• William Askew
• Alessandro Bianchi
• Keira Blasse
• Charlie Blower
• Anne Louise Booth
• Seosaimhin Bradley
• Christine Brandl
• Richard Brewster
• Sam Brisbourne
• Eleanor Choo
• Erva Ciner
• Christopher Clarke
• Lindsay Cummings
• Nanda Deebu Sheeja
• Matteo Demartis
• Ariana Ellis
• Hamza Elshakankiri
• Carlos Enriquez de Salamanca
• Boris Fonarkov
• Samuel Fox
• Dominic Garwood
• Ayesha Gaye
• Olivia Golby-Kirk
• Natalia Golysheva
• Emre Güney
• Sophie Gustafson
• Leah Guy
• Chris Hall
• Megan Hall
• Noor Hashmi
• Ryan Henson
• Chloe Heslip
• Raymond Holliday
• Samuel Houlberg
• Kristen Jeanveau
• Susan Johnson
• Imad Khan
• Zübeyde Korkmaz
• Serhii Korniienko
• Veronika Lahodinski
• Marcus Leaver
• Harry Legg
• Heather Leonard
• Isabella Lewis
• Yutong Li
• Connall Maclennan
• Myfanwy Mainwaring-Smith
• Colin Mann
• Lottie Marsden
• Samuel Marsh
• Paola Medina-Gonzalez
• Emily Michalik
• Domagoj Mihaljevic
• Catarina Miranda Ferreira
• Avery Monette
• Conor Muller
• Alyssa Myers
• Mateusz Naglik
• Alina Naqvi
• Beatriz Oliveira
• Michael O’Neill
• David Osborne
• Melissa Pearson
• William Penney
• Indu Prasad
• Olga Prokopis
• Sajid Sajid
• Fathima Sana
• Christopher Sharp
• Simran Sidhu
• Rolandas Simkevicius
• Dominique Simpson
• Jules Siran
• Michael Smith
• Victoria Sood
• Kirsten Stein
• Klarke Stricklen
• Eric Su
• Michael Ray Taylor
• Luke Thrumble
• Luke Tregonning
• Jacob Trotter
• Lokesh Vyas
• Nerea Wachter Galindo
• June Watson
• Kate Wormington
• Cesar Zanin
• Dalu Zhong

 

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HEADER IMAGE: Fan with depiction of Spanish folk costumes, Spanish, early 19th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, public domain

 

On Wednesday 14 May, members of the Society’s Council visited historians and students from Aberystwyth University and the surrounding region. We were joined by historians from the universities of Cardiff, Swansea and Bangor who took part in the panel discussions.

The visit — led by the Society’s President Professor Lucy Noakes — combined sessions at the University and the National Library of Wales. A morning panel considered the provision of teaching and research of Welsh history, and the place of history in Welsh HE, prior to the proposed higher education review by the incoming Plaid Cymru government.

Aberystwyth and Bangor are now the only two universities in Wales with dedicated Departments of History and Welsh History, and where history is taught in Welsh. Cuts across higher education place this limited provision under greater strain. Panellists also considered writing history in Welsh, and the need for structures such as REF to appreciate the importance of history communication, across the UK, in languages other than English.

Afternoon panels debated historical practices and approaches — with a focus on ‘Ethics and Oral History’ and ‘Artificial Intelligence and History’ — and a final session on the work of the Royal Historical Society and how it supports historians within and beyond higher education at this time.

 

 

The visit closed with a public lecture, given by our guest speaker Professor Miri Rubin (Queen Mary, University of London). Miri spoke on ‘Black/Beautiful: Meanings of Blackness in a Biblical Verse’, a discussion of blackness as conducted by medieval scholars — Jews and Christians — in their commentaries on Song of Songs 1:5: ‘I am black and/but beautiful’.

Many thanks to Miri for her excellent lecture, and to all who joined us, in Aberystwyth and online, for this event.

Our great thanks also to all who participated in our panels; to staff and students from the National Library of Wales and Aberystwyth’s Department of History and Welsh History for their welcome; and especially to Dr Steven Thomson, Head of Department, for organising and hosting this visit.

 

The Society’s 2026 Prothero Lecture will be given by Rebecca Earle FBA, Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Warwick. Rebecca’s lecture, which takes place at 6.00pm on Wednesday 1 July, is entitled: ‘The Last Voyage of the Santiago: A Ship and its World in the Age of Revolution’.

Rebecca’s lecture offers a study of the Spanish treasure ship, Santiago Apostol, which set sail from Lima in 1792.

The Santiago was heading for Cadiz but was captured at sea, not once but twice, before it reached its destination. The double capture altered the lives of Filipino sailors, Lancashire handloom-weavers, and Sephardic notaries. It precipitated war between Britain and Spain and shaped European ideas about distant Peru and its peoples. It also injected nearly a million pounds into the British economy.

​By following the story of the Santiago, and listening to some of its voices, Rebecca’s lecture will trace the processes linking people — a Peruvian merchant, an Admiralty judge, a landlady on the Isle of Wight — who themselves never met, lives both entangled and disconnected. We also better appreciate the role of imperial warfare in circulating global goods to new consumers; war was both an obstacle and a stimulus to the era’s growing consumption. The Santiago’s eventful last voyage opens a window into the turbulent world of the 1790s, offering a sideways view of the Age of Revolution.

The 2026 Prothero Lecture takes place, in-person, at Mary Ward House, Tavistock Place, London, WC1H 9SN and online. Booking for in-person and online attendance is now available. The lecture is open to all.

The Lecture will be followed by the Society’s annual summer party, at Mary Ward House, to which all are very welcome. The party is an excellent opportunity to meet with fellow historians and members of the Society.

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About the 2026 Prothero Lecturer

Rebecca Earle teaches history at the University of Warwick. Her books include Spain and the Independence of Colombia (2000), The Return of the Native: Indians and Mythmaking in Spanish America, 1810-1930 (2008), The Body of the Conquistador: Food, Race and the Colonial Experience in Spanish America, 1492-1700 (2012), and, most recently, Feeding the People: The Politics of the Potato (2020), which uses the history of the potato to trace out some of the key features of modernity.

Rebecca is currently writing about what we can learn from cookbooks (other than how to cook), as well as researching the surprising and consequential last voyage of the Santiago Apostol, a Spanish ship captured (twice) in 1793. A further project explores the circulation around early-modern Europe of artworks from colonial Spanish America.

Rebecca was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2020.

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About the Society’s Prothero Lecture

First held in 1969, the Royal Historical Society’s Prothero Lecture is named for the historian and RHS President, George W. Prothero (1848-1924).

The lecture is given by leading historians whose research has shaped how we think about the past. Previous Prothero lecturers include: Samuel H. Beer, Joanna Bourke, Linda Colley, Stefan Collini, Natalie Zemon Davis, Olwen Hufton, Sujit Sivasundaram, Quentin Skinner, Brenda E. Stevenson, and Keith Thomas.

The 2025 RHS Prothero Lecture was given by Professor Peter Gatrell FBA (University of Manchester). An article version of Peter’s lecture — ‘The “Refugee World”: a Twentieth-Century Retrospective’ — is now available in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society.

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HEADER IMAGE: Four frigates capturing Spanish treasure ships, 5 October 1804, by Francis Sartorius (1807),  National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Greenwich Hospital Collection, Wikimedia Commons, public domain.