RHS News

The Royal Historical Society seeks to appoint a Secretary for Professional Engagement to join the Society’s governing Council which currently comprises a total of 19 Officers and Councillors who are trustees of the RHS.

The Secretary for Professional Engagement will sit as an Officer on Council and attend Council meetings and will take up the post at an agreed date in 2024.

The appointment is for a two-year term, with possibility of renewal up to four years, and is part of a review of the Society’s governance to focus on areas of key importance to the discipline at this time. Applicants must be Fellows of the Royal Historical Society. Applications may be made via the Society’s applications platform before the closing date of 11:59 PM, Friday 8 March 2024.

About the role

The role of Secretary for Professional Engagement is designed to develop the Society’s links with professional historians at all career stages. The Secretary will lead on the Society’s professional support of historians, primarily but not solely within UK higher education. The post holder will work closely with the President, Academic Director and CEO in order to provide strategic leadership for the Society in this sphere through the development of training events, networking opportunities, and other activities of their own design.

The RHS runs an active programme of activities for professional historians at all stages, from PhD research to later career. These include training workshops on topics relating to teaching, research, engagement with the media, academic administrative roles, as well as personal career development with a particular recent focus on the needs of historians at mid-career. The Secretary for Professional Engagement will contribute ideas for this programme, and so build on the Society’s offer to historians at all career stages and those who work outside Higher Education.

The role requires a time-commitment of up to two days per month. Owing to the Society’s charitable status, the role is unremunerated.

For further details and specifications of the role please, and how to apply, please see here.

Applications for the post of Secretary for Professional Engagement can made via the Society’s applications platform before the closing date of 11:59 PM, Friday 8 March 2024.

Informal enquiries about the role may be made to: Professor Emma Griffin (president@royalhistsoc.org)

Questions about the application process may be sent to: administration@royalhistsoc.org.

 

The Council of the Royal Historical Society is delighted to announce the appointment of Lucy Noakes as its next President from November 2024.

Lucy Noakes is Rab Butler Professor of Modern History at the University of Essex and a social and cultural historian of early to mid 20th-century Britain. She will take up the Presidency of the Royal Historical Society in November 2024 when she succeeds the current President, Emma Griffin, who completes her term in office later this year.

Lucy will be the 36th President of the Royal Historical Society since its formation in 1868. As President, Professor Noakes will lead the Society’s work to advocate for the historical profession and to promote the value of historical knowledge and understanding, in higher education and related sectors.

Before joining the University of Essex in 2017, Lucy Noakes held academic posts at the universities of Southampton Solent, Portsmouth and Brighton. As a specialist in the history of modern Britain, Lucy researches the experience and memory of those who have lived through conflict, with a particular focus on the First and Second World Wars. Her recent monographs include Dying for the Nation. Death, Grief and Bereavement in Second World War Britain (2020) and War and the British: Gender, Memory and National Identity 1939-1991 (revised edition 2023). Lucy’s work has made extensive use of the Mass Observation Archive, of which she is now a trustee.

On her election as the next President of the Royal Historical Society, Lucy Noakes said:

I am honoured and excited to be leading the Royal Historical Society as its new President from November 2024. This is a time of considerable opportunity and challenge for history and historians.

History is currently thriving in many ways: public interest in the past is unparalleled and today’s historians are working with great creativity, dedication and skill to bring their research to new audiences. Equally, history is facing unprecedented pressures, most notably in higher education where its value and contribution to society is often under-appreciated.

The Royal Historical Society is central to both these environments—championing history’s opportunities and potential while supporting and defending the discipline and profession. As President, I look forward greatly to working with the Society’s Council, its membership, and the wider historical community, to pursue these important goals.

To accompany the announcement, Lucy has written today for the RHS blog on ‘History and Memory in the 21st Century’.

 

Emma Griffin, President of the Royal Historical Society, 2020-24, said:

I am absolutely delighted to welcome Lucy as President-Elect of the Royal Historical Society and look forward to working with her in the coming months. Lucy is a brilliant historian and ideally suited to lead the Society and to develop its work as the national voice for history and historians.

With a wealth of experience in the historical society sector and in public history, Lucy fully appreciates the many ways historical research is now undertaken within and beyond higher education. I’m sure her interests and approach will be appreciated by the Society’s membership, and attract many more historians to join the Society and support its promotion of the discipline.

 

Commenting on the appointment, Jane Winters, chair of the Society’s Presidential Selection Committee, said:

Lucy has the ideal mix of expertise and experience to lead the Royal Historical Society in supporting and championing historians wherever they are found. She has a deep understanding of the challenges faced by different kinds of institution, both within and outside higher education, and an outstanding track record of working across sectors to promote and advance the discipline of history.

Lucy combines exceptional scholarship with extensive management and leadership experience, and takes a wonderfully collaborative approach to both. I’m delighted that she will be taking over as President from November 2024, to build on the work of Emma and her predecessors.

 

The Royal Historical Society is the UK’s foremost learned society for the support of history and historians. Founded in 1868, today’s Society is an international membership organisation of more than 6,000 historians working in higher education, archives, museums, publishing and broadcasting, as well as independent researchers and in community history groups.

The Society undertakes advocacy for the historical profession and promotion of the value of history; policy and research in areas relating to the discipline; a programme of public lectures and events; provision of research funding; and scholarly publishing, including its journal, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (founded in 1872).

 

Now available, in print and online, Gender, Emotions and Power, 1750–2020 — edited by Hannah Parker and Josh Dyble — is the latest title in the Royal Historical Society’s New Historical Perspectives book series. This new collection offers a timely intervention into contemporary debates on emotions, gender, race and power by asking: ‘how are emotional expectations established as gendered, racialised and class-based notions’?

Chronologically and geographically broad, the essays cover settler colonies in southern Africa, post-unification Italy, Maoist China, the Soviet Union and British Raj, among others. Collectively the essays consider how emotional expectations have been generated, stratified and maintained by institutions, societies, media and those with access to power.

Gender, Emotions and Power, 1750–2020 is the 17th title in the Society’s New Historical Perspectives series for early career historians within 10 years of completing a PhD at a UK or Irish university. All titles are published online as Open Access editions and in paperback print with Open Access fees covered by the series partners: the Royal Historical Society, Institute of Historical Research and University of London Press. For more on the series, and how to submit a proposal, please see here.

 

 

 

Forthcoming titles in the series, available in 2024, include Martin Sypchal’s Mapping the State. English Boundaries and the 1832 Reform Act and Rachel E. Johnson’s Women’s Voices and Historical Silences in South Africa. Young Women and Youth Activism in the Anti-Apartheid Struggle.

Full online access to all of the titles is available via University of London Press.

 

 

The Royal Historical Society is pleased to announce details of its 2024 events programme.

The series includes the launch of a new partnership between the Society and the German Historical Institute, London to promote research in global history. We are delighted that the inaugural RHS/GHIL Lecture will be given by Clare Anderson (Leicester) on Tuesday 23 January 2024 on the subject of ‘Convicts, Creolization and Cosmopolitanism: Aftermaths of Penal Transportation in the British Empire’. Booking for online attendance of this lecture is now available.

Clare’s lecture is followed, on Thursday 1 February, with the first RHS Lecture of 2024: ‘Charting Authority after Empire: Documentary Culture and Political Legitimacy in Post-Carolingian Europe’, with Levi Roach (Exeter). Levi’s lecture takes place at Mary Ward House, London, and online, and registration is now open.

Later RHS Lectures will be given, in May, by Julia Laite (Birkbeck) and, in September, Caroline Pennock (Sheffield). In July, we are very pleased to welcome Peter Frankopan (Oxford) to deliver the Society’s 2024 Prothero Lecture, and in November to host Janina Ramirez for the Society’s annual Public History Lecture, in association with Gresham College.

On 13 March 2024, the Society visits historians at the universities of York and York St John and jointly hosts a public lecture with Fay Bound Alberti (King’s College London). This is followed in May with a visit to Brunel University which includes a partnership lecture from Corinne Fowler (Leicester).

Other events in 2024 include the Society’s annual conference, History and Archives in Practice, which is run jointly with The National Archives and the Institute of Historical Research. Taking place on 6 March, at Cardiff University, ‘HAP24’ will consider the preservation and legacy of archive collections. And on Tuesday 20 February we’re delighted to host ‘Finding the Funny in Public History’, an evening of conversation with the broadcaster and author Greg Jenner for which in-person and online booking is now open.

Details of these events are available in the events pages of the RHS website and will be advertised via social media and the Society’s weekly mailing to members. We’ll be adding further details and new events to our 2024 programme in the new year.

 

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Listen again to Society events from 2023

Video and audio recordings of many of the Society’s events held in 2023 are also available via the RHS Events Archive.

• Sessions from 2023 include lectures by Brenda E. Stevenson (Oxford), on ‘Enslaved Black Life, Courtship and Marriage in the Antebellum South’ and John Gallagher (Leeds) on ‘Migrant Voices in the Multilingual City’.
• Panel discussions include ‘Eric Williams’ Capitalism and Slavery: Debates, Legacies and New Directions for Research’ (June); ‘Writing and Publishing Trade History’ (with Yale University Press London, October) and ‘Black British History. Where Now, Where Next?’ (October).
• Training Workshops in 2023 include ‘Digital History and Collaborative Research: a Practitioners’ Roundtable’ (May) and ‘Scholarly Editing for Historians: An Introduction and Guide to Working with Primary Texts’ (July).

 

 

The Society’s Events Archive includes video and audio recordings of recent lectures and panel discussions hosted by the RHS. Now available to watch or listen again are recordings of the following sessions held in autumn 2023.

Further below you’ll find details of opening events in our 2024 programme which begins on 23 January with the inaugural RHS / German Historical Institute Lecture on Global History.

 

RHS Presidential Lecture, 2023 

‘European Exploration, Empires, and the Making of the Modern World’, with Emma Griffin (24 November)

 

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RHS Public History Lecture, in association with Gresham College

‘Pilgrimages, Pandemics and the Past’, with Tom Holland (7 November)

 

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RHS Panel: ‘Black British History. Where Now, Why Next?

with Hannah Elias, Kesewa John, Liam Liburd and Bill Schwarz (24 October)

 

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RHS Panel: ‘Writing and Publishing Trade History’, in association with Yale University Press (10 October)

with Rebecca Clifford, Robert Gildea, Heather McCallum, James Pullen, Simon Winder and Emma Griffin

 

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RHS Lecture: ‘Migrant Voices in the Multilingual City’, with John Gallagher (15 September)

 

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RHS Sponsored Lecture, with the Canterbury Christ Church University and the University of Kent

‘The Transatlantic Trade in Enslaved African People and the Emergence of New Relationships between State and Commerce in Restoration in England’, with William Pettigrew (11 September)

 

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What’s coming up in 2024?

 

We look forward to welcoming you to our events in 2024. In January and February we host lectures and discussions with:

• Clare Anderson on ‘Convicts, Creolization and Cosmopolitanism: aftermaths of penal transportation in the British Empire’ – the inaugural Royal Historical Society / German Historical Institute Lecture on Global History, at the GHIL and Online (5.30pm, Tuesday 23 January 2024)
• Levi Roach on ‘Charting Authority after Empire: Documentary Culture and Political Legitimacy in Post-Carolingian Europe’ – the first of 2024’s RHS Lectures, at Mary Ward House, London, and Online (6pm, Thursday 1 February 2024)
• Greg Jenner in conversation with Emma Griffin on ‘Finding the Funny in Public History’, at Mary Ward House, London, and Online (6pm, Tuesday 20 February 2024)

Further details of these lectures and talks, and how to book, are available here, along with our 2024 programme of events to which we’ll be adding in the coming months.

 

At its latest meeting on 24 November 2023, the RHS Council elected 57 Fellows, 42 Associate Fellows, 50 Members and 106 Postgraduate Members, a total of 255 people newly associated with the Society, from today.

The majority of the new Fellows hold academic appointments at universities, specialising in a very wide range of fields; but also include museum curators, archivists, heritage consultants, and independent researchers and writers. The Society is an international community of historians and our latest intake includes Fellows from ten countries: Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Israel, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and 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, 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 medicine – together with independent and community historians and genealogists.

Our new Postgraduate Members are studying for higher degrees in History, or related subjects, at 53 different universities in the UK, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, 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 25 March 2024. Further details on RHS Fellowship and Membership categories (Fellow, Associate Fellow, Member and Postgraduate Member); benefits of membership; deadlines for applications throughout 2024; and how to apply, are available here.

New Fellows, elected November 2023

• Rowena Abdul Razak
• Carol Atack
• Victoria Bateman
• Susanna Berger
• Stephen Bogle
• Andrew Braddock
• Brian Brewer
• Cecilia Brioni
• Philip Butterworth
• Anna Cant
• Ian Castle
• Michael Charney
• Salvatore Ciriacono
• Leah Clark
• Ben Clements
• Charalambos Dendrinos
• Leslie Dodd
• Joshua Ehrlich
• Beñat Elortza Larrea
• Sarah Finley
• Ellinor Forster
• Rosemary Golding
• Dannelle Gutarra Cordero
• Louise Hide
• John Jenkins
• Daniel Jordan
• Sarah Kirby
• Thoralf Klein
• Chris Laoutaris
• Martina Mampieri
• Joanna Martin
• Annemarie McAllister
• Alexandra Milanova
• Christopher Minty
• James Mulholland
• Leonard Neidorf
• Niamh NicGhabhann
• Julia Nicholls
• Brian O’Sullivan
• Fiona Palmer
• Eve Patten
• Nicola Ann Hero Pickering
• Linsey Robb
• John Rumsby
• Giusi Russo
• Alexandra Sapoznik
• Benjamin Savill
• Andrew Seaton
• Yifan Shi
• Sebastian Sobecki
• Tarangini Sriraman
• Kate Stevens
• Margot Tudor
• Lucas Villegas-Aristizabal
• Kevin Weddle
• Christopher Wiley
• Gareth Williams

New Associate Fellows, elected November 2023

• Ann-Marie Akehurst
• Molly Avery
• Shaona Barik
• Elizabeth Barnes
• Matthew Bayly
• Stuart Booker
• Fiona Bowler
• Jack Bowman
• Natalie Butler
• Samuel Cardwell
• Michelle Castelletti
• Melchisedek Chetima
• Jennifer Chochinov
• Kelly Clarke-Neish
• Mark Czellér
• Lisa Di Crescenzo
• Sally Dixon-Smith
• Iain Flood
• Andrew Frampton
• Elizabeth Griffiths
• Tom Kelsey
• Struan Kennedy
• Sam Antony Kocheri Clement
• Paul Le Messurier
• Maelle Le Roux
• Fergal Leonard
• Harry Lewis
• Cheng Li
• Richard Loutzenheiser
• Timothy Maton
• Rhianne Morgan
• Danny Pucknell
• Tom Roberts
• Martin Robson
• John Sawkins
• Kathryn Simpson
• Annie Skinner
• Ellen Smith
• Miloš Todorović
• Jonathan Triffitt
• Emily Webb
• Ksenia Wesolowska

New Members, elected November 2023

• Denise Awoonor-Renner
• Kathleen Bascon
• Matthew Brook
• Christopher Brown
• Eric Buchmann
• David Cardillo
• Andrew Carpenter
• Hanfu Chen
• Arda Ciftci
• Coleen Dessalle
• Lara Dieudonné
• Jack Edson
• Liza Fitzgerald
• Elizabeth Geeves
• Clive Gilham
• Alisa Gupwell
• Sam Harper-Coulson
• Zachary Hawson
• Mark Hayball
• Tudor Hicks
• Roger Hill
• Mary Jiyani
• George Jones
• Sakir Laskar
• Amanda Lickrish
• Charles Littlewood
• Jason Loch
• Wilson Maguwah
• Pascoe Mitchelmore
• Kiwon Nam
• Alex O’Connor
• Nipon Panging
• Siddhant Patnaik
• Alexander Pocklington
• Lander Rupprecht
• Himasweeta Sarma
• Dhruv Sarup
• Christopher Skeet
• Elizabeth Smith
• Georgina Spriddell
• Barrie Taylor-Fraser
• Li Xuan Teo
• Dan Tessadri
• Christopher Thomas
• Jake Thomas
• Daniel Townend
• Escola Van Veen
• Nimai Verma
• Sabrina Wiggins
• Jonathan Woodcock

New Postgraduate Members, elected November 2023

• Laura Aitken-Burt
• Chloe Akers
• Mathilde Alain
• Pavel Alam
• Jose Maria Alvarez Hernandez
• Aleksa Andrejevic
• Selin Arican
• David Austen
• Aaron Marcel Beaudin
• Kathryn Berry
• Arkadeb Bhattacharya
• Anik Biswas
• Ryan Blank
• Victoria Broughton
• Chris Caden
• Chris Campbell
• Julie Chamberlain
• Tonghao Chen
• Benjamin Coleman
• Georgina Crespi
• Jojo Dickinson
• Odysseas Digbassanis
• Rebecca Doherty
• Doris Duhennois
• Charlotte Eaton
• Regan Ebsworth
• Florence Eccleston
• Peter Edwards
• Stephen Evans
• Luke Farrell
• Theo Fawcett
• Catherine Finnie
• Madeleine Foote
• Josh Fordham
• Alexandra Forsyth
• Jessica Gallagher
• Elizabeth Garner
• Anamitra Ghosh
• Christos Giannatos
• Ed Green
• Tristan Grove
• Candice Hague
• Anna Harrington
• Laura Hawthorn
• Emily Hayes
• Elysia Louise Heitmar
• Ciara Hervas
• Ellie Hibbert
• Minke Hijmans
• Rebekah Hodge
• Claire Holliss
• Paul Hutchinson
• Thomas Hendrik Kaal
• Khushi Kesari
• Mahima Khan
• Aryan Khare
• Charlie Knight
• Debra Kontowtt
• Amit Kumar
• Leong Yung Kung
• Tewa Lascelles
• Hasaam Latif
• Sarah Lawson-Schalles
• Beatrice Leeming
• Chengkai Lian
• Yanyi Liu
• Jessica Love
• Jagyoseni Mandal
• Maria Teresa Marangoni
• Mick McTiernan
• Claudia Isabelle Montero
• Gwenffrewi Morgan
• Rebecca Mowbray
• Maeghan O’Conner
• Harry O’Neill
• Jennifer Phillips
• Dushlani Ishara Pilanage
• Alexandra Plane
• Josh Racey
• Sydney Radford
• Eva Ressel
• Hannah Reynolds
• Anna Richards
• Jude Rowley
• Saukarya Samad
• Simon Scruton
• Manaswini Sen
• Guting Shen
• Shamim Shivaie
• Sarah Stanley-Smith
• Andrew Steels
• Rebecca Stoneham
• Melinda Susanto
• Wyatt Switzer
• Qiqing Tan
• Ransford Tei
• Kristen Thomas-McGill
• Eliane Thoma-Stemmet
• Yixin Tian
• Edmund van der Molen
• Anais Walsdorf
• Lauren Warner-Treloar
• Andrew White
• Elizabeth Wilkinson
• Sebastian Willis
• Mhairi Winfield

 

HEADER IMAGE: ‘Winterlandschap met schaatsers’, Hendrick Avercamp, ca. 1608 (detail), Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, public domain.

 

 

The Royal Historical Society is pleased to announce the inaugural David Berry Fellowship in Scottish History and the History of the Scottish People.

Launched in December 2023, the David Berry Fellowship provides an annual award of up to £2,500 to undertake research on the history of Scotland and the Scottish people worldwide.

Invitations are now invited for the inaugural David Berry Fellowship prior to the closing date of 1 March 2024. For more on the Fellowship, eligibility, and how to apply, please see here.

The Fellowship is a new award drawing on the David Berry Fund, donated to the Society in 1929 and used, until 2022, to support the David Berry Prize in Scottish History. The change to a Fellowship from 2024 is in line with the Society’s strategic aims of using available funds to support new research and activity by historians.

The David Berry Fellowship may be used to undertake research, and to cover the costs of research, into an aspect of the history of Scotland and / or the history of the Scottish people within the United Kingdom or worldwide, within 12 months of 1 March 2024.

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What is covered by the Fellowship?

The David Berry Fellowship is intended to enable and facilitate research that would not otherwise take place. Sources of funding may include, but are not limited to:

• Travel to an archive or research site
• Accommodation while researching away from home
• Entrance charges for archives, or similar, where required
• Fees for obtaining or posting research materials (e.g. copying / scanning)
• Please note: the Fellowship may not be used to pay a third party to undertake research or to support the publication of a final manuscript

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Other current calls for RHS research funding

In addition to the David Berry Fellowship, applications for the following grants are now open with deadlines marked below:

• RHS Workshop Grants – awards of £1000 for historians to hold day-long events to pursue a wide range of activities and projects, including but not limited to research. Next closing date for applications: Friday 19 January 2024.
• Early Career Research Fellowships – for historians within 5 years of completing a PhD to support career-building research or activities in the post-PhD period. Awards of £2000, maximum, providing support for discrete outcomes lasting no more than 6 months. Next closing date for applications: Friday 1 March 2024.
• Open Research Support Grants – for all historians who are not postgraduate students or early career researchers (within 5 years of completing a PhD). Awards of either £500 or £1000 to support specified research activities. Next closing date for applications: Friday 1 March 2024.

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HEADER IMAGES: (left); William Duguid, Scottish textile importer based in Boston (1773), by Prince Demah Barnes; (right) ‘Janet Law’, by Sir Henry Raeburn, both Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, public domain.

 

The Royal Historical Society is pleased to announce the availability of its 2023 Annual Newsletter and the Trustees Annual Report and Audited Financial Statements, covering the activities of the Society between 1 July 2022 and 30 June 2023. Both were published in the week of the Society’s AGM, held at Mary Ward House, London, on Friday 24 November.

The Trustees Annual Report provides a review of the activities of the Society in its most recent full financial year, together with plans for future work by the Society, and the financial statements to 30 June 2023.

Print copies of the Society’s Annual Newsletter (dated November 2023) have now been sent to all Fellows and Members of the Society in the UK and overseas.

This year’s Newsletter includes the annual President’s Letter; articles on RHS Education and Research Policy from the Society’s newly appointed Secretaries for Education and Research Policy, Adam Budd and Barbara Bombi; a guide to the Society’s new Members Directory which will launch in early 2024; introductions to the research of this year’s RHS Centenary and Marshall Fellows; and a reflection on the work of our friend and colleague, the historian Arthur Burns (1963-2023).

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Other ways to keep in touch: in addition to the Trustees Annual Report and Annual Newsletter, the Society sends out a weekly News Circular to all Fellows and Members (this example dated 23 November 2023) informing them of current and forthcoming news and events, which are also featured on this website. You can also follow updates via RHS News, social media @RoyalHistSoc, and the blog, Historical Transactions.

 

 

We are, sadly, all too familiar with news of cuts within UK History departments. The Royal Historical Society meets regularly with historians facing course closures and redundancies. The Society also speaks out for individual departments and the sector as a whole.

What we learned last week from Oxford Brookes University goes far beyond the cases previously encountered. In terms of extent, rapidity and impact, the cuts and job losses proposed at Oxford Brookes are remarkably severe. History is not alone. Recent coverage has highlighted the university’s plan to close its Music programme—a decision which also affects cultural historians in that department. Cuts are similarly proposed for English, Film, Anthropology and Architecture.

For History the proposal is shocking. All six of the department’s professors are at risk of redundancy. Four will be required to leave either ‘voluntarily’ in January or through compulsory redundancy by Spring 2024. If carried through, this would reduce the number of front-line teaching staff to as low as eight FTE. This is a long way from the mid 2010s when Brookes History was a significant force of c. 30 historians with an average annual intake of more than 100 undergraduates across single and joint honours degrees.

The impact of these cuts will be considerable. First and foremost are those whose positions are now at risk. But the effects go much further. Redundancies, mid-way through the year, will severely deplete the department’s teaching capacity; they will damage students’ learning experience—most notably for those in their final year preparing dissertations; and will mean much heavier teaching loads for colleagues who remain.

Furthermore, cuts of this focus and severity look set to end a culture of historical research that’s previously thrived at Oxford Brookes. This is a research group widely admired and respected across the profession, and one that has performed well in recent research assessments. What, we have to ask, has happened to the QR funding earned by Brookes historians if it has not gone to support these historians? How does the university intend to use this funding in future if the department is reduced to a much lower level of staffing?

It is especially alarming that erosion of research culture appears to be the university’s intention. What makes the Oxford Brookes proposal so concerning is not the common pretence that all will be well despite fewer resources; rather that the purpose of Brookes History and humanities is changing fundamentally to the detriment of research. To jettison a respected research culture will, we fear, damage the wider university through loss of reputation, research income and academic partnerships.

Why is this happening? Colleagues highlight recent fluctuations in student numbers in History. As the Society reported in June 2023, lifting the cap on student numbers in 2015 has created an environment of feast and famine, in which departments are either overwhelmed by or deprived of students. Neither outcome can support long-term planning or the highest-quality teaching and research. Even so, the situation at Brookes has recently stabilised with admissions for History on the rise.

The extent and rapidity of cuts at Oxford Brookes clearly go far beyond individual departments. They speak to wider difficulties faced by the university. What is unacceptable is those now paying the price are skilled, successful historians and their students—alongside those in other humanities departments facing cuts or closure.

The Society is communicating these concerns to the Vice Chancellor and Governors of Oxford Brookes in the strongest terms. The Society’s experience is that departments of fewer than 10 FTE struggle and seldom prove viable. This cannot be allowed to happen at Oxford Brookes either by design or neglect. We urge the university to pause its current proposals and timetable to allow for a more considered review of History’s future at Brookes—for the benefits of students, all staff, and the discipline.

The President, Officers and Councillors of the Royal Historical Society