Camden Series volumes, 2022: new primary source collections for historians

Each year the Society publishes two volumes of primary source materials, edited by historians who’ve worked closely with these documents. The volumes appear in the Society’s Camden Series of scholarly editions and make new sets of primary sources available for research.

Each volume, compiled and edited by a specialist in the subject, includes an Introduction and full references and annotations. Camden Society volumes are published online and in print for the Society by Cambridge University Press.

The Camden Series volumes, 2022, provide primary sources on everyday life in Early modern England and high politics in Britain, Ireland and Germany in the interwar years.

 

Volume 64The Diary of George Lloyd (1642-1718), edited by Daniel Patterson (November 2022)

Virtually unknown to scholarship, Lloyd’s diary is not a record of notable events. Rather, it is a uniquely quotidian text consisting of regular daily entries documenting the activities and experiences of an individual far removed from great events.

Lloyd’s diary will be an invaluable resource for scholars studying many aspects of early modern English social and cultural history, including sociality, fashion, religious observance, courtship, food and drink, and working life.

The Diary of George Lloyd, 1642-1718 is now available online and in print from Cambridge University Press. RHS Fellows and Members may purchase hardback print copies directly from the Society for £16 per volume or £25 for both 2022 Camden Series volumes. To do so please email: administration@royalhistsoc.org.

Read the Introduction to The Diary of George Lloyd, 1642-1718.

Here, the editor Dr Daniel Patterson introduces George Lloyd and his world, on the Society’s blog, ‘Historical Transactions’.

 

Volume 63Aristocracy, Democracy, and Dictatorship. The Political Papers of the Seventh Marquess of Londonderry, edited by N. C. Fleming (September 2022).

The seventh Marquess of Londonderry (1878–1949) corresponded with the leading political figures of his day, including Winston Churchill (his second cousin), Neville Chamberlain, Stanley Baldwin and Ramsay MacDonald. Londonderry’s amateur diplomacy in the 1930s meant that his regular correspondents also included Hermann Göring, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Franz von Papen.

Aristocracy, Democracy, and Dictatorship is now available online and in print from Cambridge University Press. RHS Fellows and Members may purchase hardback print copies directly from the Society for £16 per volume or £25 for both 2022 Camden Series volumes. To do so please email: administration@royalhistsoc.org.

Read the Introduction to Aristocracy, Democracy, and Dictatorship. The Political Papers of the Seventh Marquess of Londonderry.

Here, on the Society’s blog, ‘Historical Transactions’, the volume’s editor Professor Neil Fleming introduces the interwar political networks of the Marquess of Londonderry.

 


About the RHS Camden Series

 

 

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 series is available via Cambridge Journals Online and full access is available to the Society’s Members and Fellows, as part of new member benefits from 2022. We welcome proposals for new Camden volumes: for more on how to submit an idea to the editors, please see the Camden Series page of the RHS website.

 

RHS Events programme, 2023

New events will be added to this programme as the year progresses; please check back for updates which will also be announced via social media


Thursday 12 January 2023 at 5.30 pm

Vanessa Harding (Birkbeck)
‘Plague and Poverty in Early Modern London’
RHS Sponsored Lecture, at the University of Roehampton


Friday 3 February 2023 at 5.00 pm

Sarah Badcock (Nottingham)
‘Waiting to Die? Life for Elderly People in Late Imperial Russian Villages’
RHS Lecture, Online


Friday 21 February 2023 at 2.00 pm

‘Mid-Career Conversations for Historians’ (1 of 5): ‘Being a Mid-Career Historian in Non-History Department’
With Julian Wright (RHS Secretary for Professional Engagement and Northumbria)
RHS Online Series (reserved for mid-career Fellows and members of the Royal Historical Society)

This is a set of five mid-career ‘Conversations’, covering different subject areas, taking place during 2023.


Wednesday 29 March 2023, 10.00 am – 5.00 pm

‘Collecting Communities: Working Together and with Collections’
History and Archives in Practice, 2023

New annual event, in association with The National Archives and Institute of Historical Research
Conference, at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London


Thursday 20 April 2023 at 11.00 am

‘Mid-Career Conversations for Historians’ (2 of 5): ‘Embarking on a New Research project at Mid-Career’
With Julian Wright (RHS Secretary for Professional Engagement and Northumbria)
RHS Online Series (reserved for mid-career Fellows and members of the Royal Historical Society)


Thursday 27 April 2023 at 12.45 pm

‘History and Archives in Practice, 2: Video Presenters’ Panel’
Panellists: Sarah Aitchison (UCL), Holly Brewer (Maryland), Michelle Crowther (Canterbury Christ Church), Nick Evans (Hull), Helen Newell (Edge Hill) and Andrew Smith (Queen Mary, London)
Online Panel Discussion, with The National Archives and Institute of Historical Research


Friday 5 May 2023 at 5.00 pm

Joanna Story (Leicester)
‘Script, Scribes and Scholars: Anglo-Saxon Influence in Charlemagne’s Francia’
RHS Lecture, at University College London and Online


Tuesday 16 May 2023 at 6.30 pm

Serhii Plokhy (Harvard), in conversation with Richard J. Evans
‘The Russo-Ukrainian War’
Online Event on publication of Serhii Plokhy’s new book


Wednesday 17 May 2023 at 5.00 pm

Rosemary Sweet (Leicester)
‘British encounters with Spain’s Muslim past, c.1760-1820’
RHS Sponsored Lecture, at the University of Northampton and Online. Part of the Society’s visit to historians at Northampton


Tuesday 23 May 2023 at 5.00 pm

‘Digital History and Collaborative Research: a Practitioners’ Roundtable’
Panellists: Daniel Edelstein (Stanford University), Maryanne Kowaleski (Fordham), Jon Lawrence (Exeter), Katrina Navickas (Hertfordshire) and Ruth Ahnert (Queen Mary London, chair)
Online Panel Discussion


Tuesday 13 June 2023 at 5.00 pm

‘Eric Williams’ Capitalism and Slavery: Debates, Legacies and New Directions for Research’
Panellists: Heather Cateau (University of the West Indies), Stephen Mullen (Glasgow), Harvey Neptune (Temple PA), Meleisa Ono-George (Oxford) and Matthew J. Smith (UCL, chair)
Online Panel Discussion


Friday 16 June 2023 at 11.00 am

‘Mid-Career Conversations for Historians’ (3 of 5): ‘Becoming a mentor for departmental colleagues’
With Julian Wright (RHS Secretary for Professional Engagement and Northumbria)
RHS Online Series (reserved for mid-career Fellows and members of the Royal Historical Society)


Wednesday 21 June 2023 at 2.00 pm

Tom Almeroth-Williams (Cambridge)
‘Your Research and the Media: An Introduction and Guide for Historians’
RHS Training Workshop, Online (reserved for members of the Royal Historical Society)


Wednesday 5 July 2023 at 5.00 pm

The RHS Prothero Lecture: Brenda Stevenson (Oxford)
‘To Do and Be Undone: Enslaved Black Life, Courtship, and Marriage in the Antebellum South’
At University College London and Online


Tuesday 18 July 2023 at 2.00 pm

‘Scholarly Editing for Historians: an Introduction and Guide to Working with Primary Texts’
Speakers: Richard Gaunt (Nottingham, and Editor for the RHS Camden Series), Siobhan Talbott (Keele, and Editor for the RHS Camden Series), Jayne Gifford (UEA and recent Camden editor) and Daniel Patterson (Independent Scholar and recent Camden editor)
 Online Workshop


Monday 11 September 2023 at 5.00 pm

William Pettigrew (Lancaster)
‘The Transatlantic Trade in Enslaved African People and the Emergence of New Relationships between State and Commerce in Restoration in England’
RHS Sponsored Lecture, at the Universities of Canterbury Christ Church and Kent. Part of the Society’s visit to historians at Kent and Canterbury Christ Church


Friday 15 September 2023 at 5.00 pm

John Gallagher (Leeds)
‘Migrant Voices in the Multilingual City’
RHS Lecture, at University College London and Online


Monday 18 September 2023 at 5.00 pm

Lucy Noakes (Essex)
‘In memory of my Great Grandfather and his infant son’: Histories, Communities and Feelings in the Centenary of the First World War’
RHS Sponsored Lecture, at the University of the Highlands and Islands. Part of the Society’s visit to historians at the University of Highlands and Islands


Friday 22 September 2023 at 3.00 pm

‘Mid-Career Conversations for Historians’ (4 of 5): ‘Engaging with other disciplines in your research and teaching’
With Julian Wright (RHS Secretary for Professional Engagement and Northumbria)
RHS Online Series (reserved for mid-career Fellows and members of the Royal Historical Society)


Friday 22 September 2023 at 3.00 pm

‘Applying for an Academic Job: Workshop for ECR Historians of Colour
Online Workshop


Wednesday 11 October 2023 at 11.00 am

History and Archives in Practice: Archivists of History
Online event with The National Archives and Institute of Historical Research


Monday 16 October 2023 at 5.00 pm

Elaine Farrell (Queen’s University Belfast) and Leanne McCormick (Ulster University)
‘Naming and Shaming? Telling Bad Bridget Stories’
RHS Sponsored Lecture, at the University of Hertfordshire. Part of the Society’s visit to historians at the University of Hertfordshire.


Tuesday 24 October 2023 at 5.00 pm

‘Black British History. Where Now, Why Next?’
Speakers: Hannah Elias (Goldsmiths, University of London), Kesewa John (Goldsmiths, University of London), Liam Liburd (Durham), Bill Schwarz (Queen Mary, University of London) and Emma Griffin (RHS and Queen Mary, London, chair) 

Online Panel


Tuesday 7 November 2023 at 6.00 pm

The RHS Public History Lecture: Tom Holland
‘“There is always another one walking beside you”: Pilgrimages, Pandemics and the Past’
In association with Gresham College, London


Friday 17 November 2023 at 2.00 pm

‘Mid-Career Conversations for Historians’ (5 of 5): ‘Undertaking and Understanding Public History and Impact’
With Olwen Purdue (Professor of History and Director of the Centre for Public History, Queen’s University, Belfast)
RHS Online Series (reserved for mid-career Fellows and members of the Royal Historical Society)


Friday 24 November 2023 at 6.00pm

RHS Presidential Address: Emma Griffin
European Exploration, Empires, and the Making of the Modern World’

Preceded by the Society’s Anniversary Meeting (AGM)
Mary Ward House, Bloomsbury, London, and Online

 

The Samuel Pepys Award 2021

The Samuel Pepys Award 2021 – Rules

www.pepys-club.org.uk

The Trustees of the Samuel Pepys Award Trust invite submissions for the tenth Samuel Pepys Award, to be presented at the annual Pepys Club dinner on Tuesday 16 November 2021.

The biennial prize of £2,000 is for a book that, in the opinion of the judges, makes the greatest contribution to the understanding of Samuel Pepys, his times or his contemporaries.

 

The first Samuel Pepys Award marked the tercentenary of Pepys’s death in 2003 and was won by Claire Tomalin for her biography, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self.

Subsequent prize winners were:

  • 2005 Frances Harris for Transformations of Love
  • 2007 John Adamson for The Noble Revolt
  • 2009 JD Davies for Pepys’s Navy: Ships, Men and Warfare 1649-1689.
  • 2011 Michael Hunter for Boyle: Between God and Science.
  • 2013 Henry Reece for The Army in Cromwellian England 1649-1660
  • 2015 Paul Slack for The Invention of Improvement: Information and Material Progress in Seventeenth-Century England
  • 2017 John Walter for Covenanting Citizens: The Protestant Oath and Popular Political culture in the English Revolution
  • 2019 David Como for Radical Parliamentarians and the English Civil War

A specially cast medal by Philip Nathan, in memory of Robert Latham, joint editor of the eleven-volume The Diary of Samuel Pepys, will be presented to the winning author.

 

The Rules

  1. Submissions must be made no later than Wednesday 30 June 2021.
  2. Books must be published between 1 July 2019 and 30 June 2021.
  3. Submissions, non-fiction and fiction, must have been written in the English language.
  4. Books published in the UK, Ireland, USA and the Commonwealth are eligible for the Samuel Pepys Award.
  5. The judges of the Samuel Pepys Award reserve the right to call in books.
  6. The Samuel Pepys Award will be presented at the annual dinner of the Samuel Pepys Club in London on Tuesday 16 November 2021.

Judges

The judges of the tenth Samuel Pepys Award are:

  • Eamon Duffy is Emeritus Professor of the History of Christianity at Cambridge and the author of numerous books including The Stripping of the Altars and Saints and Sinners, a history of the Popes
  • Sir David Latham is the son of Robert Latham, the editor of the Diary. He is a retired Lord Justice of Appeal and an Honorary Fellow of Royal Holloway College, University of London. He is the current Chairman of the Samuel Pepys Club
  • Robin O’Neill is a former British ambassador, read English at Cambridge and has a particular interest in diplomatic history and English literature in the seventeenth century
  • Caroline Sandwich read English at Cambridge and Middle Eastern politics at London. Has served on the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Historic Houses Association amongst others. Her work at her husband’s family house, Mapperton, has given her an interest in seventeenth century history.
  • Sir Keith Thomas is a Fellow of All Souls and a distinguished historian of the early modern world, whose publications include Religion and the Decline of Magic, and Man and the Natural World.

Submissions

Submissions should be made on the Samuel Pepys Submission Form 2021

Please post completed forms by 30 June 2021 to:

Professor William Pettigrew
4 Regent Street
Lancaster
Lancashire LA1 1SG

And post one copy of each submitted book to the following addresses by 30 June 2021

Professor Eamon Duffy
13 Gurney Way
Cambridge CB42 2ED

Sir David Latham
3 Manor Farm Close
Pimperne
Blandford
Dorset DT11 8XL

Robin O’Neill
4 Castle Street
Saffron Walden CB10 1BP

Caroline Sandwich
Mapperton
Beaminster
Dorset DT8 3NR

Sir Keith Thomas
The Broad Gate
Broad Street
Ludlow SY8 1NJ

 

 

PhD Fellowships

 

The Royal Historical Society offers 4 annual PhD Fellowships for postgraduate historians in their third year of research at a UK university. The Fellowships comprise:

  • Two RHS Centenary Fellowships: each Centenary Fellowship runs for 6-months and is worth £8,295 for final-year PhD students to complete their dissertations and to develop their research career.
  • Two RHS Marshall Fellowships: each Marshall Fellowship runs for 6-months and is worth £8,295 for final-year PhD students to complete their dissertations and to develop their research career.

Marshall Fellowships are supported by the generosity of Professor Peter Marshall FBA, formerly Rhodes Professor of Imperial History at King’s College London and President of the Royal Historical Society from 1996 to 2000.

All Fellowships are open to candidates without regard to nationality or academic affiliation. They are jointly held with the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, where Fellows are based.


How to Apply for 2024-25

  • Call for the Fellowships for the academic year 2024-25 will open on 8 April 2024.
  • Centenary and Marshall Fellowships are open to candidates without regard to nationality or current academic affiliation.
  • The Fellowships are awarded to doctoral students who are completing a thesis in history (broadly defined) who have undertaken at least three years’ research on their chosen topic (and not more than four years full-time or six years part-time) at the beginning of the session for which the awards are made.
  • These awards cannot be held in conjunction with any other substantial maintenance grant.

For full information on how to apply for the Centenary or Marshall Research Fellowships and to obtain further guidelines, please go to the IHR Doctoral Fellowships pages.


Centenary and Marshall Fellows, 2023-24

 

Clare V. Church, is an RHS Centenary Fellow held jointly with the Institute of Research, University of London. Clare is a fourth-year PhD researcher at Aberystwyth University, studying within the Department of History and Welsh History under the supervision of Dr Siân Nicholas and Dr Miguel Hernandez. Originally from Canada, Clare completed her Master of Arts at New York University and attained her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Waterloo.

The subject of her doctoral research focuses on the cultural representations of women celebrities, and their subsequent influence on gender roles and national morale throughout the Second World War. Specifically, the project applies the concept of ‘patriotic femininity’ – originally developed by Phil Goodman within the context of British Second World War studies – transnationally, exploring celebrity case studies in the UK, US, and France. Studying the mediated depictions of celebrities like Vera Lynn, the Andrews Sisters, and Joséphine Baker, the project endeavours to understand how the ‘ideal woman’ was framed within these distinct national wartime contexts.

 

Helena Neimann Erikstrup is an RHS Marshall Fellow, held jointly with the Institute of Historical Research, University of London. Helena is a fourth-year DPhil student in History of Art at the University of Oxford. Her thesis ‘The Colours of Martinique: The (re)making of the modern Subject in French-Caribbean Art, 1847-1930’ focuses on visual representations of race and ecology made in Martinique as vital sites in which French national identity was negotiated in the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century, a period in which the definition of being, and not being, French was redefined. It looks at understudied visual material of lesser-known or completely unknown, sometimes ‘amateur’, artists alongside work of a canonical artist like Paul Gauguin.

By looking at such artists in a relational, non-hierarchical way, Helena’s research navigates the multitude of chromatic explorations done to grapple and reassert racial and environmental control of Martinique in the decades following the 1848 abolition of slavery. The thesis uses colour (as a pigment, a racial marker and visual effect) as the main prism through which engage with the work and the questions they ask.

 

John Marshall is an RHS Centenary Fellow, held jointly with the Institute of Historical Research, University of London. John is a fourth year PhD candidate at Trinity College Dublin, having previously obtained a BA and MA from Dublin City University.

John’s research analyses transnational lordship and politics in thirteenth-century Britain and Ireland. John’s thesis focuses on the Marshal earls of Pembroke and lords of Leinster, in particular how their influence on the ‘peripheries’ of the Plantagenet empire in Ireland and Wales brought them influence and patronage at the core. His thesis will also provide the first edition of the partition of the Marshal estates in 1247 after the male line of the family died out.

In addition to his membership with the RHS, John is also an associate member of the AHRC-funded Noblesse Oblige research network and has published on aspects of his research in History: The Journal of the Historical Association (108:382) and Irish Historical Studies (2023).

 

Stefano Nicastro is an RHS Marshall Fellow, held jointly with the Institute of Historical Research, University of London. Stefano studied History at the University of Milan and spent a semester abroad in Istanbul at the Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi via the Erasmus programme. Subsequently, he completed an MSc in Middle Eastern Studies with Arabic at the University of Edinburgh and I further studied Arabic in Egypt at the International House Cairo – ILI.

Stefano is currently a History PhD Student at the University of Edinburgh, working on a thesis entitled, ‘Genoa in the Islamicate Mediterranean: Diplomatic and Economic Relationships between the Genoese and the Qalawunid Sultanate of Egypt and Syria, 1279-1382′. Stefano’s research looks at cross-cultural and trans-regional interactions in the Mediterranean during the later Middle Ages. Specifically, it studies the diplomatic and commercial relationships between the commune of Genoa and the Mamluk sultanate with a focus on the practices and the modality of these trans-Mediterranean exchanges.


HEADER IMAGE: University College London: the main buildings seen from Gower Street. Engraving. Wellcome Collection, public domain

 

 

Camden Series

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. You’ll find details of recent volumes below.


Accessing the Camden Series Online

The complete Camden Series now comprises over 380 volumes of primary source material, ranging from the early medieval to late-twentieth century Britain. The full series is available via Cambridge Journals Online, providing an extraordinarily rich conspectus of source material for British History as well as insights into the development of historical scholarship in the English speaking world.

Full online access to all Camden Series titles is available to all Fellows and Members of the Royal Historical Society as part of the Society’s Member Benefits from 2022.

A number of volumes are also freely available through British History Online.


Editors of the Camden Series

The Camden Series is edited by Dr Richard Gaunt (University of Nottingham) and Dr Siobhan Talbott (Keele University).

Richard is Associate Professor in History at the University of Nottingham, with expertise in the political and electoral history of late-eighteenth and nineteenth-century Britain. Siobhan is Reader in Early Modern History at Keele University, with research expertise in the economic and social history of Britain and the Atlantic World. Both have extensive experience of preparing and publishing scholarly editions of primary texts.


Contributing to the Series

Richard and Siobhan welcome submissions for future Camden volumes. If you have a proposal for a Camden Society volume, please:

If you are a contracted author, please refer to the Camden Style Guidelines when preparing your volume.


New and recently published Camden volumes, 2021-23

Fellows and members of the Society may purchase print copies of these, and other available Camden titles, for £16 per volume by emailing: administration@royalhistsoc.org.

 

NEW Volume 66: The Last Days of English Tangier. The Out-Letter Book of Governor Percy Kirke, 1681–1683, edited by John Childs (November 2023).

Governor Percy Kirke’s Out-Letter Book, here transcribed verbatim and annotated, covers the terminal decline of English Tangier, ending just before the arrival of Lord Dartmouth’s expedition charged with demolishing the town and evacuating all personnel.

It contains 152 official letters mostly addressed to the Tangier Committee, the subcommittee of the Privy Council responsible for Tangerine affairs, and Sir Leoline Jenkins, Secretary of State for the South.

Kirke’s correspondence traces the decay of both the town’s military fabric and the soldiers’ morale and effectiveness, and the impossibility of reaching a satisfactory modus vivendi with the leaders of the besieging Moroccan armed forces.

The Last Days of English Tangier. The Out-Letter Book of Governor Percy Kirke, 1681–1683 is published online and in print by Cambridge University Press (November 2023). To order in print: administration@royalhistsoc.org.

 

RECENT Volume 65: La Prinse et mort du roy Richart d’Angleterre, and Other Works by Jehan Creton, edited and translated by Lorna A. Finlay (June 2023).

Jehan Creton accompanied Richard II on his expedition to Ireland in 1399 and witnessed his capture by Henry Lancaster, who usurped the throne to reign as Henry IV. Creton’s account is of crucial importance for historians of the period, as he contradicts the official version of events in the Parliamentary Roll.

This a completely new translation of the work, correcting the previous edition dating from 1824. This new Camden edition also includes Creton’s other known writings, the two epistles and four ballades.

La Prinse et mort du roy Richart d’Angleterre, and Other Works by Jehan Creton is now available online and in print from Cambridge University Press (June 2023). To order in print: administration@royalhistsoc.org.

 

Volume 64: The Diary of George Lloyd (1642-1718), edited by Daniel Patterson (November 2022).

Virtually unknown to scholarship, Lloyd’s diary is not a record of notable events. Rather, it is a uniquely quotidian text consisting of regular daily entries documenting the activities and experiences of an individual far removed from great events.

Lloyd’s diary will be an invaluable resource for scholars studying many aspects of early modern English social and cultural history, including sociality, fashion, religious observance, courtship, food and drink, and working life.

The Diary of George Lloyd, 1642-1718 is now available online and in print from Cambridge University Press. To order in print: administration@royalhistsoc.org.

 

Volume 63: Aristocracy, Democracy, and Dictatorship. The Political Papers of the Seventh Marquess of Londonderry, edited by N. C. Fleming (September 2022).

The seventh Marquess of Londonderry (1878–1949) corresponded with the leading political figures of his day, including Winston Churchill (his second cousin), Neville Chamberlain, Stanley Baldwin and Ramsay MacDonald. Londonderry’s amateur diplomacy in the 1930s meant that his regular correspondents also included Hermann Göring, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Franz von Papen.

Aristocracy, Democracy, and Dictatorship is now available online and in print from Cambridge University Press. To order in print: administration@royalhistsoc.org.

 

Volume 62: British Financial Diplomacy with North America 1944–1946. The Diary of Frederic Harmer and the Washington Reports of Robert Brand, edited by Michael F. Hopkins (2021)

Volume 61: Sir Earle Page’s British War Cabinet Diary, 1941–1942, edited by Kent Fedorowich and Jayne Gifford (2021). To order in print: administration@royalhistsoc.org.

 


Full Series Lists

The Series was originally published by the Camden Society (established 1838) until its merger with the Royal Historical Society in 1897. The RHS Archive contains papers relating to the Camden Society, 1838-97.

 

RHS Lecture — Dr Su Lin Lewis, 16 September 2022

 

 

‘Decolonising the History of Internationalism’

 

 

Dr Su Lin Lewis

(University of Bristol)

 

Friday 16 September 2022
18.00 BST – University College London & Live-streamed

Watch a recording of this lecture

 

Abstract

The history of internationalism has tended to focus on power centres in the Global North – London, Geneva, New York, and Paris – and institutions like the League of Nations, United Nations, and UNESCO.  What happens when we flip our perspective, and view internationalism from the point of view of the decolonising South? What do we get when we shift our focus from world leaders to the internationalism of activists, intellectuals, feminists, poets, artists, rebels, and insurgents operating in Asia and Africa?

Moreover, how are our methods of researching and debating international history – in universities, archives, and conferences in the Global North – structured by economic inequalities, colonial legacies, and visa regimes that limit participation from scholars from the South?

This lecture considers how we might decolonise both the content and the methods of international history, focusing especially on leftist internationalism in the Afro-Asian world.

 

Speaker biography

Dr Su Lin Lewis is Associate Professor in Modern Global History at the University of Bristol. She works on the social history of globalisation, including cosmopolitan port-cities, transnational activist movements, and post-colonial internationalism, with a focus on modern Southeast Asia.

Su Lin’s monograph, Cities in Motion: Urban Life and Cosmopolitanism in Southeast Asia 1920-1940 (Cambridge University Press, 2016) won the Urban History Association’s Prize for Best Book (Non-North America) for 2015-16. She co-led an AHRC-funded research network on ‘Afro-Asian Networks in the Early Cold War’ and is currently an AHRC Early Career Leadership Fellow investigating Socialist Internationalism in the Afro-Asian World.

 

Watch the Lecture

 

 

RHS Lecture and Events: Full Programme for 2022 >

 

The Future of History at Roehampton

The Royal Historical Society is shocked and concerned by proposed redundancies and programme closures in History (and across all Arts and Humanities provision) at the University of Roehampton.

The terms of the Roehampton cuts are extensive.

The proposal is to make all 13.6FTE History posts redundant through voluntary or compulsory schemes and to require current staff to reapply for seven newly configured posts. In addition, the University seeks to close its History MA to new entrants from September 2022. If enacted, Roehampton’s cuts to History staffing will, in numerical terms, exceed those undertaken by any UK university in recent years. 

If the Roehampton proposal is extensive, it is also inexplicable.

By any measure, Roehampton is a successful History department. It performs extremely well in the 2022 National Student Survey and Guardian League Table, exceeding many Russell Group institutions. On its website, the University lauds its ‘world-class historians’ who combine academic study with ‘real-world experience’ and skills-building for successful graduate careers. It’s these same members of staff whose posts are now targeted for redundancy.

As in teaching so in research, the Roehampton History department is flourishing. 83% of Outputs were judged as ‘world leading’ (4*) or ‘internationally excellent’ (3*) in the recent REF2021 exercise. This places Roehampton among the UK’s leading post-92 institutions for History. Roehampton’s historians are equally skilled at external grant capture: £1.67mn since 2014—a 550% increase in income generation compared with the previous REF cycle. Roehampton History has already demonstrated considerable growth in research culture since 2014. To squander opportunities for future growth will be a huge waste of talent, reputation and potential in favour of short-term solutions to current concerns.

The University’s stated reasons for cuts are declining student admissions, and its need to restructure degree programmes to meet Office for Students’ markers on graduate employability and professional status. 

The Society finds this explanation unconvincing. According to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, between 2014 and 2020 recruitment increased at Roehampton by 113% in History, far exceeding the University’s 68% increase across all subjects in this period. Of the 104 institutions in the HESA survey, only two saw a greater increase in FTE enrolments to study History than Roehampton. Likewise, any subsequent small decline in admissions has identifiable and exceptional causes—most notably A-Level grade inflation in 2020 and 2021. 

The University is right to stress the need for History degrees to prepare students for employment in a range of sectors. However, it’s mistaken to argue that Roehampton History must start again with a new degree and job profiles in order to do so. 

As a closer look at Roehampton’s existing History programme makes clear, these priorities are already in place. Skills training and employability are central to History at Roehampton and a feature at all stages of the BA course, including a compulsory module in ‘Applied Humanities: Professional Practice and Placement’. As a result, for 2017-19, 66% of ​​Roehampton History undergraduate leavers were in ‘graduate level’ careers or further study. 

The Royal Historical Society has written to Roehampton’s senior managers to address their presentation of the History department and reasons for cuts. We sincerely hope our communication is read as constructive and the start of dialogue. We hope too that it encourages those charged with university management not to act in haste when considering change. Rather, we invite them to work with the Society, and others, to develop valuable, attractive and sustainable programmes in the humanities, for the longer term. 

It is our great concern that once disbanded—whether to meet short-term financial and strategic goals, or acquiesce to populist swipes at the humanities—centres of expertise like Roehampton History will prove impossible to recreate. This would be a loss we can truly ill afford.

The President and Council of the Royal Historical Society

 


 

Those in UK History departments facing cuts, or concerned about their prospect, are welcome to contact the Royal Historical Society.

Contacts and resources are available in the Society’s new toolkit for ‘Supporting History Teaching and Research in UK Universities’.

 

Getting Published: a guide to first articles and journal publishing

An RHS Online Training Workshop for Early Career Historians

 

14.00-16.00 BST, Wednesday 21 July 2021

Watch the video of this event

 

‘Getting Published: a guide to first articles and journal publishing’ is an online training event hosted by the RHS designed for early career historians. The focus of this first ‘Getting Published’ session is journals, with specific attention on getting a first academic article written and published in your chosen journal.

The event brings together journal editors and publishers, recent first-time authors, and early career historians. It seeks to demystify the process of journal publishing and provide practical advice and tips on how best to succeed.

The workshop combines brief presentations on academic journals, stages of the publishing process, the experience of getting published, as well as active audience participation in which your questions and concerns are raised and discussed.

Topics for this session include: the journal landscape; differences between an article and a thesis chapter; choosing and approaching the right journal for you; what to expect with peer review and from your publisher if your article is accepted; how to respond to inevitable rejections; journal articles and the Research Excellence Framework (REF); and next steps in publishing on completing your first article.

The session will also consider, and explain, Open Access (OA) publishing: what it means for journal publishing – for authors, editors and journal publishers; what options to choose; and the future for Open Access journal publishing in the wake of UKRI’s imminent declaration on its position of the OA charter ‘Plan S’.

Speakers at the event:
  • Professor Emma Griffin (RHS President, UEA and co-editor of Historical Journal), chair
  • Professor Sandra den Otter (Queen’s University, Ontario and co-editor of the Journal of British Studies)
  • Dr Rebekah Lee (Goldsmiths, University of London and co-editor of the Journal of Southern African Studies)
  • Professor Jane Winters (School of Advanced Study, University of London, RHS Vice-President, Publishing, and specialist in Open Access and digital publishing)

The panel will be joined by three recent authors who’ll offer their experience of navigating journal publishing for the first time, as PhD students and recent post-doctoral researchers:

  • Dr Diya Gupta (RHS and Institute of Historical Research / Journal of War & Culture Studies)
  • Dr Jonah Miller (Cambridge / History Workshop Journal)
  • Sasha Rasmussen (Oxford / Cultural and Social History)

After contributions from the panel, the event will take the form of a discussion involving all attendees. Those attending will be invited to submit questions in advance of the event.

This event is free to all though booking is essential.

Watch the event video

 

 

Future RHS training workshops

‘Getting Published’ is the first in a new annual series of RHS ‘Getting Started’ training events for early career historians. Events will provide guidance and insight into key areas of professional development.

Topics for future discussion will include: publishing and communicating research, teaching history, writing history, applying historical knowledge and research skills, and career options for research historians within and outside higher education. ‘Getting Started’ will run four times a year with the next session planned for autumn 2021.

 

 

For more guides see also the RHS’s new Teaching Portal: a set of over 50 specially commissioned essays–on research, online resources, teaching and career paths–for current research students and early career teachers.

 

 

Creating Public History: a Guide to Co-production and Community Engagement

 

An RHS Online Training Workshop for Early Career Historians

 

14.00-16.00 BST, Tuesday 7 December 2021

Watch the event recording

 

‘Creating Public History: a Guide to Co-production and Community Engagement’ is the next in a new series of online training events hosted by the RHS, designed for early career historians. In ‘Creating Public History’ we’ll explore the meaning of ‘public history’, and how to design, plan and run a community engagement project.

The event brings together experts and practitioners in the field of public history and co-production, from the perspective of academia, archives, charities and community programmes. It seeks to demystify public history: offering practical insights based on experience that you’ll be able to apply in your own work.

Topics for the workshop include: defining public history; designing and managing a successful project; working with diverse participants; and ensuring the legacy and impact of community engagement work, both in and beyond Higher Education.

Projects discussed in the workshop will include the St Thomas Way, the East End Women’s Museum, Newington Green Meeting House: Revolutionary Ideas since 1708, and Layers of London. With reference to these projects, the workshop will identify key themes, ideas and recommendations for creating a successful public history project.

After contributions from the panel, the event will take the form of a discussion involving all attendees. Those attending will be invited to submit questions in advance of the event.

Speakers at the event:

About our panel:

  • Catherine Clarke has particular expertise in place and place-making, uses of heritage, and creative practice in research, co-production and engagement, having led projects such as Discover Medieval Chester, City Witness and the St Thomas Way, and her current involvement in Invisible Worlds and Towns and the Cultural Economies of Recovery. Catherine is especially interested in how we devise and initiate public history projects; how we make the case for impact and what we’ve achieved; and how imaginative public history can transform our practice as scholars.
  • Sara Huws has extensive experience of working in museums and heritage as a researcher, curator and broadcaster. Having started her career at Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, she now works as an archives professional specialising in public engagement at Cardiff University Special Collections and Archives. Sara is Co-Founder of East End Women’s Museum, the only museum in England and Wales which collects and celebrates the histories of women and girls. Established as a ‘positive protest’, the museum has grown far beyond its kitchen table origins, with participatory projects taking place across east London. She is currently undertaking a PhD in museums and activism at the University of Swansea.
  • Amy Todd‘s work centres around engaging those audiences traditionally under-represented in heritage projects. Recent activities include the online Layers of London, managing volunteers at Kenley Revival, and co-curation of projects with community groups, schools and artists. She’s keen to share her recent experience at Newington Green Meeting House, showcasing ways to build community relationships through heritage.

 

Watch the video

***

Future RHS training workshops

‘Creating Public History’ is the next in a new annual series of RHS ‘Getting Started’ training events for early career historians. Events will provide guidance and insight into key areas of professional development. A video of our first workshop, ‘Getting Published: a guide to first articles and journal publishing’ (July 2021), is also available.

Topics for future discussion will include: publishing and communicating research, teaching history, writing history, applying historical knowledge and research skills, and career options for research historians within and outside higher education. ‘Getting Started’ will run three times a year with the next session — on ‘Broadcasting History’ — planned for Spring 2022.

 

 

For more guides see also the RHS’s new Teaching Portal: a set of over 50 specially commissioned essays–on research, online resources, teaching and career paths–for current research students and early career teachers.

 

RHS Lecture and Events: Full Programme for 2022 >

 

History and Archives in Practice, 2023

Collecting Communities

Working Together and with Collections (#HAP23)

10am – 5pm, Wednesday 29 March 2023
Institute of Historical Research, University of London

 

On Wednesday 29 March, we hosted History and Archives in Practice 2023 (#HAP23), along with our partners The National Archives and Institute of Historical Research. The theme for #HAP23 was ‘Collecting Communities: Working Together and with Collections’. 


About History and Archives in Practice (HAP)

History and Archives in Practice (HAP) is the new and rebranded version of the Gerald Aylmer Seminar run in partnership by the Royal Historical Society, The National Archives and Institute of Historical Research

From March 2023, History and Archives in Practice provides a new format and greater focus on the collections that lie at the heart of our work. It’s where historians and archivists come together to consider shared interests in archive collections, their interpretation and use.


#HAP23: ‘Collecting Communities: Working Together and with Collections’

The theme of #HAP23, ‘Collecting Communities: Working Together and with Collections’, showcases and celebrates the diverse and unique nature of historical research. Over the day, we heard from 14 projects in which historians and archivists are working together to recover, interpret and present our past. 

Our speakers represent a broad range of universities and archives, large and small, from across the UK. Panels considered the rediscovery, digitising and creation of collections; the locating of collections in places and communities; and collaborative working between historians, archivists and the public.

Together they introduced new work on the history of the voluntary sector, unpaid labour, business, war, slavery and empire, family life, contemporary politics, migration and climate change, among other topics. In keeping with the aims of HAP, we focused especially on practice — how historians, archivists and communities work best together — to provide insights and experiences for attendees to take into their own work.

Special sessions will provided demonstrations and handling of items from UK archives, as well as talks on taking archives into communities, and creating successful networks between historians and archivists in higher education.


Download the full programme for History and Archives in Practice, 2023> 

Additional video presentations

In addition to the 14 projects on the day, we’ve also created videos of 5 additional collaborations between historians and archivists. These videos are available here.

The featured projects include: Archives & Paper Trails (UCL); Co-creating Heritage – Challenging perceptions of Sierra Leone (Hull); Kent Maps Online (Canterbury Christ Church); Slavery Law & Power (Maryland), and A Story of the Great War: Will Bradshaw’s Journal (Edge Hill). Our thanks to those involved in these projects for these videos.

On Thursday 27 April, we’ll be hosting a follow-up online #HAP23 event, bringing together the presenters of these videos to discuss their projects. More details here.


Join us to host and create HAP24

From 2024, we intend to take History and Archives in Practice to institutions across the UK, to showcase, explore and work with other collections. We now welcome expressions of interest for HAP24 from archive centres and universities.

If you’re interested in partnering with TNA, the Institute of Historical Research and the Royal Historical Society, please contact the Society’s Academic Director: philip.carter@royalhistsoc.org.