Rebuilding the universities after the Great War

Dr Sarah Hellawell, with Dr Georgina Brewis (UCL) and Dr Daniel Laqua (Northumbria), has published an article in The Journal of the Historical Association which examines a transformative moment in the history of British higher education. After the First World War, student numbers were boosted by the arrival of large numbers of ex‐servicemen. Their access to university was facilitated by the government‐funded Scheme for the Higher Education of Ex‐Service Students, which provided grants to nearly 28,000 students between 1918 and 1923. The article offers the first sustained historical analysis of the workings and impact of this programme, which constituted a major development in state support for individual students. The research upon which the article is based was funded by the AHRC World War One Engagement Centre at the University of Hertfordshire. In the wider project the authors also worked with community partners, Mike Day (National Union of Students) and Jude Murphy (Workers’ Educational Association).

Brewis, G., S. Hellawell and D. Laqua. 2020. 'Rebuilding the Universities after the Great War: Ex‐Service Students, Scholarships and the Reconstruction of Student Life in England'. History: The Journal of the Historical Association.  

Sunderland academics contribute to the Being Human festival 2019

Once again, historians at Sunderland are contributing to the nationwide Being Human festival. Click on the links below to find out more:

Sunderland's unsung heroes (Sarah Hellawell)
Coffee and sedition (Delphine Doucet)

As part of the festival, Sunderland is also hosting a talk by the historian Michael Wood on how Wearmouth saved the West.

The photographic historian Caroline McKay will also be presenting A New Vision of the World.

Dr Marion Phillips' Blue Plaque

Research by Dr Sarah Hellawell into female political activism in the North East has led to her discovering more about Sunderland's first female member of parliament, Dr Marion Phillips.  A blue plaque to mark Marion's role and the former location of the Labour party's committee rooms in Sunderland was unveiled on Friday 13th September.  The event was attended by Houghton and Sunderland South MP, Bridget Phillipson, Sunderland's mayor, Mr David Snowdon and mayoress, Mrs Dianne Snowdon, and about 50 others from the local community and representatives of the university.  This group also included young activists, NEFlow and students from St Wilfrid's RC College who help run the Canny Clean project.

The Second Annual History Postgraduate Symposium

The Second Annual History Postgraduate Symposium will be hosted by our MA and PhD students. It will range widely in period and topic. Among the subjects covered will be comedy and political satire, oral history and oral traditions, sports history, working-class women's history, the history of crime and law enforcement, media and public information during the interwar years, the civilian experience in occupied countries during the Second World War.

All are welcome and food and drink is provided. The event is free, but please register here.

Date and time: Saturday 29th June 2019; 09:00 – 17:00.

Location: Fans Museum, Northern Gateway, Sunderland SR5 1AP.

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MA student awarded prestigious research bursary

One of our MA in Historical Research students, Brogan Fannen, recently received an MA Dissertation Bursary from the Society for the Study of Labour History to facilitate archival research in Manchester.

Brogan's dissertation explores the role of the Socialist Sunday Schools (SSS) within the history of the British socialist movement, with a primary focus on the Schools’ role in facilitating and cultivating a socialist culture among British working-class communities in the twentieth century. 

The bursary allowed Brogan to carry out a research trip to the Labour History Archive (LHA) located at the People’s History Museum in Manchester. She examined the promotional literature of the movement such as pamphlets and postcards, as well as reports and minutes. She also analysed the yearly annuals of The Young Socialist Magazine, a publication which gave insight into the plethora of teaching methods used within the SSSs, the propaganda disseminated by the movement and reports on the Schools’ activities within the community.

You can read more about Brogan's work here.

A BA, MA or PhD student interested in labour history and in need of research support? Apply for an SSLH research bursary here!

Murder, mystery and my family

PhD student Patrick Low will be appearing in an episode of BBC 1’s Murder, Mystery and My Family on Thursday 4th April 2019 at 9.15 am. 

Patrick researches nineteenth-century executions in North East England, and his expertise was drawn on in this episode which features the execution of Michael Gilligan, hanged alongside William McHugh and Elizabeth Pearson at Durham Prison in 1875. Patrick meets the family, talks about the execution and gives details about the prisoners' final moments. 

Sunderland Literature Festival 2018

Once again, the School of Culture was well represented at the annual Sunderland Libraries Literature Festival, with talks by Dr Geoff Nash on the sea as literary imagery from Anglo-Saxon poetry to the novels of Amitav Ghosh; Dr Delphine Doucet on 'religion at the dinner table - a sixteenth century dialogue'; Dr Miguel Gomes on the Codex Amiatinus. The festival also saw the launch of the latest offerings from Spectral Visions Press - the School's own in-house student-led publishing company.

Being Human Festival 2018

 

Led by the School of Advanced Study, University of London, in partnership with the Arts & Humanities Research Council and the British Academy, Being Human is a national festival promoting public engagement with humanities research. Between 17 and 23 November 2018, the School of Culture is hosting a series of public talks looking at this year’s theme of ‘Origins and Endings’ through the lens of Sunderland’s local history. The topics range from the Wearside origins of English republicanism to the end of heavy industry in the city. All are free to attend and open to all.


Click on the links to find out about these events.

• The North East Coast, the Sea and its Dangers (Dr Peter Hayes)
• A Place Fit for Heroes? The End of the First World War in the North East (Dr André Keil)
• Suffrage and Beyond in Sunderland: The City’s First Female MP  (Dr Sarah Hellawell)
•  The Lilburne Family and the Origins of English Republicanism (Dr Delphine Doucet)

Codex 2018

The latest edition of Codex has been published. Are you interested in Newcastle's invasion preparations during the Second World War, North East miners and political reform in the 1830s or gender stereotyping and children's language? If so, visit Codex for articles on these topics and more from our class of 2018 graduates in the School of Culture.

Sarah Hellawell in the Northern Echo

A recent piece in the paper reports on Dr Sarah Hellawell's research on the often overlooked role North East students played in the First World War. Read all about it here.

School of Culture research seminar

Dr Sarah Hellawell (Lecturer in Modern British History,
University of Sunderland)

The first School of Culture Research seminar of the academic year will take place on 14th November 2018. Dr. Sarah Hellawell's paper is entitled ‘A strong international spirit’: the Women’s Co-operative Guild and Interwar Internationalism’. Established in 1883, the English Women’s Co-operative Guild (WCG) was a mass membership association of working-class housewives and mothers. During the First World War, the Guild was an outspoken critic of militarism and maintained an absolutist pacifist response during the interwar years. Internationalist ideals and activities relating to peace, co-operation and the citizenship of women influenced the WCG during the 1920s and 1930s. Yet, the impact of internationalism upon the Guild has previously been overlooked by historians. This paper examines the dynamic between the international, national and local dimensions of the WCG. 

The seminar will start at 4 pm in Reg Vardy 111 and is open to all.

History undergraduate wins research bursary

Matthew Thomas, a third year history undergraduate, has received a bursary from the Society for the Study of Labour History, enabling him to visit Norfolk Record Office and collect important documents regarding the Burston School Strike, the longest strike in British history (1914-1939). The findings from this research will be revealed in Matthew's dissertation, a study of the role of school strikes in labour history. The main focus is on the Burston and Washington/Usworth strikes, which were vastly different in their execution, but had similar aims. Matthew's research in Norfolk unearthed some invaluable documents, including a copy of the school log book for the Burston and Shimpling School which describes the conduct of the school and gives details of the attendance rates and disciplinary action under Mrs. Higdon, the headmistress and wife of a Labour activist. This material helped Matthew to provide the necessary context for the dispute between the local authorities and the Labour-supporting headmistress, as well as the children who backed her and voted in favour of founding the alternative Burston Strike School. In addition, Norfolk Education Committee minutes, newspaper articles, pamphlets and booklets all provided fascinating accounts of the strike: its motivations, politics, and the ways in which these affected local government and industrial relations in general.

Handbill for the opening of the Burston Strike School, dated May 1917.
Original held at Norfolk Record Office. MC 31/38, 478x1.

North East students and the Great War

Dr Sarah Hellawell will be speaking on the theme of 'Students in the North East of England and the Aftermath of the Great War' at an event held by the North East Labour History Society. She will explore the impact of the First World War on student life in the North-East, shedding light on the student-led initiatives to foster a greater sense of internationalism during the interwar years. This research is part of the ‘British Ex-Service Students and the Rebuilding of Europe Project, 1918-1922′ led by academics at Northumbria, UCL and Sunderland Universities in connection with the National Union of Students and the North-East branch of the Workers’ Educational Association. It has been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s WWI Engagement Centre at the University of Hertfordshire.

 

April 3rd 2018 at 7pm

Old George Inn
Old George Yard
Newcastle, NE1 1EZ

The changing presentation of execution in Newcastle

PhD candidate Patrick Low has published an article on the changing presentation of punishment, in particular execution. This topic has been at the heart of much criminal historiography. However, little work has been done to examine the transition outside of London. Newcastle offers a fascinating perspective on any national picture of capital punishment, as it adopted changes far later than most, including close neighbours like Durham. In this article - which appears in Law, Crime & History - Patrick questions why so late a transition occurred and what the motivating factors were. Focusing on executions between 1844 and 1863 it shows that far from being led by London, the decisions were largely reactive to immediate crises, chief amongst them an unruly crowd, and not underpinned by any ideological bent. In short, it will argue for caution in speaking of a unified national change in punishment when even to speak of a regional one is problematic.

 

Read 'The changing presentation of execution in Newcastle Upon Tyne 1844-1863' here.

Dr Sarah Hellawell joins School of Culture

Dr Sarah Hellawell

The School is pleased to welcome to its ranks Dr Sarah Hellawell, who has been appointed Lecturer in Modern British History. Before joining us Sarah taught at Northumbria University, where she also completed her doctoral research. Her PhD examined the British Women’s International League (WIL), an organisation that campaigned for peace, disarmament and international law, alongside goals for women’s rights. Aspects of this research have been published in Women’s History Review and in a forthcoming book chapter for an edited collection on the history of the Union of International Associations. 

In 2017, Sarah was Research Associate on the 'British Ex-Service Students and the Re-building of Europe Project, 1919-1926'. She conducted archival research in London and the North-East of England on the history of student activism after the First World War. 

Funded by the AHRC World War One Engagement Centre at the University of Hertfordshire and led by academics at Northumbria University and University College London, Sarah also worked in collaboration with community partners – the National Union of Students and North East branch of the Workers Educational Association – to organise dissemination events in London and the North East. This project has led to a pop-up exhibition, public talks, a blog and a forthcoming journal article.

A festive publication

An illustration from The Present

You are never too young to debate questions of politics. That is the view of Dr Peter Hayes, Senior Lecturer in Politics.  He has just published a book called The Present, which introduces young readers to contested political issues through a story concerning Father Christmas.

“Father Christmas is magic but his Christmas gift giving involves him in a number of serious real-world issues,” Peter explains. “These issues include the working conditions of people making Christmas presents; the regimentation and surveillance that underpins our modern consumerist society; the increasingly hard border between those within the industrial core and those outside it, and the contribution of consumerism to global warming.  All of these international political issues lie behind the annual appearance of Father Christmas.”

The Present does not try to answer what we should do about all this, but it does raise questions, and encourages children and their family and friends to think about, discuss and perhaps argue over these matters.

The Present is available from online book retailers. Watch a video about the book here.

History research seminar

New Perspectives on the Great War, 6 December 2017, 4.30pm, Reg Vardy RV213

Ann-Marie Foster (Northumbria University): Family and Individual Remembrance as a Way of Breaching the Divide

During the First World War, 750,000 British soldiers perished. As Adrian Gregory has argued, this means that roughly 10 per cent of the British population lost a close relative. Disasters provide a useful theoretical framework for examining experiences of loss in the Great War. Much like the loss of a Pal’s battalion, an explosion in a colliery could decimate a mining community. Miners often lost close friends and relatives, and newly created widows grieved using largely the same artefacts and ephemera as those who lost a loved one in war. Similarly, for those directly involved in the disaster, men who volunteered for rescue parties would have had to confront the mutilated remains of their companions, if the disaster was such that bodies could be recovered at all. This paper therefore explores individual and family reactions to sudden death at the turn of the century. Through examining these similarly devastating events, a more nuanced understanding of mourning in the early twentieth century can be gained.


Andre Keil (University of Sunderland): In Defence of British Freedom? The Struggle for Civil Liberties and the British State during the First World War

The First World War witnessed a significant expansion of the powers of the British state. Legislation, such as the Defence of the Realm Act, provided the authorities with unprecedented powers to regulate and control almost every aspect of everyday life in the country. This emergency regime during the war has often been described as a 'constitutional dictatorship'. However, these developments did also trigger the emergence of the first civil liberties groups in Britain. This paper will trace the history of the National Council for Civil Liberties during the war and will explain how its campaigns shaped the early civil liberties and human rights movement.

Codex 2017

The latest edition of Codex has been published. Are you interested in riots in South Shields or Turkish Gothic literature? If so, visit Codex for top work from our class of 2017 undergraduates at the School of Culture.

Reflecting on 150 years since the abolition of public execution

PhD student Patrick Low is organizing a one-day conference to mark 150 years since the end of public execution. It takes place on June 6th 2018 at the Literary and Philosophical Society in Newcastle. The event will encourage interdisciplinary insights as well as welcoming scholars from any stage in their career. Subjects for papers may include, but are by no means limited to:

• The legislative build up to the 1868 Act
• The effect of the 1868 Act and its aftermath
• The broader changing nature of punishment
• Media representations of executions
• Individual cases and crimes
• The role of the execution crowd
• The wider impact and awareness of public executions
• Capital Punishment in the arts – including visual, design, performance, media, music and literary genres
• The science of punishment
• Global and provincial perspectives on capital punishment 

The website has more details, including a call for papers.

Gun control and the Second Amendment

Dr Kevin Yuill (with Joe Street of Northumbria University) has edited a book entitled, The Second Amendment and Gun Control, Freedom, Fear, and the American Constitution (Routledge 2018). The collection of essays situates discussion about gun controls within contemporary debates about citizenship, culture, philosophy and foreign policy as well as in the more familiar terrain of politics and history. It features experts on the Constitution as well as chapters discussing the symbolic importance of Annie Oakley, the role of firearms in race, and filmic representations of armed Hispanic girl gangs. It asks about the morality of gun controls and of not imposing them. Published in the spirit of open debate about contentious subjects, it is finely balanced between those who favour more gun controls and those who oppose them. Dr Yuill’s chapter - 'From Virtuous Armed Citizen to "Cramped Little Risk-Fearing Man": The Meaning of Firearms in an Insecure Era' – argues that the two sides of the debate are simply alternative strategies to deal with existential insecurities. One side seeks a policy solution of removing all weapons while the other employs the individual strategy of packing a gun.