Britain & Ireland

What was it about industrialisation that led to the emergence of a woman’s movement in Victorian Britain? Why do we see so many people fighting for so many rights and liberties in this period and what are the origins of some of the issues we still campaign on today? This section includes our major series on Social and Political Change in the UK from 1800 to the present day. There are also articles and podcasts on the often violent relationship between England and Ireland during this period and England’s changing relationship with Scotland and Wales. Read more

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  • The National Memorial to William Ewart Gladstone

    Article

    To stand amidst the books in St Deiniol's Library is an intimidating experience for it is an encounter with the restless, brooding intelligence that was William Ewart Gladstone. Lord Runcie of Cuddesdon, Archbishop of Canterbury (18 May 1998) The ‘Temple of Peace' St Deiniol's Library was founded in 1894 by...

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  • The New Imperialism

    Article

    This Classic Pamphlet first published in 1970 comes with a new introduction written by the author M. E. Chamberlain.The New Imperialism - Introduction by M. E. Chamberlain Professor Emeritus at Swansea University. May 2010.When this pamphlet was first published imperialism was a hot political topic and battle raged between Marxist and...

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  • The Northern Ireland Question 1886-1986

    Article

    The nature of the rights of majorities and minorities is one of the most intractable of the issues raised by the Northern Ireland question, especially since much depends on definitions. Ulster Protestants are a majority in that province but a minority in both Ireland and the United Kingdom, while Catholics,...

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  • The Northern Limit: Britain, Canada and Greenland, 1917-20

    Article

    Imperial ambitions during the First World War extended beyond the Middle East and Africa.  In this article Ben Markham looks at the territorial wrangling over Greenland. It is well known that the British Empire grew in size significantly in the wake of the First World War. In the course of...

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  • The Origins of the First World War

    Article

    The First World War broke out suddenly and unexpectedly in midsummer 1914, following the murder of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Hapsburg, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, at Sarajevo, in Bosnia, on 28 June. Since no war involving the European great powers had occurred since 1871, the possibility of...

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  • The Origins of the Local Government Service

    Article

    The concept ‘local government’ dates only from the middle of the nineteenth century. ‘Local government service’ emerged later still. In 1903 Redlich and Hirst1 wrote of ‘municipal officers’, while in 1922 Robson2 preferred ‘the municipal civil service’. ‘Local government service’ perhaps derives its pedigree from its use in the final...

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  • The Origins of the Second Great War

    Article

    This pamphlet provides a detailed account of  the events leading up to the outbreak of war in 1939, covering the various factors that played a role in the outbreak of war such as tension over Poland and the Spanish Civil War, as well as the nature and effect of diplomatic...

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  • The Oxford Movement and Anglican Ritualism

    Article

    The English Reformation of the Sixteenth century had been a compromise, both politically and theologically. The administrative framework of the medieval church, with its system of church courts, private patronage, pluralism, the social and financial gulf between the lower and higher clergy, its inadequacy of clerical education and its hierarchical...

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  • The Pennsylvanian Origins of British Abolitionism

    Article

    It can have escaped the attention of very few people in the United Kingdom that 2007 marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in British ships. Slavery itself continued to be legal in Britain and its colonies until the 1830s, while other nations continued both to...

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  • The People's Pensions

    Article

    Why did the British get pensions when they did? What part did the great social surveys (Booth and Rowntree) play? Was there something rotten at the heart of Empire? What part did fears of a Red Peril play? Was Britain slow, with Bismarck and even the Tsar providing some measures of...

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  • The Pilgrimage of Grace: Reactions, Responses and Revisions

    Article

    Dr Michael Bush investigates the interpretations of the pilgrimage of grace. Our perception of the pilgrimage of grace has been largely created by Madeleine and Ruth Dodds and their magnificent book The Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536-7, and the Exeter Conspiracy, 1538 (Cambridge). Published in 1915, it has dominated the subject...

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  • The President's Column 106

    Article

    I wrote my last column shortly after the Great Debate. This time it is a few weeks after the AGM in Sheffield, which I much enjoyed, and I hope others did too. In recent years the AGM has become the main means whereby the HA can get together as a...

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  • The President's Column 111

    Article

    I am delighted to be taking over from Anne Curry as President of the Historical Association for the next three years. Anne has been a terrific president and I know her record of visiting local branches will be hard to match, but I do look forward to meeting as many...

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  • The President's Column 113

    Article

    My programme of branch lectures has now started in earnest, as I visited Swansea in F ebruary and Chichester in March to talk about the ‘Monstrous Regiment of Women'. This is the title of John Knox's diatribe against female rulers published in 1558 and it is a very appropriate topic...

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  • The President's Column 114

    Article

    The last three months have provided me with some wonderful opportunities to catch up with HA members. In April I got as far as Carlisle, one of my favourite places, to talk to the Cumbria branch and in May I went to Grimsby, where the branch was celebrating its 50th...

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  • The President's Column 116

    Article

    On 10 December an advance copy of a report (History for all) by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on History and Archives was publicised, which relied heavily on research and expert witness from the Historical Association. The report noted that ‘there is a great deal to be positive about in the way...

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  • The President's Column 118

    Article

    The last three months have been a very busy period for the HA. The consultation on the draft National Curriculum for History ended on 16 April and we remain in dialogue with the Department for Education on the revised proposals. In May the HA's annual conference was held at York...

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  • The President's Column 119

    Article

    The final version of the National Curriculum for History was published over the summer. It is pleasing to see that the improvements recommended by the Historical Association and other History societies have been included. There is now provision for longer chronological study at both Key Stage 2 and 3, as well...

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  • The President's Column 120

    Article

    As 2014 starts I am conscious that I am entering the last few months of my time as President. The past two and a half years have flown by for me, partly because I have really enjoyed meeting so many of our members at my talks and finding out what...

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  • The President's Column 125

    Article

    The recent dramatisation of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall into a very successful television series, poses questions about the relationship between the past, fiction and the dramatization of the those perspectives on history. There has always been a powerful relationship between ‘history' and fiction, and the imagination. My own thoughts on...

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