On Wednesday evening (Feb 2011) Kingston University's new Centre for the Historical Record (CHR) hosted a series of thought provoking presentations and a lively panel discussion on the topic of Public History and the Historical Record.  The evening was the fourth in a series of events organized by Dr Nicola Phillips designed to encourage academics, researchers, archivists, librarians, museum curators and the wider public to contribute ideas about how the Centre can best function as a forum for the discussion and promotion of the use of historical records by all these groups.  An audience of over fifty people, including historians, archivists, curators and other researchers, listened avidly to Ludmilla Jordanova, Professor of Modern History at King's College, London an expert on museology and author of History in Practice; Justin Champion, Professor of History of Early Modern Ideas at Royal Holloway, University of London, a seasoned television presenter and a frequent contributor to Radio 4 programmes such as In Our Times and The Long View; and Dr Andrew Foster, Chair of the Historical Association's Public History Committee, and Literary Director of the Sussex Record Society, who acts as a consultant to local government, schools, archives and HE.

The three speakers agreed that many different definitions of ‘public history' exist, and the term can encompass everything from historians' active participation in government policy formation (as happens in Australia) to the presentation and discussion of the past on television and radio, and exhibitions in museums and art galleries. Equally the trio argued that public history should be about public participation in the project of reconstructing their pasts. Professor Jordanova and Professor Champion stressed that it was historians' civic duty to act as public communicators. We need to see history, effectively, as a communications business and to train students in the skills needed to participate successfully in that business. Prof Champion demonstrated some of the problems of communicating history to a wider audience.  He revealed how the representation of the past on television was a collaboration and a negotiation between the requirements of historians and the obligations of film makers.  Thus historical records could be used (sometimes anachronistically) both as evidence for dramatic reconstructions and the medium for emotive arguments that might sacrifice accuracy for effect. Yet, he asked, did this invalidate their use entirely?  By comparison historical discussions on the radio allowed for greater complexity and to hear multiple approaches to historical ideas and events. Dr Foster was equally insistent that public history must encourage the widest possible involvement of people in different groups and particularly across all levels of education from schools to HE - the Historical Association was actively engaged in preserving history in the school curriculum by enabling children to take part in public history. He pointed out that one of the best tools for the promotion of, and public engagement with, history was the internet, and the provision of attractive, interactive websites was an important priority. The panel agreed that the huge growth of wikis allowing the public to contribute their own research to organisations such as The National Archives and the Old Bailey Proceedings Online was proof that the old barriers between professional and public history were dissolving.

Professor Jordanova spoke passionately about the importance of material objects. She argued that the term ‘historical records' could and should include pictures and material objects, because their display in museums and galleries significantly shaped the way that the public imagines the past.  She pressed for historians to be trained in the art of building exhibitions and to contribute more to the written explanations that accompany display objects.  The ‘aesthetic representation' of the past, whether in museums or in television or art, produces a strong response in people, who are often drawn to a particular period in history because of its visual appeal.  

It was generally agreed that universities should provide more continuing professional development in skills necessary to engage in the public communication, practice and display of history.  However, as Dr Foster pointed out, the irony is that while history had never been so popular the threat to historical records of all kinds in archives, libraries, galleries and museums has also never been greater. He called for a concerted collaboration between organizations such as the Historical Association and the Royal Historical Society and university centres like Kingston's Centre for the Historical Record to work to protect and to promote access to these precious resources.