PTUC’s Rob James and John Bolt, Research Assistant and PhD student, have created an online map, with the help of a local community group, Portsdown U3A, which identifies the impact of the Battle of Jutland on the people of Portsmouth and the local area. Below, they relate their experiences of the project and chart its achievements.
Follow this link to view the online map and read about the research http://porttowns.port.ac.uk/jutland-map/index.html
The Battle of Jutland took place on 31 May 1916. It was the largest sea-battle of the First World War, and was one in which many men from both the British and German navies perished. To mark its 100-year anniversary, a group of researchers from Portsdown U3A decided to conduct a research project to honour the local people who had died in the battle. Their aim was to identify the names of the 662 men from Portsmouth and the local area who had perished and create a Roll of Honour. Portsdown U3A’s Jutland research group planned to display the Roll of Honour at a series of pop-up exhibitions across the city of Portsmouth. The exhibition would also include a number of detailed information panels summarising the battle, as well as featuring short biographies of some of the men from the area who had lost their lives. In May 2015 two members of the group, Carole Chapman and Steve Doe, arranged a meeting with Rob to discuss how they could take the project further. They had planned on submitting a Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) grant application in order to finance their exhibition, but were seeking ideas for what else they could do to develop the project. Rob had been working on a mapping project with the Port Towns and Urban Cultures team in which the heritage of Portsmouth’s ‘Sailortown’ districts was being plotted on to contemporary maps as a resource for academics and visitors to the city (see the ‘Sailortown’ app), and suggested that the U3A could create a map that would detail the loss of men from Portsmouth and the local area. It was decided that a paper copy of the map would be created to take around the various pop-up exhibitions, as well as an online map that would be hosted on the PTUC website, where visitors to the site would be able to click on the various ‘pins’ in order to find out more about the men who had lost their lives. The plans had been made; now all that was needed was success in the planned HLF application…
Portsdown U3A’s Steve Doe presents their publication of findings to Portsmouth City Councillor Frank Jonas. With Professor Brad Beaven and Dr Rob James.
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