Last month’s BBC Scotland documentary – Pipers of the Trenches – highlighted the cultural significance of pipe music during the battles of the First World War in the solidification of Scottish traditions, identity, and heritage within the military. The programme visited descendents of men who carried their pipes in the trenches and explored their stories […]
Tag Archives | port towns
The 1940 Evacuation of St. Peter Port, Guernsey, to England
In May 1940, as Germany invaded France, fears arose in Guernsey that a German invasion might take place. The closeness of Guernsey to Cherbourg left it wide open to attack by both sea and air. On 11 June, the British War Cabinet considered that Hitler might occupy the Channel Islands to “strike a blow at […]
Re-connecting Portsmouth to World War 1: Spies, Sea and the City.
Since the beginning of this February a research project re-connecting Portsmouth to First World War was carried out by the University of Portsmouth’s Psychology department. The project was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund’s programme called ‘First World War: Then and Now‘, through which several grants were awarded to mark the centenary of the World […]
Port Towns & Urban Cultures Events Calendar
April 2016 14th – 15th April – International Postgraduate Port and Maritime History Conference, University of Strathclyde. The study of port cities and their relationship to maritime endeavour and enterprise is a diverse and interdisciplinary practice, which draws on research methods from sociology, anthropology and archaeology, and brings together aspects of social, economic and cultural […]
Port Towns, Diversity and Tudor England
“What is the city but its people? True, the people are the city.” William Shakespeare, Coriolanus, Act III Scene I. Many historians regard the Tudor period as pivotal in the shaping of modern England.[1] Despite this, popular interest has concentrated on the more ‘entertaining’ aspects of the period: such as the personal relationships of Tudor […]
Imperial Identity in Port Towns: a spotlight on Southampton and Liverpool, 1900
The provincial press of the late nineteenth-century provides a fascinating insight into how imperialistic sentiment was conveyed to a newly literate working-class.[1] The provincial press adopted the conventions of ‘new journalism’, catering for working-class tastes by prioritising the reporting of sport, sensationalist news and by placing a focus upon localised issues.[2] Its rise paralleled the […]