Latest Posts

  • Spotlight on: Dr Rachel Foxley

    Having grown up a few miles further down the Thames valley, coming to Reading in 2004 was a return to home territory. My academic path as a student took me through different subjects as well as three different universities, but… Continue reading

  • Great Britain and Britishness

    By Oliver Finnegan In popular memory, the UK was born in 1707, with both England and Scotland passing their respective Acts of Union creating Great Britain. Union is seen as the recognition of shared nationality by two previously separate peoples… Continue reading

  • 1707 and all that

    By Esther Mijers As a Scottish historian working on the seventeenth-century politician William Carstares, who took part in the Union debates of the early 1700s and who was a staunch proponent, I am probably more attuned to the current debates… Continue reading

  • The Military Mapping of Scotland in the Period of the Jacobite Rebellions

    By Alastair Noble ‘I am going in the dark; for Marechal Wade won’t let me have his map!’ (Quoted in Tabraham, 2007, 25). These words, reported to have been uttered by General Hawley, Commander of Chief of Scotland in 1745, evoke… Continue reading

  • Spotlight on: Professor Patrick Major

    I was born in Greater London but grew up in Yorkshire. I studied History and German at Magdalen College, Oxford, then went on to St. Antony’s, Oxford for a DPhil. I took Tim Mason’s course on the Third Reich and… Continue reading

  • Spotlight on: Professor Lindy Grant

    I grew up in the Thames Valley, but come from a mainly Scottish background, and did my undergraduate degree in Medieval History at St Andrews. Then I went to the Courtauld Institute, where I did an MA in Medieval Art… Continue reading

  • Spotlight on: Dr Jeremy Burchardt

    I grew up in a village on the outskirts of Oxford. I studied History at Oxford and came to Reading as the Marc Fitch Student in Agricultural History. My PhD was on the history of allotments. I was appointed to… Continue reading

  • Securing the succession in England

    by Janet Dickenson In the aftermath of the fall of the Earl of Essex in February 1601, James VI of Scotland was left without a clear route to the English throne. He was profoundly distrustful of Robert Cecil, Elizabeth I’s… Continue reading

  • Departmental Research Seminar Autumn Term 2013

    The research seminars this year will explore the theme of ‘Ceremony’. There will be one research session this term. Wednesday 11th December 2013: 2.30-6pm, HUMSS G25 Dr Heike Schmidt (University of Reading): In and out of Africa: thoughts on ceremonies and… Continue reading

  • The Origins of the Stenton Lecture

    The Stenton Lecture, an annual lecture by an eminent historian, is hosted by the Department every year in late November. It is a prestigious event and the highlight in the Department’s calendar. But who were the Stentons, and why is this… Continue reading

    The Origins of the Stenton Lecture