History

Who Were the Nuns?

Economic and Social History, History | 17th-century, 18th-century, Christianity, religion, women's studies, womens-history

The data is derived from surviving manuscript and printed sources from the English convents in exile. Where membership records are missing or have gaps, details have been sought in other sources such as biographical writings, histories and chronicles. Significant data has also been located in continental archives from visitation records and examinations of candidates for clothing and profession. Where possible data has been included for candidates who failed to complete a full career in convents for a variety of reasons including health or unsuitability. External documents have been attached to the database to provide additional data regarding family connections and networks: much of the detail is derived from sources external to the convents.

Data type: text

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The Windrush Scandal in a Transnational and Commonwealth Context

History, Political History | ethnic minorities, interviews, migration, oral history, race, twentieth century, twenty-first century, United Kingdom

From the Project Abstract on the UKRI Grant List website: The key outputs will be 60 oral history interviews which will be available electronically and a searchable database of existing oral history resources on the 'Windrush generation'. 30 of the interviews will focus on the response of Caribbean governments and their representatives in London to the legal restrictions imposed on immigration to the UK from the Caribbean from the early 1960s, and the plight of those members of the diaspora community whose right to remain in the UK was challenged by the British state. The other 30 interviews will focus on members of the diaspora community, those who found themselves under threat of deportation or actually deported, and their supporters and legal and political representatives. The interviews will explore the extent to which the complexities and ambiguities of the law governing nationality exacerbated confusion around competing notions of Caribbean and British identity and belonging. They will seek to identify the extent to which members of the diaspora community were aware of changes to their rights and obligations brought about by successive acts of parliament from 1962, and the stages by which it became clear that significant numbers of people were having their right to remain in the UK challenged. This oral history research will be supplemented by archival research in collections in the UK and the Caribbean. Selected documents will be digitized and made available on the project website alongside the recordings of the interviews and supporting explanatory materials including a series of podcasts produced by the project team.

Data type: text

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War Widows’ Stories

Economic and Social History, History | gender, interviews, oral history, twentieth century, United Kingdom, war and conflict, women's studies, World War II

The War Widows' Stories website hosts all transcripts and recordings of the oral history interviews we have conducted in the course of the War Widows' Stories project, and they can be access and downloaded for free by anyone. Recordings can be streamed or downloaded; transcripts can be read and searched online or downloaded as PDFs.

Data type: audio, text

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Whittingehame College Old Boy Interviews

Cultural History, History | England, ethnic minorities, interviews, Judaism, Middle East, migration, twentieth century

Whittingehame College was a Jewish boys' school located in Brighton and Hove between 1931 and 1958 and in Handcross Park from 1958 until 1967. Whittingehame's founder was the British Zionist, Jakob Halévy (1898 - 1978). During the years of its existence, the school underwent significant transformations. From educating British Jewry in the early 1930s, Whittingehame attracted Jewish students from Germany and central Europe in the mid-1930s. After the war, Jewish students from Muslim-majorities countries in West Asia and North Africa (especially Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, Sudan, Iran and Afghanistan) increasingly sought admission to the school. This data comprises twelve videos of interviews conducted by Magnus Marsden and Paul Anderson with former students at the College. The interviews were conducted and recorded in Brighton on 10th September 2023, in the context of a College reunion.

Data type: video

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Universal Short Title Catalogue

Cultural History, History | 15th century, 16th-century, 17th-century, books

The Universal Short Title Catalogue (USTC) is a project aimed at bringing together information on all books published in Europe in the first age of print. At present this comprises 755,000 editions and around 4 million surviving copies, located in over 9,500 archives and libraries worldwide.

Data type: text

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The People of Medieval Scotland, 1093-1371 (PoMS3)

History, Political History | medieval-history, Scotland

The People of Medieval Scotland is a database containing information about over 22,000 individuals recorded in over 10,000 documents to have survived from medieval Scotland from 1093-1371. PoMS was first launched in 2010, when it covered the period 1093-1286, and extended to 1314 by 2014. The Community of the Realm in Scotland project (COTR) has not only extended the database to incorporate the data from all royal documents from 1314-1371 but has also upgraded the database so that it can continue to be used. PoMS '3' has been available since September 2018.

Data type: text

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The People of 1381

Economic and Social History, History | 14th century, historical-records, medieval-history

The database is comprised of 3 main sections, Sources, Participants, and Incidents. The source describes where the information is found, e.g. The National Archives, and how to locate it. It contains the text in English and sometimes in the original language. The source text has been used to construct listings of Participants and Locations. Participants comprise everyone who was affected by the rising - not only those accused of being rebels, but also victims, jurors, justices and lawyers who took part in prosecutions arising from the revolt. The database includes information on relationships between individuals, occupations and background biographical information from sources such as manorial records. Locations comprise both places where incidents occurred during the rising and places associated with a particular individual. Note that although a source associates a place with a participant, this does not mean that they lived there - medieval sources frequently use a variety of locations in identifying people. One rebel is described variously as being of Edenbridge in Kent, Carshalton in Surrey and Winchester in Hampshire but actually lived in Southampton. There may be multiple entries in the database for the same person or location as an entry exists for each source the person or incident is found in.

Data type: spatial, text

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The Oral History of Twentieth Century Mongolia

Economic and Social History, History | 20th-century, asia, Central Asia, Mongolia, oral history

A collection of over 600 interviews in Mongolia with English translations / summaries, available for public use.

Data type: text

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The Poetry of the Lancashire Cotton Famine (1861-65)

Economic and Social History, History | 19th-century, american-civil-war, class, poetry

This database brings together for the first time poems written in response to the Lancashire Cotton Famine of 1861-65. They are presented with commentary, audio recitations and musical performances. The crisis was caused by the American Civil War and, as well as poems from British local newspapers, poems published in America are included commenting on the relationship between the US, Britain, cotton, and slavery.

Data type: audio, text

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The Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England (PASE)

Economic and Social History, History | eighth century, eleventh century, England, medieval, ninth century, seventh century, sixth century, tenth century

The Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England (PASE) is a database which aims to provide structured information relating to all the recorded inhabitants of England from the late sixth to the late eleventh century. It is based on a systematic examination of the available written sources for the period, including chronicles, saints’ Lives, charters, libri vitae, inscriptions, Domesday Book and coins; and is intended to serve as a research tool suitable for a wide range of users with an interest in this period.

Data type: text

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