On History
News, articles & research from the
Institute of Historical Research
Latest posts
Monarchy in the Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH) : the invention and reinvention of royal ceremony
Professor Philip Murphy's blog post responds to a new BBIH online reading list of 606 publications focusing on the history of monarchy and coronations in Britain and Ireland from 1485 to the present day. The list specifically covers: Succession, royal, a subcategory...
Medieval Monarchy in the Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH)
Dr Emily Ward's blog post responds to an new BBIH online reading list of 375 publications focusing on the history of monarchy and coronations in Britain and Ireland up to 1485. The list specifically covers: Succession, royal, a subcategory of Monarchy (within...
A celebration of Glen Jacques’s contribution to the IHR
Many people who have worked at or visited Senate House have fond memories of Glen Jacques, who worked at IHR reception from 2005 until 2021. Sadly Glen died on 21 April 2022."To those who visited the Institute, Glen was a guide, host, source of knowledge and, again, a...
Spotlight

Conflict and climate change in the Arctic: what the seventeenth century suggests about the future
By Dagomar Degroot Environment & History, essay no. 13 In the final article of our ‘Environment & History’ series, Professor Dagomar Degroot looks to early modern climate change to ask whether arctic warming necessarily results in violent...
Features & Articles
The Gough Map Project: A Tale of Two Maps
By William D. Shannon The Gough Map Project has reached that ‘interesting’ stage where we are moving from either sitting on the fence and making no decisions, or making lots, but then rejecting them all. It is now time to reach some firm conclusions, and start...
The Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH): Recovering Emotions in Historical Research
As historians we are often trained to remove emotions from our analyses of the past, whether this be our own emotions or those of the individuals whose lives and experiences we seek to recover. As a researcher whose work centres on the history of emotions, that...
Public History in Action: VCH Wiltshire and the Bremhill Parish History Project
John Chandler Between Chippenham and Calne, not quite the Marlborough Downs, not quite the flat Wiltshire claylands, lies Bremhill, a large parish of scattered hamlets and farms, connected by a network of minor lanes. It has its quirks – a kind of Nelson’s column...
At home in history: Claire Langhamer on her first months as IHR Director
By Claire Langhamer I started my role as Director of the IHR in October, and already the Institute feels like home. As a historian of twentieth century Britain, there is something particularly lovely about working in Senate House, with its wartime history, its 1930s...
Publications News
Bringing the VCH Past to Wikipedia Present
In this blog, VCH General Editor, Adam Chapman and IHR Collections Librarian, Michael Townsend, introduce the VCH Archive and how it is being used to broaden other projects (including Wikipedia). As you might imagine, like any 123-year-old organisation, The...
VCH Outstanding Contribution Awards 2022
On 12 October, 2022, we were delighted to make our inaugural round of VCH Outstanding Contribution Awards, nominated by the VCH community. They’re a chance for us to thank colleagues for their exceptional work on this national local history project, and to share...
Supporting Early-Career Historians: The Victoria County History
This post was written by Adam Chapman, the General Editor of the Victoria County History, and Lecturer in Medieval History at the Institute of Historical Research.[Working for the VCH] sparked my long-forgotten childhood curiosity around the history of place, what...
New from the Victoria County History: Launching Tamworth
The Victoria County History (VCH) is well known for its detailed studies of individual localities, which assemble (in the words of one recent reviewer) 'countless tiny parts to build a much larger whole'. The 'Big Red Books' describing the histories of places large...
Research & Resources News
Monarchy in the Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH) : the invention and reinvention of royal ceremony
Professor Philip Murphy's blog post responds to a new BBIH online reading list of 606 publications focusing on the history of monarchy and coronations in Britain and Ireland from 1485 to the present day. The list specifically covers: Succession, royal, a subcategory...
Medieval Monarchy in the Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH)
Dr Emily Ward's blog post responds to an new BBIH online reading list of 375 publications focusing on the history of monarchy and coronations in Britain and Ireland up to 1485. The list specifically covers: Succession, royal, a subcategory of Monarchy (within...
Meet Ewan Lawry, new BBIH section editor for Britain 1914-1960
When I first saw the advertisement for the Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH) Section Editors, I am ashamed to say that I had not heard of this vital resource. After a Google search and having checked my university library's website, I quickly realised...
Meet Dr Giacomo Savani, new BBIH section editor for Roman Britain
In this blog post, we meet Dr Giacomo Savani, an expert in Roman baths and ancient senses, recently appointed as the Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH) section editor for Roman Britain. My name is Dr Giacomo Savani, and I’m the new editor for the...