On History
News, articles & research from the
Institute of Historical Research
Latest posts
Learning from the Windrush Scandal Oral History Archives
This summer Destinie Reynolds completed a three-month internship with the IHR's History & Policy research team. In this blog, Destinie shares her experience of working on the AHRC-funded oral history project “The Windrush Scandal in a Transnational and...
Place-based public history in the Highlands and Islands
Juliette Desportes has recently finished a collaborative internship between the IHR’s Centre for the History of People, Place and Community and the University of the Highlands and Island’s Centre for History. In this blog post she reflects on the findings of this...
Henry VIII and the IHR Library
This blog post was written by Sophia Benko, Graduate Trainee Library Assistant at the IHR Wohl Library. While librarians always live in fear of fire destroying their collections, in celebration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio, I would like to...
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
Pre-Raphaelite Outsider: James Smetham (1821-1889)
Since 2019 a team of archivists, creative practitioners, curators, and researchers have been exploring the life and work of the little-known artist and devout Methodist James Smetham. In this blog post, Dr Ruth Slatter (IHR Lecturer in Historic Environment and...
IHR Summer Reading Series
Volume 6 During the month of August we will be sharing summer reading lists, experiences, and suggestions from the IHR community. If you’d like to share your own, please Tweet (X) us @ihr_history. In this blog, we hear from IHR Fellows. Philippa Joseph Although most...
IHR Summer Reading Series
Volume 5 During the month of August we will be sharing summer reading lists, experiences, and suggestions from the IHR community. If you'd like to share your own, please Tweet (X) us @ihr_history. In this blog, we hear from Neil Stewart, Head of the IHR Library. Willa...
IHR Summer Reading Series
Volume 4 During the month of August we will be sharing summer reading lists, experiences, and suggestions from the IHR community. If you'd like to share your own, please Tweet (X) us @ihr_history. Daniel Snowman has been a Senior Research Fellow at the IHR since...
Publications News
VCH Outstanding Contribution Awards 2023
Earlier this year we were delighted to make our second annual round of VCH Outstanding Contribution Awards, nominated by the VCH community. We would like to thank everyone who submitted a nomination. These aren’t long service awards—though some of the recipients have...
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...
Research & Resources News
Learning from the Windrush Scandal Oral History Archives
This summer Destinie Reynolds completed a three-month internship with the IHR's History & Policy research team. In this blog, Destinie shares her experience of working on the AHRC-funded oral history project “The Windrush Scandal in a Transnational and...
Gender and Bathing in Antiquity
This blog was written by Dr Giacomo Savani, an expert in Roman baths and ancient senses, and a recent intern looking at gender histories in the Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH). A version of this text was posted on the Women’s History Network blog in...
Bibliography of British and Irish History: October 2023 update
What’s new in BBIH? The October 2023 update to the Bibliography of British and Irish History adds 4,091 new publications. The new update includes books, journal articles, book chapters, and edited collections covering all areas of British and Irish history,...
Researching Black British History, Race, and Ethnicity in the Bibliography of British and Irish History
Gaverne Bennett, PhD history research student at Leicester University, has recently completed a three month internship at the Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH) looking at Race and Ethnicity. He also created the Guardian newspapers bestselling black...