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Welcome to the fourth edition of the British Association for Local History’s new e-newsletter.
We’ve got some exciting updates for you about our digital engagement plans, as well as some talks and events happening online. These initiatives and events will help develop your knowledge and passion for local history, and are opportunities to become involved in our activities and those of other institutions. We hope to see you at these.
BALH encourages participation from all our members and we welcome all your ideas. If you have a local history story you would like to share – be it a blog post, talk, article or project – please do get in contact with us. For those wishing to become a BALH member, information about what BALH has to offer is available on our membership pages. Hope to hear from you soon!
Britain’s Most Historic Towns – Our Digital Engagement Fellow, Dr Claire Kennan, makes a TV appearance!
Dr Claire Kennan, BALH’s Digital Engagement Fellow, recently appeared on Channel 4’s Series 3 of Britain’s Most Historic Towns, discussing medieval Lincoln and the Charter of the Forest.
Series 3 of Britain’s Most Historic Towns is being shown on Saturdays at 8pm.
Read more
Digital Engagement Initiatives
Throughout 2020, BALH has adapted and enhanced its digital presence. As part of this, the Digital Team have created a number of new digital engagement projects These include, but are not limited to, the following:
New Podcast
The BALH podcast will be launching on Monday 4th January 2021! Designed as a bi-monthly podcast exploring exciting projects from across the UK, BALH will be showcasing the fantastic research and exciting stories that local historians are uncovering. Confirmed guests and featured projects for the podcast range from academic projects to national institutions, local museums and everything in between! The podcast will be available to listen to for free across all of the usual platforms.
Digital Skills Workshops and Webinars
From January 2021 BALH will be offering monthly online training workshops and webinars, full details on how to book a place will be available on our website soon. In the meantime, here are some dates for your diary:
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Wednesday 13th January
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Getting started with your local history society website
with Paul Carter |
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Saturday 13th February
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Uncovering your Medieval Local History
with Claire Kennan |
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Wednesday 10th March
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Getting started with social media for your local history project
with Daniella Gonzalez
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If you would like to be involved/find out more about these initiatives please contact the Digital team (digitalteam@balh.org.uk).
Fun Fact Fridays
Fun Fact Friday is all about inviting the local history community to engage with the history of some of their favourite places and the stories of where they come from. This initiative is a way to invite both BALH members and non-members to participate in promoting the importance of local history. These are short, quirky facts for people to enjoy and learn from. For example, our most recent Fun Fact was submitted by Dr William Butler, Head of Military Records at The National Archives, and focused on Canadian soldiers in Folkestone, Kent, during WW1.
If you would like to contribute to #FunFactFriday, please send in your fun local history fact to Dr Daniella Gonzalez (socialmedia@balh.org.uk). Follow us on social media for more #FunFactFriday excitement!
The Latest Ten-Minute Talks
Over the course of the last few months our Ten-Minute Talks have continued to grow and develop. We have had several individuals, both BALH members and non-members, submit Ten-Minute talks, which are accompanied by video recordings and that you can find on our YouTube Channel.
Some of our recent talks include:
‘St James’s Church Louth and the Lincolnshire Rising of 1536’ by Claire Kennan
‘The Soup Kitchen for the Jewish Poor, Brune Street, Spitalfields’ by Ian Stone
‘The Patrick Bronte Experience’ by Margaret Mills
‘Axholme: Places in the Marsh’ by Kathryn Bullen
Watch them here.
Interested in submitting a Ten-Minute Talk? Find out more and contact us here.
BALH Survey
Open to both BALH members and non-members our survey will be released around the end of November. This is a fantastic opportunity to share your thoughts and feedback with us so that we can continue to develop our initiatives and grow as an association.
Special Anniversary for the BALH Personal Achievement Awards
2021 is a very special year for BALH as it marks the 20th year of our Personal Achievement awards, recognising dedication and work in local history.
This award is presented to those who are committed to promoting local history, sharing both their knowledge and enthusiasm with others. This inspiration comes in many shapes and forms, including planning research and publishing projects, research and writing themselves, talking to groups, answering questions, organising local archives, running a museum, planning heritage trails and helping local schoolchildren become active local historians.
Have you got someone in mind that you would like to nominate for our Personal Achievement Award? Find details on our website about how to submit a nomination.
Internet Sites Directory Now Reduced
The bookshop has a limited-time offer on the Internet Sites For Local Historians: A Directory (4th Edition). This popular publication, normally retailing at £10, has been reduced to £3.99 (£2.99 for members), to enable us to clear old stock.
Buy online now.
University of York Open Lectures
Throughout the autumn term, the University of York is hosting a series of inspiring talks as part of its online autumn Open Lecture series. Lectures include a variety of history based subjects, such as ‘Hidden in plain sight: The unexplored histories of the medieval north at the time of the Black Death’ and ‘The rise of the Valkyrie: Mythical and real women of the Viking world’, and motivating talks like ‘The state of disbelief: A story of death, love and forgetting – In discussion with Juliet Rosenfeld’ and ‘Countdown to success: Marathon runner Charlotte Ellis in conversation’.
The series will run between Wednesday 4th November 2020 and Wednesday 16th December 2020.
Find out more on our website.
The Northern Way: Online Records Workshop
Interested in the history of the medieval church in Northern England and the Archbishops of York’s Registers? Join The Northern Way on Tuesday 24th November to find out more about Ecclesiastical Administration, Ecclesiastical Records at TNA, Ecclesiastical Architecture, Local History and the Local Church, Visitations and Pastoral Care, and the Church and State.
Presentations are pre-recorded and participations will be able to ask the speakers questions in live discussion sessions. You can register for this FREE event via Eventbrite.
Challenging histories? Collaboration, community & remembering the bits ‘best’ forgotten
For those of you interested in the history of the railway, join the Institute for Historical Research’s Centre for People, Place and Community seminar on Wednesday 25th November at 5:30pm to hear Mike Esbester discuss the ‘Railway Works, Life and Death’ project. In his paper, Mike Esbester will be engaging with different audiences to explore accidents to British and Irish railway workers before 1939.
Click here for details and how to book.
British Library makes 40,000 maps and views freely available online
You can now freely access up to 40,000 maps that form part of the British Library’s collection. The material is accessible through the British Library’s digital Flickr Commons collection and is part of the Topographical Collection of King George III. This collection of maps captures four centuries of visual impressions of places throughout the world, from maps and atlases to architectural drawings, cartoons and watercolours.
Learn more about this project by clicking here.
The Local Historian and Local History News – Enjoyed your copy?
Our latest editions of The Local Historian and Local History News are now out and we hope that you’ve been enjoying them. Here are some of our favourite articles from The Local Historian:
Anthea Jones's article on 'Johannes Kip and the Gloucestershire engravings' is great for those who want to learn more about engraving as a technique to decorate metal objects.
If you're interested in West Sussex and the early modern gentleman check out Caroline J. Adams's article on this subject.
Peter Austin also provided a fantastic piece on the Cecil estates in south-east Hertfordshire and Rutland between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries, focusing on tan-oak sales during these centuries in this particular estate.
Our latest volume of The Local Historian is also available online. BALH members receive this publication for FREE. Interested? Sign up as a member today and enjoy received your copy of this fantastic publication.
Share your local history stories with BALH through a blog post
The BALH blog forms part of our initiative to boost BALH’s digital presence and keep our community engaged with local history research. Our latest blog post ‘Why do Local History?’ was written by Joe Saunders, member of the BALH Outreach Committee, and provides a thoughtful insight into the ways in which we do local history and the places we go to experience and research this.
Do you have a local history project or a local history story you would like to write about for BALH? Details for writing and submitting a blog post can be found here.
Meanwhile Nearby Project
Our Digital Engagement Fellow, Dr Claire Kennan has teamed up with a group of 15 teachers from across the UK to produce a new suite of educational resources which focus on getting local history into the classroom. Using the hugely successful model of ‘Meanwhile Nearby’ created by William Bailey-Watson at the University of Reading, these resources get pupils to research (and then discuss in class) local history that was happening at the same time as the topics they are studying in their taught curriculum. Look out for the launch of these resources on our website in Spring 2021; more information about Meanwhile Nearby can be found here.
More material is being added to our website all the time, so check back regularly!
The BALH Digital Team
digitalteam@balh.org.uk
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