|
Welcome to the latest edition of the British Association for Local History’s e-newsletter.
We hope you are keeping well and are enjoying the lighter evenings as we head into spring. We are continuing to coordinate lots of exciting things, including our programme of webinars and talks that restarted in September.
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; in the first instance, look at our guidelines here for how to share your stories. For those wishing to become a BALH member, information about what BALH has to offer is available on our membership pages. We hope to hear from you soon!
STOP PRESS Last chance to join tonight's digital skills webinar
Thursday 9th March at 7pm.
Creating Engaging YouTube Videos for Local and Family History with Catherine Warr.
Catherine, who runs a very successful local history channel, and has been highlighted by YouTube in a marketing campaign, will explain how, using tools available on your computer, to produce a short talk ready for our 10 Minute Talks series. She will use her own recent short video Harry Wright and Baseball in Britain to show how this was put together, ready for broadcast.
Our webinars last for approximately 1 hour and are free to BALH members. Non-members can join the sessions for £5 per session.
Historic Towns Trust
We are delighted to be partnering with the Historic Towns Trust again to bring you four evening lectures between February and April. These lectures cover a broad range of fascinating topics, and will be delivered by highly respected speakers from the Historic Towns Trust. The talks are:
Layers of London on Thursday 23rd March at 7pm.
Mapping Urban Britain from the Past to the Past: a Scottish view on three episodes in cartographic history on Thursday 6th April at 7pm.
The Historic Town of Beverley: Because of a Saint on Thursday 27th April at 7pm.
The webinars will last for approximately 1 hour and are free to BALH members. Non-members can join the sessions for £5 per session.
Read more:
Find out more, and book your place
Coronations in Local History
In February BALH were put in contact with a project being run between King’s College London, Roehampton University and Art Projects for Schools, for the Coronation in May. Alongside some creative elements and a survey of attitudes around the coronation the project is developing a series of lessons for teachers on coronation history. BALH have been asked to provide advice on researching coronations in local history that interested teachers and pupils can follow to find out about the history of these events in their area. Members of the BALH team are working to put together some online resources, which will be shared in the coming weeks.
Read more:
The British Coronation Project 2023
10 Minute Talks
Our latest 10 Minute Talks are available to access on the BALH website, and they cover a range of topics. These include:
George IV's 1822 visit to Edinburgh by Neil Robson.
The Scandalous Failure of the Birmingham Penny Bank by Michelle Cale.
Harry Wright and Baseball in Britain by Catherine Warr.
Chancery Records by Susan Moore.
The Temple Lodge Home for Inebriate Women by Liz Craig.
Victorian Workhouses in Wales by Helen Palmer.
Read more:
See a full list of our Ten-Minute Talks
Do you have a local history topic you could create a short talk for? We’d love to hear from you!
Read more:
Promote your research through a Ten-Minute Talk
20s Streets Local History Competition
We are delighted to have partnered with the National Archives at Kew for an exciting new local history competition! The 20s Streets Local History Competition encourages individuals or groups to share the stories found within the 1921 Census using a range of innovative and insightful ways. We’ve loved receiving your entries for this competition, and we look forward to announcing the winners soon.
Read more:
See more about the 20s Streets competition
Annual Dymond Lecture
This year’s Annual Dymond Lecture took place on Thursday 8th December at 7pm. Our guest speaker for last year’s lecture was Professor Briony McDonagh from the University of Hull, and she presented a talk entitled ‘Landscape, Environment and Learning Histories.’
The talk covered the UKRI-funded project ‘Risky Cities: Living with Water in an Uncertain Climate Future’ and explored the histories of living with water and flood over the long durée, examining how inhabitants and Corporation of one flood-prone town managed water in order to survive and thrive in a risky yet resilient estuarine environment. In doing so, it examined local stories and histories of an east coast town in the medieval and early modern period are brought to light, alongside a wider discussion of how local, landscape and environmental histories can help us learn for the future.
If you missed the talk, don’t worry! Our Chair Paul Dryburgh has written a piece reflecting on the evening.
Read more:
Read the blog article for Landscape, Environment and Learning Histories
Publications
Highlights to look out for in the Spring 2023 issue of Local History News (Number 147) will include:
· How can your society digitise its archives? A plea from Horley Local History Society has brought multiple responses from other BALH members and we will share their best advice.
· Writing for the local press – a useful guide for increasing awareness of your group and its work.
· Researching road names – a project in Sussex has tracked down details of the etymology of hundreds of local streets.
New editor Andrew Chapman reminds BALH members that we welcome your news, newsletters and other publications. Please send news to editor.lhn@balh.org.uk and publications to reviews.editor@balh.org.uk – ideally newsletters should be emailed to both addresses. You can also send material by post to the BALH office, c/o Moore Insight, St James House, Vicar Lane, Sheffield S1 2EX.
Members should receive their copies in the post; if you are interested in reading a digital copy, you can do so on our website.
Read more:
See our library of Local History News editions
Member Events and Deadlines
The quarterly cycle of Local History News means that it is often too late to publicise members’ (non-regular) events such as conferences, symposia and prize deadlines. We welcome details for inclusion at the BALH’s online listings or in this e-newsletter (submit them here). Some upcoming events over the next few weeks include:
· Online virtual tours of sections of Hadrian’s Wall on 8 March, 29 March and 5 April.
· The Annual Conference of London Archaeologists from London & Middlesex Archaeological Society, on the theme of Roman towns, takes place on 25 March via Zoom.
· Entries for the Monumental Brass Society’s £350 Jonathan Ali Essay Prize should be submitted by 31 March.
· The annual conference of the Scottish Local History Forum is on the theme of Engineering, Science and Technology and will take place in Perth on 27 April.
Read more:
BALH local history events listings
Local History Blog
We’ve got lots of fascinating blogs on our website covering a range of topics and periods in history. These include:
A Local Historian Walks into a Joke… by Joe Saunders
Celebrating Hampshire Historians: A Southampton Perspective by Roger Ottewill
Old Palace School Bombing Project by Paul Chiddicks
Ways to Get Involved in BALH’s Work by Megan Kelleher
We are always looking for new contributors to our blog, and welcome submissions particularly from different geographical regions, communities and backgrounds. If you would like to write a piece for us, please check our guidelines (link below). Once your piece is ready, you can submit it to socialmedia@balh.org.uk.
Read more:
Contributing to the BALH Blog
Local History Hour
We’re taking a brief break from Local History Hours currently, and we’ve had so many incredible speakers so far! Remember, if you missed one of our Local History Hours please do not worry – we have overviews of the evenings on our blog.
Local History Hour and webinars, like the majority of our events, are free for BALH members, or £5 for non-members.
Would you like to be part of a Local History Hour and share your research? We’d love to hear from you! Email socialmedia@balh.org.uk to find out more about how you can get involved.
New Essay Prize
The London Topographical Society is funding a new prize in honour of the late Dr Ann Saunders. A prize of £1,000 will be offered annually for an original and unpublished research essay on the topography, development or buildings of London in any period.
Submissions should be made by 1st April 2023, and the essay must be no more than 8,000 words including endnotes. This should include an additional abstract summary of about 200 words.
Read more:
Find out more about the prize
#PhotographyFriday
Are you interested in the BALH’s Local History Photographer of the Year competition, but want to practise with some photographs first? Why not join our new initiative, #PhotographyFriday. Each Friday, we will be sharing some of our favourite photographs of sites of local historical importance that we have visited. Tag us in your posts and use the hashtag #PhotographyFriday so we can share your posts.
Image: Cockersand Abbey, courtesy of Heritage Photographer Juliette Gregson.
Podcast
The Local History Matters podcast returns this month, with new editions released on the last Friday of each month, through to June. In this series, Megan Kelleher discusses local history projects with a number of researchers, starting with Dr Katherine Roscoe, a historical criminologist and Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Liverpool. While you're waiting for the new series, you can listen to all past episodes of the podcast using the link below.
Would you like to be part of a Local History Matters podcast episode and share more about your research? We’d love to hear from you! Email socialmedia@balh.org.uk to find out more about how you can get involved.
Read more:
Local History Matters Podcast
Social Media
Are you or your organisation on social media? We’d love to hear from you! We would love to interact with more of our members through our social media channels, and help you to share upcoming events that you are hosting. Furthermore, if there are groups or individuals you think we should be following, please tell us.
Our social media is as follows:
Facebook
Instagram
LinkedIn
Twitter
YouTube
More material is being added to our website all the time, so check back regularly!
The BALH Digital Team
digitalteam@balh.org.uk
|
