Centre for Historical Research Events

13-14 June 2019: Second World War Research Group Annual Conference 'Armageddon: The Second World War in Comparative Perspective' Venue: University of Wolverhampton

30 May 2019, 6.30pm–8.00pm: Teaching the British Army the Advantages and the Rebels the Effectiveness of Air Power: Re-conceiving Air-Land Integration during the Arab Revolt in Palestine, 1936–1939, Speaker: Group Captain John Alexander (Air Historical Branch, RAF) Venue: MC001, University of Wolverhampton, Wulfruna Street, Wolverhampton, WV1 1LY (Part of the Trenchard Lecture Series)

Monday 4 February 2019, 3.30-5pm Room ML119a, Centre for Historical Research Seminar: The European Parliament - Talking Shop or Power Broker? Francis Jacobs, University College Dublin - all welcome

6 to 8 September 2018: Conference - 1918 - 2018: An International Conference 'The End of the War & the Reshaping of a Century'

Wednesday, 21 March 2018, 1-2pm, Room MU306: Centre for Historical Research Seminar 'Cornelius Ryan, A Bridge Too Far and the Shaping of History Speaker': Professor John Buckley, University of Wolverhampton - all welcome

Wednesday, 21 March 2018, 5.30pm – 7.00pm, Room MA030, Wulfruna Building: Football and War Network Seminar 'How Football Fouled The Truce'  ‌Speaker Taff Gillingham

6 to 8 September 2017: Conference - El Alamein and the Mediterranean Campaign 1942: Seventy-Five Years On

Thursday 1 June 2017, 5.30pm to 7pm: Football and War Network Inaugural Seminar - 'Invaluable for Morale & Training: Football, the British Army, and the First World War'

Thursday 1 June 2017: Examining the Far Right in the Midlands - one day conference

Thursday 11 May 2017: Whatever Happened to Labour History? Work, Class and Culture in Twentieth Century Britain - Professor Keith Gildart Inaugural Lecture

15 March 2017, 1pm to 2pm: Centre for Historical Research Seminar - 'Mad Mitch’s Tribal Law: Britain’s Withdrawal from South Yemen and its Consequences' - Dr Aaron Edwards, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst - Room  MH108/109 - all welcome

Wednesday 1 March 2017, 5.30pm to 7pm: Public lecture 'Rethinking Lawrence of Arabia and the Palestine Campaign, 1917-2017'. Speaker Dr Rob Johnson, Pembroke College, Oxford.

Saturday 25 February 2017, 10am to 5.30pm: First World War Research Group study day 'New Plans and New Allies: 1917'

Wednesday 30 November, 1pm to 2pm, in MH206 (Mary Seacole Building) - 'One shot, one man' - military innovation and the 'lessons' of the Second World War. Speaker Dr Matthew Ford, University of Sussex.

Wednesday 16 November 2016, 5.30-7.00pm:  Popular Culture and Social Change in Post-War Britain: A conversation with Dominic Sandbrook and Keith Gildart.  To book your place email: FOSSresearch@wlv.ac.uk

Tuesday 15 November 2016, 5-7pm: The Pursuit of Power - Europe 1815-1914. Guest lecture by Sir Richard Evans. Drawing on a lifetime of thinking about nineteenth-century Europe to create an extraordinarily rich and entertaining panorama of a continent undergoing drastic transformation. To book your place email: FOSSresearch@wlv.ac.uk

Wednesday 19 October 2016, 5.30-7pm: Western Front Association Open Public Lecture. Guest speaker Professor Elaine McFarland (Glasgow Caledonian University) on Aylmer Gould Hunter-Bunter (1864 – 1940) at Gallipoli. The event is free. Room to be confirmed. To book your place email Phylomena Badsey, Western Front Open Public Lectures Co-ordinator on P.Badsey@wlv.ac.uk

13-15 July 2016: Children and War: Past and Present 2016. The third international multidisciplinary conference to be held at the University of Salzburg, Austria. Organised by the University of Salzburg and the University of Wolverhampton, in association with the UN Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict

9 June 2016: CHORD Workshop and Call for Papers: 'Frills and Furbelows? Textile Ornamentation and Dress Adornment in Museums and Historic Houses', 9 June 2016, University of Wolverhampton

24 May 2016: CHORD Workshop and Call for Papers: 'Retailing, Distribution and the Family: Historical Approaches', 24 May 2016, University of Wolverhampton

Wednesday 13 April 2016, 1-2pm in  MC232: Centre for Historical Research Seminar - George Africanus: an examination of his links to 18th century Wolverhampton - All welcome

Dr Jefny Ashcroft (local historian and writer)

Stolen, aged three, from Sierra Leone, the man who came to be known as George Africanus arrived at the Molineux family's Wolverhampton home in 1766. He was to live to 71, later becoming a prosperous business man and property-owner in Nottingham. How do we know so much about George and what does his life signify about the experiences of Black Georgians in the Britain of his day?

Wednesday 9 March 2016, 1-2pm in MC226: Centre for Historical Research Seminar 'The British Army and the EOKA insurgency, 1955-59' Speaker: Professor David French (University College London). All welcome

Cyprus has been the ‘forgotten emergency'. It has been pushed to one side in the historiography by the success story of Malaya and the oft-described viciousness of Kenya. But the release as part of the Colonial Office’s ‘Migrated Archive’ of more than 2000 files produced by the British administration on Cyprus between 1878-1960, and hitherto kept secret by the British government, means that now is a good time to reappraise what happened on the island between 1955 and 1959, and to understand how the British security forces went about trying to destroy EOKA.

Wednesday 24 February 2016, 1-2pm in MC408: Centre for Historical Research Seminar: The American Way of War: Historical Debate and Current Events, Professor Brian Linn (Texas A&M University Fulbright Distinguished Chair, University of Birmingham) - All welcome

In recent years the definition of the 'American Way of War' has sparked intense debate among historians, military personnel, political commentators, and public intellectuals. This lecture will discuss the origins of various historical interpretations of the American Way of War and trace how the term was appropriated 1990s by advocates of an 'information' Revolution in Military Affairs.  It then discusses the politicisation of the term during the Iraq-Afghanistan wars and raises some ways that historians might recapture the problem of defining 'ways of war'.

Saturday 13 February 2016: First World War Study Day - New Ways of Killing - Find out more and book your place

Wednesday 10 February 2016: Centre for Historical Research Seminar, 1-2pm MC408 Precarious lives: Stigmatising and de-valuing the working class - Dr Lisa McKenzie (London School of Economics), All welcome

Weds 13 Jan 2016, 1-2pm, Centre for Historical Research Seminar: Prof Paul Dixon (Kingston) War and the Militarisation of British Society and Democracy (MC225). This talk is open to all and there is no need to book.

9 December at 1pm, Centre for Historical Research Seminar: 'God's footballer: Rev K.R.G. Hunt - Oxford Blue, FA Cup Winner, England International and Muscular Christian' by Professor Dilwyn Porter, De Montfort University (room TBC). This talk is open to all and there is no need to book.

18 November 2015, 1pm: Centre for Historical Research Seminar: 'An accidental reporter: a naval chaplain’s view of the Royal Navy 1933-1944, from church service and photographic records' - William Scarff (UoW) (MC416) This talk is open to all and there is no need to book.

11 November 2015, 1pm: Centre for Historical Research Seminar: 'Never the Same Again'?: Reassessing the women's support movement during the Miners' Strike - Dr Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite (UCL) and Dr Natalie Thomlinson (UoW) (MC225) This talk is open to all and there is no need to book.

7-9 January 2015 CfP Beyond Camps.pdf (PDF 195K, Downloads file) (opens a pdf file) This conference is planned as a follow-up to the four successful conferences, which took place at Imperial War Museum London in 2003, 2006, 2009 and 2012. It will continue to build on areas previously investigated, and also open up new fields of academic enquiry.

11 September 2014 CHORD Conference and Call for Papers: Retail Work - Historical Perspectives. The Centre for the History of Retailing and Distribution (CHORD) invites proposals for papers that explore the work of retailing and / or distribution. All forms of work (paid and unpaid) in the retailing and distributive trades are of interest, from small shopkeepers, shop assistants, peddlers and market sellers, to large-scale entrepreneurs, wholesalers and distributors. We welcome all disciplinary perspectives and there are no limitations in terms of the historical period or geographical area covered.

10-11 September 2014 Highway to the Reich: Operation Market Garden and the Battle for the Low Countries 1944 - Seventy Years On. Seventy years after the Western Allies mounted an audacious attempt to seize a crossing over the Rhine into Germany in a bid to end the Second World War quickly, it is time to re-evaluate the importance, impact and outcome of Market Garden, alongside a wider reappraisal of the fighting in the Low Countries in the autumn of 1944.

11 - 13 July 2014 History of the First World War Masterclass: ‘Command in War’ 1914-18, Friday 11 to Sunday 13 July 2014. During the centenary of the First World War, the University of Wolverhampton’s First World War Research Group is offering unique opportunities to explore key topics in great depth through lectures, seminars, and conflict simulations in an intensive weekend of study, at a luxurious hotel in Staffordshire. Booking information and further details are contained in the History of the First World War Masterclass Flyer

12 June 2014 CHORD Workshop and Call for Papers: Textile Fragments: Incomplete Textiles and Dress in Museums and Historic Houses. The Centre for the History of Retailing and Distribution (CHORD) invites proposals for papers that focus on any aspect of textile and dress ‘fragments’ held in museums, historic houses, archives or other repositories, including private collections.

May 2014 - Dr George Kassimeris, Reader in Terrorism and Political Violence, will lead a workshop-based visit to Athens for professionals involved in training on different aspects of street violence and public disorder. Dr Kassimeris, together with Dr Eamonn O’Kane, Senior Lecturer in Politics and War Studies, plans to link with Greece to take advantage of the country’s long standing experience in dealing with riots and public disorder, as part of a new EU-funded project on Why People Riot.

Annual CHORD events

Children and War International Multidisciplinary Conferences

First World War Research Group Day Schools

Economic History Society

Seminar series

  • 11 December 2013 - "You Asked Me About It, So I'm Telling You:" Oral History and Photography in Paul Oliver's Conversation with the Blues (1965) (Christian O'Connell, University of Gloucester)
  • 6 November 2013 - ‘Youth, Gangs and Violence: Easterhouse, Glasgow 1965-70’ (Angela Bartie, University of Strathclyde)
  • 9 October 2013 - ‘“He Came From England Didn’t He?”: Identity, Nationality and the Place of Thomas Paine in Anglo-American Memory, c1809-2009’ (Sam Edwards, Manchester Metropolitan University)
  • 22 May 2013 - 'Fibres, Fashion and Fascism: the case of regenerated protein fibre' (Mary Brooks, University of Durham)
  • 8 May 2013 - Character and Conduct, Categorisation and Control: Poor Law Reform in Early Nineteenth Century England' (Samantha Shave, University of Cambridge, speaker sponsored by the Royal Historical Society)
  • 10 April 2013 - '"A Dying Mutual Friend”: Deindustrialisation, Class and the National question in post-war Scotland' (Andrew Perchard, University of Strathclyde)
  • 13 March 2013 - 'Early Modern Ethnicity in Scandinavia'(Jens Lerbom, Sweden)
  • 6 March 2013 - 'Tunnelling Companies on the Western Front during the Great War' (Ritchie Wood, University of Swansea)
  • 6 February 2013 - 'Deaths, Accidents and State Intervention in the Warwickshire Coal Industry c1830-1914' (Tom Anney, University of Wolverhampton)