How did the Suffragettes differ from the Suffragists?
Guest Blogs
The rise of the #MeToo movement and the increased focus on gender equality in contemporary society has sparked both a ...
Read More Female Chartists: from the ‘Women of Elland’ to Mary Ann Walker
Team Blogs
In 1838 the People’s Charter called for “a vote for every man twenty-one years of age, of sound mind, and ...
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What were the Tudor Poor Laws?
Team Blogs
Why was there a problem with catering for the poor? In the 20th century, widespread provisions were finally made for ...
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The Metropolitan Police and the Great Dock Strike of 1889
Guest Blogs
“We are driven into a shed, iron-barred from end to end, outside of which a foreman or contractor walks up ...
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What was the Great Reform Act?
Guest Blogs
In this series of blog posts we are showcasing the work from GCSE and A-Level students who have worked with ...
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The First Female MPs
Guest Blogs
In this series of blog posts we are showcasing the work from GCSE and A-Level students who have worked with ...
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The Peterloo Massacre
Guest Blogs
In this series of blog posts we are showcasing the work from GCSE and A-Level students who have worked with ...
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The Political Parties and Votes for Women
Guest Blogs
In this series of blog posts we are showcasing the work from GCSE and A-Level students who have worked with ...
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Anne Askew: Life of a Martyr
Guest Blogs
In this series of blog posts we are showcasing the work from GCSE and A-Level students who have worked with ...
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The Repeal of the Test and Corporation Act
Team Blogs
"Every man has an unequivocal right to enquire and judge for himself, - to worship God according to the dictates ...
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Catholic Emancipation
Team Blogs
Saturday morning, 23 March 1829 became a significant day in England; it was the last time a sitting Prime Minister ...
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Jack Cade’s Rebellion
Team Blogs
We say our sovereign lord may understand that his false council has lost his law, his merchandise is lost, his ...
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‘Uniting Together to Preserve Ourselves’: The Tolpuddle Martyrs
Guest Blogs
The 2005 Tolpuddle Martyrs Day Celebration. Photograph by Dave Headey. Every year for one weekend in July, the small village ...
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The Bull Ring Riots: Early Chartist unrest in Birmingham
Guest Blogs
The Chartist Movement had significant popular support in Birmingham from 1838 and there was a good deal of local involvement ...
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Kett’s Rebellion
Team Blogs
Every freeman from henceforth, without danger shall make in his own wood, or on his land, or on his water, ...
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Women at War: Mary Bankes and the Siege of Corfe Castle
Team Blogs
‘… a respectable woman’s place was in the home. Unfortunately, though, it was rapidly becoming obvious that the home was ...
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Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy: the ‘little Lord Chancellor’ in parliament (1869-1874)
Guest Blogs
Vicwardian women’s emancipator Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy is best known for her work as a campaigner for the parliamentary vote for ...
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Harry William Hobart (1854-1941)
U3A Articles
Harry William Hobart (1854-1941) was a lifelong social democrat. Heavily involved with trade unions, he took part in many of ...
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John Hampden 1595-1643: ‘Against my King I do not fight, But for my King and Kingdom’s right’
U3A Articles
In the seventeenth century, Hampden emerged as a powerful influence in the struggle between Charles I and Parliament that culminated ...
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David Widgery: ‘The Good Doctor’
U3A Articles
‘Dr David Widgery (1947 – 1992) practiced locally as a GP. As a Socialist and a writer, his life and ...
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Unlocking Doors: Josephine Butler and the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts
U3A Articles
Address to the Women of Portsmouth, July 1870 In the second half of the nineteenth century, British feminists expressed concern ...
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Margaret and Norah O’Shea: Portsmouth Campaigners for Votes for Women
U3A Articles
Margaret and Norah O’Shea were sisters and suffragist activists. They were the children of Rodney and Elizabeth O’Shea. Margaret, the ...
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The Home that Leila Built… The Caldecott Community
U3A Articles
Leila Rendel (1882-1969) was a social worker and children’s campaigner. She co-founded the Caldecott Community, a pioneering boarding school, which ...
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Suffragette Activity in and around Gravesend and North Kent
local stories, U3A Articles
Although accounts of the suffrage campaign often focus on major cities, such as London and Manchester, it was a national ...
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Human Rights in the British Armed Forces
U3A Articles
Throughout British history, those fighting in the armed forces have often experienced violations of their human rights. Until the nineteenth ...
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The Campaign for Votes for Women in Portsmouth
local stories, U3A Articles
At the beginning of the twentieth century, there were several organisations campaigning for women’s right to vote in Portsmouth. The ...
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Was There Organised Female Resistance to Parliamentary Votes for Women in the Portsmouth Area?
U3A Articles
Although there were a number of organisations fighting for women’s suffrage in Portsmouth, the area was also home to branches ...
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George Orwell (1903-1950)
U3A Articles
George Orwell, or Eric Arthur Blair, (1903-1950) was one of the UK’s most prolific and influential political writers, perhaps best ...
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Enoch Powell and the Rivers of Blood
Guest Blogs
John Enoch Powell (1912-1998) was a man of many talents. Known in childhood as ‘the professor’ for his intelligence, Powell ...
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Defending Mrs Pankhurst: The Bodyguard
U3A Articles
In 1913, the Cat and Mouse Act was passed by the British government. The law established what was to be, ...
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The Swing Riots of 1830
U3A Articles
'Swing' was a movement led by impoverished labourers. They took action by machine-breaking and arson, campaigned for increased wages, and ...
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‘Study Sesh’ Workshops with the Citizens Project
Guest Blogs
Students from Cambourne Village College on the Emily Wilding Davison terrace. The ‘Study Sesh’ workshops are an exciting new offering ...
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The Kentish Rebellion, 1648
U3A Articles
Following an insurrection in Canterbury in December 1647, the accused leaders were put on trial in May 1648. However, the ...
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The Canterbury Christmas Riot of 1647
U3A Articles
In 1647 the celebration of Christmas was declared by Parliament to be a punishable offence. In Canterbury, attempts to enforce ...
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John Morton, Saviour of Bucklebury Common (1788-1871)
local stories, U3A Articles
John Morton was a preacher and farmer who, in the nineteenth century, saved Bucklebury Common in Berkshire from enclosure, and ...
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The Reverend Bruce Kenrick (1920–2007): The man who was moved to build a “Shelter”
U3A Articles
For the 3 million people living in slums in post-war Britain, the refrain that “they had never had it so ...
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Margery Corbett Ashby (1882-1981)
U3A Articles
Dame Margery Corbett Ashby was a dedicated supporter of women’s rights. She spent much of her long life fighting for ...
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Liberty, Protest, Rebellion and Reform in Torquay
local stories, U3A Articles
Torquay is regarded as a sleepy and affluent place. Yet, despite its ‘sleepy’ reputation, the Riot Act was read twice ...
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Greenham Women
U3A Articles
For nineteen years, a group of women maintained camps around the perimeter of an American base at Greenham Common in ...
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‘Our Struggle is Yours’: LGSM and the Miners’ Strike of 1984-5
Team Blogs
In March 1984, the Conservative government announced the closure of twenty coal mines with a loss of 20,000 jobs. In ...
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Riot and Rebellion in Mid-Nineteenth Century Devon
local stories, U3A Articles
The records show numerous occasions when riot and rebellion occurred in Devon. The reasons for disorder were many and included ...
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Patricia Wilson (1917-2014)
U3A Articles
Pat Wilson was a stalwart campaigner for people’s rights to use our network of public footpaths and rights of way. ...
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Eric Lubbock: Fourth Baron Avebury (1928-2016)
U3A Articles
Eric Lubbock, 4th Baron Avebury, came from a long line of bankers and philanthropists. Although he considered the hereditary peerage ...
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What were the Brixton Riots?
Guest Blogs
The Brixton Riots were a key turning point for race relations in Britain. The riots, which began on the 10th ...
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Conscientious Objectors in the First World War and the Tragic Example of Evelyn Wilfred Harbord
U3A Articles
The First World War produced Britain’s first major anti-war movement. Conscientious Objectors (COs) were a collection of individuals who refused ...
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Sir John Lubbock (1834-1913): First Baron of Avebury
U3A Articles
Sir John Lubbock was an influential banker, scientific writer, and politician. He introduced banking reforms, was an advocate for free ...
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German Communities in South London during the Victorian Period
U3A Articles
At the outbreak of the First World War, German immigrants, who for decades had been respected members of their community, ...
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Octavia Hill (1838-1912): Teacher, Artist and Social Reformer
U3A Articles
Born in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, Octavia Hill was the eighth daughter of James Hill, a corn merchant, and his third wife, ...
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Local Residents fight for Access to Parkland in Richmond
local stories, U3A Articles
When access to Bushy Park in Richmond was withdrawn for local residents in the eighteenth century, a local shoemaker, Timothy ...
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From the Nineteenth Century to the UN Conferences on Women: The Unheard Voices of Women in Extreme Poverty
Guest Blogs
When we come to think about nineteenth-century feminism, we can't celebrate its achievements without recognising what it was achieved ...
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Rose Lamartine Yates (1875-1954)
U3A Articles
Rose Emma Janau was born in Brixton in 1875. Her parents were both teachers and she received an extensive education, ...
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Moses Montefiore and the Fight for Jewish Emancipation in the Nineteenth Century
Guest Blogs
During the nineteenth century, Jewish communities had limited rights and often had to endure anti-Semitism. This inspired campaigns for ‘Emancipation’, ...
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John Archer (1863-1932)
U3A Articles
John Archer is often held up as an icon of black British history. He was the first black man to ...
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The Life and Influences of Mary Hays 1759-1843: A Feminist Ahead of her Time
U3A Articles
Although the writer Mary Hays is unknown to many today, she was an important early feminist, whose ideas were well ...
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Shapurji Saklatvala 1874-1936
U3A Articles
Saklatvala was a fervent supporter of Indian independence, a strong advocate of the rights of Indian, British and international workers, ...
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The Suffragettes in South London and the Arsonist Campaign
U3A Articles
Overview In 1912, Emmeline Pankhurst’s eldest daughter, Christabel, planned to escalate the WSPU’s militant action by launching an arson campaign. ...
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Charlotte Despard: “A misfit, a rebel and a legend”
U3A Articles
While Charlotte Despard is well known for her work as a suffragist, her work with the poor is less recognised. ...
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First World War Conscientious Objectors in South London
U3A Articles
There was no conscription in Britain at the beginning of the First World War. However, by the end of 1915, ...
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Reflections on the Festival of History
Team Blogs
On Sunday 3rd June 2018, the Festival of History brought to life the struggle for democracy and freedom in a ...
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Universal Male Suffrage: The Other Side of the Representation of the People Act
Team Blogs
The Representation of the People Act (1918) The National Archives C 65/6385 On 6th February 2018, celebrations were held across ...
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Visual Propaganda For and Against the Suffrage Campaign
Team Blogs
The campaign for the vote was not all stone throwing, picture slashing, placard waving and building burning. Of more importance ...
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Oxford as the Royalist Capital during the English Civil War
Guest Blogs
Continuing from our last post courtesy of volunteers at the Museum of Oxford, in this article Ben Kehoe, Peter Simpson and ...
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Women’s Weekly: Happy Housewives?
Guest Blogs
Feminists have accused domestic magazines published during the 1950s of helping to establish a culture in which married women have ...
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Male Support for Female Suffrage: Hugh Arthur Franklin
Team Blogs
The Women’s Suffrage movement is not often associated with male supporters in the popular imagination. Whilst we often remember the ...
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Women’s Weekly and the Representation of the People Act
Guest Blogs
1918 and 1928 are landmark years in histories of women’s involvement in British parliamentary politics. In December 1918, following the ...
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Barbara Bodichon and the Early Suffrage Movement
U3A Articles
Barbara Bodichon was a key figure in the early women’s suffrage movement, organising one of the first women’s suffrage committees ...
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The Women’s March: Reflections One Year On
Guest Blogs
It might be tempting to think, given the name ‘Women’s March’, that the protests held on the 21st of January ...
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Can we describe the Women’s Institute as ‘Feminist’?
Team Blogs, Uncategorized
For many people, organisations dedicated to women’s issues, and feminist groups, are one and the same. The first British Women’s ...
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Jayaben Desai – Protester and Trade Unionist
U3A Articles
Jayaben Desai, living a quiet life in Willesden in the 1970s, would not have been tipped by many at the ...
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Burford and the Levellers’ Last Stand
U3A Articles
For the observant visitor to Burford Church in rural Oxfordshire there is a mysterious plaque "To the memory of three ...
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Caversham and the ‘Greatest Knight Who Ever Lived’
U3A Articles
Caversham claims among its famous former residents no less than the man Thomas Asbridge describes as ‘the greatest knight who ...
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Oxford and the Outbreak of the English Civil War
Guest Blogs
From the very beginning of the English Civil War in 1642, Oxford had an important role to play. Almost as ...
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The Ford Sewing Machinists’ Strikes: A Dispute about Equal Pay?
Team Blogs
Commemorate Plate held at the LSE Library, Women's Library. LSE, WL, Object number: TWL.2010.04 The strikes at the Ford factories ...
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Deeds not Words!
Guest Blogs
We’re clearly soldiers in petticoats And dauntless crusaders for woman’s votes Though we adore men individually We agree that as ...
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The Open Door Council and Lead Paint
Team Blogs
‘Those who formed the Open Door Council have for some time been viewing with increasing alarm the present tendency to ...
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A ‘Dastardly Outrage’: Mary Richardson and the Rokeby Venus
Guest Blogs
Mary Richardson c.1914 On the morning of 10 March 1914, ‘a small woman… attired in a tight-fitting grey coat and ...
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Christmas is Cancelled
Team Blogs
If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled ...
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John Lilburne: The Original Freeborn Englishman?
Team Blogs
By virtue of being a free-man, I conceive I have as true a right to all the privileges that doe ...
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How Gladstone and Disraeli’s rivalry opened the door to the Women’s Suffrage campaign
Team Blogs
The call for votes for women did not emerge out of a vacuum. In 1792 Mary Wollstonecraft, in A Vindication ...
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Rats or Tax? Did the Black Death cause the Peasants to Revolt?
Team Blogs
"Things would not go well with England until everything was held in common….”[1] The summer of 1381 saw widespread discontent ...
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Constance Markievicz: The First Female Member of Parliament
Guest Blogs
Constance Markiewicz Constance Gore-Booth (1868-1927), a leading figure in the Irish Revolution and a prominent campaigner for women’s suffrage, was ...
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Henry III, Simon De Montfort and the Provisions of Oxford
Team Blogs
The Provisions of Oxford are often seen as the starting point of the modern parliament in Britain. But what were ...
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Nicholaa de la Haye – Castellan and Sheriff of Lincoln
Team Blogs
‘Nicholaa, not thinking about anything womanly, defended … [Lincoln] castle manfully’[1] Nicholaa de la Haye was a medieval noblewoman who ...
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Dorothy Evans and the Equal Citizenship (Blanket) Bill, c. 1943
Team Blogs
‘It would be a great saving of effort to work for one Blanket Bill remedying all the remaining injustices, designed ...
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Philip Marc: The Real Sheriff of Nottingham?
Team Blogs
“Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans, no more merciful beheadings, and call off Christmas!” Louis Rhead, "Sheriff of ...
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For the People
U3A Articles
Hush-a-by Baby On the tree-top, When you grow up, You can work in a shop; When you get married Your ...
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Arson or Petitions? The Women’s Freedom League and the campaign for the vote
Team Blogs
When we think of women campaigning for the vote we tend to think of the Suffragettes, those organised by the ...
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Royal Holloway’s Society for Equal Citizenship
Team Blogs
Since its opening in 1886, Royal Holloway College has had many student-led societies for sport, politics and other interests. In ...
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The Suffragette Surgeons of World War One
U3A Articles
Endell Street Hospital c.1915. At the outbreak of the First World War the Suffragettes not only ceased their military campaign, ...
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A Soldier’s Right to Life
U3A Articles
Balaklava Camp, Crimea In 2013 the Supreme Court ruled that soldiers’ right to life did indeed extend to cover them ...
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The ideological divide in interwar Feminism
Team Blogs
NUSEC banner, Women's Library, LSE Library Following the 1918 Representation of the People Act the organisation formerly known as the ...
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The Chartists’ Land Plan Share Registers Project
U3A Articles
When the teenage Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, only about one in five men over 21 had ...
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800 Years of the Charter of the Forest: The First Environmental Law?
Team Blogs
The Charter of the Forest is among the first statutes in environmental law of any nation. Crafted to reform patently ...
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Poll Taxes and Protests
Team Blogs
‘Poll Taxes’ have become synonymous in the public consciousness with protest, but why is this? What is it about the ...
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What happened to the NUWSS after the vote had been won?
Team Blogs
Eleanor Rathbone Following the passing of the Representation of the People Act in 1918, which enfranchised some women over 30, ...
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Remembering the Pethick Lawrences
Team Blogs
In this post Abbie Evans interviews Kathy Atherton, a local historian and Exhibitions Team leader at Dorking Museum, and Royal ...
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Women’s Pioneer Housing: a brief history
Team Blogs
Women’s Pioneer Housing is a unique partner of the Citizens project. Set up by women suffragists and suffragettes nearly 100 ...
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Tales from Victoria Tower
Team Blogs
History has been a passion for me ever since I was a child. Sunday evenings were spent watching Time Team, ...
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Putting Pankhurst on a Pedestal: Who should be commemorated in Parliament Square?
Team Blogs
February 2018 marks the centenary of the Representation of the People Act, the Act which extended the franchise to (some) ...
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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Urban Redevelopment – Brian Barnes, Battersea and the Art of Protest
U3A Articles
This article describes the life of Brian Barnes, a community artist and local Battersea activist. He has used his art ...
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Who were the Lollards?
Team Blogs
“The gospel alone is sufficient to rule the lives of Christians everywhere. Any additional rules made to govern men’s conduct ...
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‘More than just a Trade Mark’: Miss World and Second Wave Feminism
Team Blogs
‘Anybody that would try to break up an affair as wonderful as this, with these kinds of proceedings with these ...
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Jam, Jerusalem & Jui-Jitsu
Team Blogs
Jam, Jerusalem & Jui-Jitsu at Royal Holloway's 2017 Festival of History. Visitors to our Festival of History back in June ...
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The Summer of Protest 1968 reaches Guildford
Team Blogs
Emily Pugh is a Citizens project intern working with Guildford Museum. Her interest in museums and exhibitions developed at a ...
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Henry Hetherington and the Paupers’ Press
U3A Articles
His principles were not kept in the pocket of a Sunday coat (I don't know that he always had a ...
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‘Bombs Show No Sex Bias’
Team Blogs
Throughout the Second World War British feminist groups remained active, pushing for legal and economic equality between men and women. ...
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‘Dig-in Doris’ Saves an Acre
U3A Articles
Since time immemorial, or since as early as 1189 at least, Bachelor’s Acre, a parcel of land in the centre ...
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From the 1217 Battle of Sandwich to the 1968 Guildford School of Art Sit-in: Exploring local stories with our partner museums
Team Blogs
It is very exciting to be offered the opportunity to work with an organisation that can bring one of the ...
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Six Months Sentence for Promoting Family Planning
U3A Articles
“In how many instances does the hard-working father, and more especially the mother, of a poor family remain slave throughout ...
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Citizens: Six Months of Exploring 800 Years of the History of Liberty
Team Blogs
Six short months into our three year Citizens project here at Royal Holloway, University of London, and much has been ...
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Where did the Pilgrimage of Grace begin?
Team Blogs
Only two years after the royal supremacy was written into law, and only months after Henry VIII’s first reforms of ...
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‘Alliance Not Defiance’: Christiana Herringham and the Women’s Suffrage Movement
Guest Blogs
On Saturday 13th June 1908, the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) held a great procession. Its intention was ...
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If you can’t beat them, join them: the Chartists’ grand experiment
U3A Articles
Charterville in 1848, showing the school (with tower) closed soon after; inhabitants thought it inadequate In the middle of ...
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Emmeline Pankhurst: Militant Mother
Guest Blogs
The argument of the broken window pane is the most valuable argument in modern politics. Emmeline Pankhurst The ...
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Katie Carpenter and the Festival of History
Team Blogs
On Sunday 4 June 2017, Royal Holloway opened its magnificent North Quad to the public for the first Festival of ...
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The First Martyr of Women’s Suffrage?
Guest Blogs
Oh judging, oh dividing breath! Oh rumour of the winds of death! Bless the martyrs, and accursed The tyrants stand. ...
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Making a MOOC (an online course): an insider’s view
Team Blogs
Four months ago I started as a Project Officer on Royal Holloway’s Heritage Lottery Funded project, Citizens: 800 Years in ...
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