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Student Blog

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History student Mary Sullivan recently completed some research as part of our recent Beyond the Barricades Exhibition, which is bringing together artists from various nations, looking at different dimensions of a revolution by focusing on the concept of Barricade.

 

The Swing Riots

According to E. P. Thompson (1963), the wholesale enclosure of common land between 1760 and 1820 and the loss of the rights to cultivate it led to the impoverishment of the landless labourer, (especially in the south of England) who was left to ‘support the tenant-farmer, the landowner, and the tithes of the Church’.[1]  However, poor harvests, low wages and high unemployment between 1829 and 1830, led to hunger among poor agricultural workers and their families.  To add to their troubles, the Agricultural Revolution had introduced new technology such as the threshing machine which separated the grain from the stalks by beating it and thus dispensed with the need of workers to perform this task. This situation resulted in protests that started in Kent and later spread to surrounding counties and further.  They were called the Swing riots after the eponymous Captain Swing. The made-up name symbolised or represented the anger of the poor labourers in rural England who wanted a return to the pre-machine days when human labour was used. The threatening letters were sent to farmers and landowners which demanded that wages increase and which often told farmers to desist in their employment of threshing machines. Landowners and farmers also had their farm buildings and hayricks set alight.  According to Carl Griffin, who recently reassessed the origins of the disturbances in Kent, Swing first put his name to a threatening letter addressed to a farmer in Dover in early October 1830: ‘you are advised that if you doant put away your thrashing machine against Munday next you shall have a SWING’[2](on the gallows). According to Hobsbawm and Rude̒, the first of the Swing riots occurred on the night of the 28th May 1830, with the destruction of a threshing machine in Lower Hardres, near Canterbury.[3] Hobsbawm argued that in Kent, where the movement started and persisted the longest, there were five phases of action: Continue reading →

Research Prize awarded to PhD student Daniel Belteki

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Congratulations to PhD student Daniel Belteki, who has been awarded the Humanities Postgraduate Research Prize 2018.

The prize is based on his track record of achievements while at Kent, which includes completing a student internship at the Royal Museums Greenwich, providing assistance with research projects such as Dr Rebekah Higgitt’s Transit of Venus 1874 digitization project, organising the School’s Postgraduate Research Seminar Series this year, and his role as assistant to the Book Reviews Editor for The British Journal for the History of Science, amongst other achievements.

Daniel studies as part of The Centre for the History of the Science (CHOTS). His research focuses on the history of the Airy Transit Circle of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich – the astronomical instrument that defined the Greenwich Prime Meridian. Congratulations Daniel!

Read all about the prizes here: https://www.kent.ac.uk/graduateschool/graduateschoolprizes.html

School of History Newsletter: June 2018

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The latest edition of our School newsletter, History Today, is now available to download here: History Today June 2018.

Released monthly, the newsletter features the latest news and updates from the School, as well as upcoming events and recent student and staff achievements.

In this issue:

  • The School’s Athena SWAN success
  • Highlights of the academic year 2017/18
  • History academic exhibits work in the British Academy Summer Showcase
  • Report from the MEMS Festival 2018
  • The Gateways Project investigates the Zeebrugge Raid of 1918
  • Get to know our new PA to the Head of School

AHRC CDP Studentship with the National Maritime Museum

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The standard tuition fees and stipend (maintenance grant) will be paid by the AHRC to the award holder subject to the eligibility criteria outlined by them. The AHRC stipend for 2018/19 is £14,777 (full-time, pro-rata for part-time) plus an additional stipend of £500 for Collaborative Doctoral Students.

Project Title: The Royal Observatory, Greenwich, and its networks of support and influence, 1675-1742

We seek applications from outstanding postgraduate students for this collaborative doctoral award, starting in September 2018. This project aims to develop a new approach to the institutional history of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. Using the Observatory as a central hub, it proposes to explore the local, national and international networks of astronomy, practical mathematics, navigation, education, print and instrument making that supported its work and developing reputation. It will focus on the period of the first two Astronomers Royal, John Flamsteed and Edmond Halley, aiming to better understand the role, milieu and development of this key institution in its foundational years.

This research will draw on work on geographies of knowledge, material culture and book history in order to gain a fuller picture of contexts in which mathematical and instrumental knowledge was developed and used. The project will make use of a range of archival sources and object, book and image collections, especially those of the NMM.

The student will have the opportunity to enhance the Museum’s cataloguing and interpretation within public programming and displays, and to feed into the development of plans for the 350th anniversary of the Royal Observatory (2025-26), which forms part of the NMM (collectively, with The Queen’s House and Cutty Sark, known as Royal Museums Greenwich). They will also be able to contribute to Dr Higgitt’s research project, Metropolitan Science: Places, Objects and Cultures of Knowledge and Practice in London, 1600-1800, in partnership with the Science Museum.

Criteria

Applicants should have: a First Class or Upper Second Class Honours degree in an appropriate discipline; a masters degree in an appropriate discipline, although applicants who do not hold a masters degree will be considered if they can demonstrate sustained and relevant experience and meet the criteria outlined in the AHRC guidelines.

Candidates must meet the AHRC’s academic criteria and eligibility criteria:  https://www.ukri.org/funding/information-for-award-holders/grant-terms-and-conditions

For further details, please contact Dr Rebekah Higgitt: R.Higgitt@kent.ac.uk

To apply for the scholarship please see the Scholarships website here: https://www.kent.ac.uk/scholarships/search/FN05AHRCNM02

Deadline

21 May 2018

AHRC PhD Studentships

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The Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies is delighted to announce TWO FULLY FUNDED AHRC PhD STUDENTSHIPS to work on the topic of relations between sixteenth century England and Scotland. The successful students will be jointly supervised between Kent and the British Library, and have the contribution to contribute to a major British Library exhibition on relations between Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots. Links to details of these studentships (one on early and one on late sixteenth-century Anglo-Scots relations) and how to apply are below:

AHRC Studentship -Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots: https://www.kent.ac.uk/scholarships/search/FNADAHRCEL02

AHRC CHASE Studentship – Anglo-Scottish Relations In The Early Sixteenth Century: https://www.kent.ac.uk/scholarships/search/FNADAHRCAN02

Please contact Dr Amy Blakeway, the Kent supervisor, for more details, on a.l.blakeway@kent.ac.uk