Institute of Historical Research

The Victoria County History of Herefordshire: Bosbury
Janet Cooper
October 24, 2016
Bosbury is the second parish history to be produced by the Trust for the Victoria County History of Herefordshire, following the history of Eastnor published in 2013.

Like Eastnor, Bosbury is an agricultural parish, near the market town of Ledbury. It covers a relatively large area below the western slopes of the Malvern Hills. In the Middle Ages Bosbury was the site of one of the favourite residences of the bishops of Hereford; in the western part of the parish, called Upleadon, was an estate belonging first to the Knights Templar and then to the Hospitallers. From the 16th century onwards both estates passed into the hands of tenants, leaving the parish without a major resident landowner until John Stedman...
Ravenna
Volume editor Judith Herrin and Jinty Nelson
June 24, 2016
In the long-debated transition from late antiquity to the early middle ages, the city of Ravenna presents a story rich and strange. From the fourth century onwards it suffered decline in economic terms. Yet its geographical position, its status as an imperial capital, and above all its role as a connecting point between East and West, ensured that it remained an intermittent attraction for early medieval kings and emperors throughout the period from the late fifth to the eleventh century. Ravenna’s story is all the more interesting because it was complicated and unpredictable: discontinuous and continuous, sometimes obscure, sometimes including bursts of energetic activity. Throughout the early medieval centuries its flame sometimes flared...
Medieval Merchants and Money
Edited by Matthew Davies
June 10, 2016
This volume contains selected essays in celebration of the scholarship of the medieval historian Professor James L. Bolton. The essays address a number of different questions in medieval economic and social history, as the volume looks at the activities of merchants, their trade, legal interactions and identities, and on the importance of money and credit in the rural and urban economies. Other essays look more widely at patterns of immigration to London, trade and royal policy, and the role that merchants played in the Hundred Years War.
Theses Completed 2015: Historical research for higher degrees in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland list no. 77 part 1
Compiled by Lauren De'Ath and Emily Morrell
June 10, 2016
• Lists hundreds of theses on historical topics completed during 2015 in UK and Irish universities • Includes not only history departments, but other departments where historical subjects might be taught • Gives full details of title, supervisor and university • Provides a subject index to aid searching, together with indexes of universities and authors The online version of Theses Completed is published on the IHR's website, where searches can be conducted by type of history, geographical area or period.
Theses in Progress 2016: Historical research for higher degrees in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland list no. 77 part II
Compiled by Lauren De'Ath and Emily Morrell
June 10, 2016
Lists over 3,500 theses in progress on 1 January 2014 in both history and other departments, classified according to period and area Gives full details of title, supervisor and university Helps postgraduate students to select a topic and a supervisor, to publicise their topic and to discover others working in related fields Provides an overview of the amount and variety of current historical research for higher degrees
The Victoria History of Hampshire: Steventon
Jean Morrin
May 19, 2016

Steventon, a chalkland village near Basingstoke, is best known because Jane Austen, the famous novelist and daughter of the local rector, spent the first 25 years of her life here. Unlike Chawton and Bath, no house or museum commemorates the author’s memory in Steventon but this new history explains how family life and observation of north Hampshire society shaped her early literary career. She wrote early versions of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Northanger Abbey in Steventon from 1796 to 1798, drawing on local society for inspiration for characters, manners and sentiments.

But the village had a rich history before and after its famous novelist and there are many other reasons to enjoy this book. Steventon is a...

Octavia Hill, social activism and the remaking of British society
Edited by Elizabeth Baigent and Ben Cowell
March 25, 2016
This volume reassesses the life and work of Octavia Hill, housing reformer, open space campaigner, co-founder of the National Trust, founder of the Army Cadet Force, and the first woman to be invited to sit on a royal commission. In her lifetime she was widely regarded as an authority on a broad range of social problems. Yet despite her early pre-eminence, and the remarkable success of the institutions which she helped to found, Hill fell from public favour in the twentieth century. This book provides a nuanced portrait of Hill and her work in a broader context of social change, reflecting recent scholarship on nineteenth-century society in general, and on philanthropy and preservation, and women’s role in them, in particular.
Heroic Chancellor: Winston Churchill and the University of Bristol, 1929 to 1965
David Cannadine
February 19, 2016

"Not only was Churchill the most illustrious and the most distinguished Chancellor that the University of Bristol has ever had, but he was also in his prime, from the 1940s onwards, probably the most famous and the most distinguished chancellor of any university anywhere in the world."

David Cannadine

Teachers of History in the Universities of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland 2016
Compiled by Emily Morrell, Lauren De'Ath, and Jane Winters
February 18, 2016
  • Lists over 3,000 people teaching history in United Kingdom and Irish universities and colleges of higher education
  • Gives full degrees and honours for each teacher, with the teaching position held
  • Describes each individual’s teaching area and research interests
  • Supplies the address, telephone and fax number of all departments of history
  • Includes email addresses for the majority of individuals
  • Gives website addresses for all universities with history departments

The online version of Teachers of History, available on the IHR website, can be searched to discover all teachers engaged in particular types of history, geographical area...
The Victoria History of Gloucestershire: Yate
Rose Wallis
July 31, 2015

Yate is a town in South Gloucestershire, north-east of Bristol. Its ancient parish extended across a largely flat vale, which until the 13th century lay within Horwood forest, and was then cleared, inclosed and farmed as rich pasture by the tenants of the influential owners of its three manors. A limestone ridge fringing the vale provided good building stone, and across the parish seams of coal and a rare mineral - celestine - have been exploited until recent times. Yate lay on an important early route between Bristol and Oxford, and its mineral wealth attracted early railway links, so that it was well placed for industrial development. Bristol-based industries moved there during the decades after 1900,...

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