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Ed Webb

Britain destroyed records of colonial crimes | UK news | The Guardian - 8 views

  • The documents show that colonial officials were instructed to separate those papers to be left in place after independence – usually known as "Legacy files" – from those that were to be selected for destruction or removal to the UK. In many colonies, these were described as watch files, and stamped with a red letter W.
  • The documents show that colonial officials were instructed to separate those papers to be left in place after independence – usually known as "Legacy files" – from those that were to be selected for destruction or removal to the UK. In many colonies, these were described as watch files, and stamped with a red letter W.
  • As independence grew closer, large caches of files were removed from colonial ministries to governors' offices, where new safes were installed.In Uganda, the process was codenamed Operation Legacy. In Kenya, a vetting process, described as "a thorough purge", was overseen by colonial Special Branch officers.
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  • Clear instructions were issued that no Africans were to be involved: only an individual who was "a servant of the Kenya government who is a British subject of European descent" could participate in the purge.
  • Many of the watch files ended up at Hanslope Park. They came from 37 different former colonies, and filled 200 metres of shelving. But it is becoming clear that much of the most damning material was probably destroyed. Officials in some colonies, such as Kenya, were told that there should be a presumption in favour of disposal of documents rather than removal to the UK – "emphasis is placed upon destruction" – and that no trace of either the documents or their incineration should remain.
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    They say this was one of the major differences between the British and French handling of withdrawal from empire - not only criminal records, but historical and legal documents of many kinds.
David Hilton

The National Archives | NDAD | Welcome - 0 views

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    "The National Digital Archive of Datasets (NDAD) preserves and provides online access to archived digital datasets and documents from UK central government departments. Our collection spans 40 years of recent history, with the earliest available dataset dating back to about 1963." Gotta love the UK National Archives.
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    The National Digital Archive of Datasets (NDAD) preserves and provides online access to archived digital datasets and documents from UK central government departments. Our collection spans 40 years of recent history, with the earliest available dataset dating back to about 1963.
Ed Webb

How we remember them: the 1914-18 war today | openDemocracy - 6 views

  • After the war, however, the problem of reintegrating into society both those who had served and those who had lost, and finding a narrative that could contain both, found one answer by an emphasis on the universality of heroism. A British society that has since the 1960s grown increasingly distant from the realities of military service - whilst remaining dedicated to it as a location for fantasy - has been unable to move on from this rhetorical standpoint
  • The war's portrayal has always been shaped by contemporary cultural mores, and commemorative documentaries demonstrate just how much the relationship between the creators and consumers of popular culture has changed over the last fifty years. For the fiftieth anniversary of 1914, the BBC commissioned the twenty-six part series The Great War, based around archive footage and featuring interviews with veterans. There was an authoritative narrative voice, but no presenters. For the eightieth anniversary, it collaborated with an American television company on a six-part series littered with academic talking-heads. For the ninetieth anniversary, it has had a range of TV presenter-celebrities - among them Michael Palin, Dan Snow, Natalie Cassidy and Eamonn Holmes - on a journey of discovery of their families' military connections. These invariably culminate next to graves and memorials in a display of the right kind of televisual emotion at the moment the formula demands and the audience has come to expect.   The focus of these programmes - family history as a means of understanding the past - is worthy of note in itself. It is indicative of the dramatic growth of family history as a leisure interest, perhaps in response to the sense of dislocation inherent in modernity
  • The search for family history is usually shaped by modern preconceptions, and as such it seldom results by itself in a deeper understanding of the past. The modern experience of finding someone who shares your surname on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website, taking a day trip to France and finding his grave (perhaps with a cathartic tear or few) might increase a person's or family's sense of emotional connection to the war, and may bring other satisfactions. Insofar as it is led not by a direct connection with a loved one, however, but by what television has "taught" as right conduct, it can seldom encourage a more profound appreciation of what the war meant for those who fought it, why they kept fighting, or why they died.
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  • Projects such as The Great War Archive, which combine popular interest in the war with specialist expertise, and which recognise that an archive is different from a tribute or a memorial, suggest that it is possible to create high-quality content based on user submissions.
  • the exploitation of popular enthusiasm to encourage thought, rather than to enforce the "correct" opinion
  • It is certainly true that the 1914-18 war is popularly seen as the "bad war" and 1939-45 as the "good war." I think the one view is sustained in order to support the other. Although no expert, it seems to me that in reality the two world wars were marked more by their similarities than their differences (Europe-wide military/imperial rivalry causes collapse of inadequate alliance system > Germany invades everywhere > everywhere invades Germany). However, there is an extreme reluctance in Britain to admit that WW2 was anything other than a Manichean struggle between the elves and the orcs, so WW1 becomes a kind of dumping-ground for a lot of suppressed anxiety and guilt which might otherwise accrue to our role in WW2 - just as it might in any war. So we make a donkey out of Haig in order to sustain hagiographic views of Churchill. "Remembrance" of both wars continues to be a central feature of British public consciousness to an extraordinary, almost religious degree, and I think this has a nostalgic angle as well: if "we" squint a bit "we" can still tell ourselves that it was "our" last gasp as a global power. Personally I think it's all incredibly dodgy. "Remembrance," it seems to me, is always carried out in a spirit of tacit acceptance that the "remembered" war was a good thing. Like practically all of the media representation of the current war, Remembrance Day is a show of "sympathy" for the troops which is actually about preventing objective views of particular wars (and war in general) from finding purchase in the public consciousness. It works because it's a highly politicised ritual which is presented as being above politics and therefore above criticism. All these things are ways of manipulating the suffering of service personnel past and present as a means of emotionally blackmailing critics of government into silence. I reckon anyway.
David Hilton

LBC/IRN: LBC/IRN - 2 views

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    "The LBC/IRN Audio Archive, (London Broadcasting Company / Independent Radio News audio archive) consists of 7,000 reel-to-reel tapes in a collection that runs from 1973 to the mid-1990s. It is the most important commercial radio archive in the UK and provides a unique audio history of the period. This digitised collection focuses on the most noteworthy content - approximately 3,000 hours of recordings relating to news and current affairs. The digitised archive contains invaluable recordings of a wide range of broadcasts including coverage of the Falklands war, the miners' strike, Northern Ireland, the whole of the Thatcher period of government and recordings of the first hour of UK commercial radio including the first commercial radio news bulletin."
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    You can only listen if you are part of a tertiary institution which has a paid subscription through the Athens ID system (v. annoying!) however you're able to read the transcripts for free.
David Hilton

Archaeology UK - The Archaeological Sites Index (ARCHI) - 0 views

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    A database of archaeological sites in the UK.
David Hilton

UK Parliament - Archives - electronic - 0 views

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    These are the digitised materials available from the UK Parliamentary Archives, going back to the 17th Century. Includes debates, acts, statutes, etc.
David Hilton

Schools Projects - Scotland's Rural Past | Scotland's Rural Past - 1 views

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    Looks useful if you teach in the UK. 
David Hilton

Parliament and the British Slave Trade 1600-1807 - 0 views

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    A site maintained by the UK Parliament Archives on the British Slave Trade. Has access to primary sources.
David Hilton

UK Parliament Debates (TheyWorkForYou.com) - 0 views

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    This site has debates from the UK House of Commons (I don't think The Lords is included) that go back at least to World War II. The purpose of the site is to raise public awareness, however it is useful to the historian as a source.
David Hilton

The National Archives | DocumentsOnline - 1 views

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    Online documents provided by the UK National Archives.
Christy Hanna

WW2: Readers memories of Britain's role in World War 2 - Telegraph - 1 views

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    Here is a great site published by the UK Telegraph. It is full of personal accounts during WWII. I hope you find it enlightening and helpful.
David Hilton

National Portrait Gallery - Useful sources online - A - 2 views

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    Enormous number of links to portraits in the UK National Portrait Gallery.
David Hilton

Hodder Education - Schools - 4 views

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    This is the site of a textbook and lesson material company based in the UK.
David Hilton

Try out my new History Essay Planning Tool! (hopefully finalised by September!) #histor... - 33 views

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    A quite cool history essay planning tool on Russell Tarr's website www.activehistory.co.uk.
Ed Webb

BBC News - History, with rose-tinted hindsight - 5 views

  • As one official explained, "we understand that school is a unique social institution that forms all citizens"; which means it is essential they should be taught history, especially the right kind of history. "We need a united society," the apparatchik goes on, and to achieve that end, "we need a united textbook".
  • in 1934, it was Stalin himself who convened an earlier meeting of historians to discuss the very same issue, namely the teaching of history in Russian schools. He disapproved of the conventional class-based accounts then available, which were strongly influenced by Marxist doctrines, and which traced the development of Russia from feudalism to capitalism and beyond. Not even Stalin's hometown wanted to be associated with him anymore... "These textbooks," Stalin thundered, "aren't good for anything. It's all epochs and no facts, no events, no people, no concrete information." History, he concluded somewhat enigmatically, "must be history" - by which, in this case, he meant a cavalcade of national heroes, whose doings might appeal more broadly to the Russian people than the arid abstractions of class analysis and social structure.
  • Who, for example, should decide what history is taught in schools: should it be the government, or academic experts, or examination boards, or the schools themselves, or even the parents?
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  • for the last 18 months, I've been leading a project, based at the Institute of Historical Research, which is looking into the history of the teaching of history in schools in England since it first became a serious activity early in the 20th Century. And one of our most important discoveries so far has been the extent to which similar questions have been asked across the decades and generations, and often in complete ignorance of how they've been answered before.
Ed Webb

British have invaded nine out of ten countries - so look out Luxembourg - Telegraph - 9 views

  • "Other countries could write similar books – but they would be much shorter. I don't think anyone could match this, although the Americans had a later start and have been working hard on it in the twentieth century."
  • The only other nation which has achieved anything approaching the British total, Mr Laycock said, is France – which also holds the unfortunate record for having endured the most British invasions.
  • Mr Laycock added: "One one level, for the British, it is quite amazing and quite humbling, that this is all part of our history, but clearly there are parts of our history that we are less proud of. The book is not intended as any kind of moral judgment on our history or our empire. It is meant as a light-hearted bit of fun." The countries never invaded by the British: Andorra Belarus Bolivia Burundi Central African Republic Chad Congo, Republic of Guatemala Ivory Coast Kyrgyzstan Liechtenstein Luxembourg Mali Marshall Islands Monaco Mongolia Paraguay Sao Tome and Principe Sweden Tajikistan Uzbekistan Vatican City
Ian Gabrielson

'Mr Men' teacher hits back at Michael Gove | Politics | guardian.co.uk - 6 views

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    "arr writes: "Gove and his advisers - either through stupidity or mischievousness - failed to place me, my website, or the lesson into its appropriate context. His criticisms betray a lack of knowledge, understanding, and interpretation that would make a GCSE history student blush with shame.""
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