Lucy Delap

A large building site interior space filled with scaffolding

Many of you will recognise this precious space, the heart of @camhistory.bsky.social at @cam.ac.uk It's a work in progress...

Realising potential: Delivering the Child Poverty Strategy - Committees - UK Parliament Members of the Education and Work and Pensions Select Committees have decided to undertake an inquiry that will consider how the Government can ensure it will deliver a successful Child Poverty Strate...

Great opportunity here for historians of voluntary action and child poverty to have their say, as the Education and Work and Pensions Select Committees reviews the government's plans, record and level of ambition on ending child poverty
committees.parliament.uk/work/9581/re...

"History has a fundamental role to play as essential balance against a society which has often rushed to see in everything what Richard Bourke has termed “the myths of continuity and composition.”"

A brilliant voicing of the value of universites, humanities and history. 2/2

Address of Taoiseach Micheál Martin Announcement of the first Childers Professor of Modern Irish History at Cambridge University Trinity College, Cambridge Friday 20th February 2026

1/2 Taoiseach Micheál Martin in Cambridge today: "the strongest democracies, and the most sustainable societies, are those which embrace the importance of diversity and complexity. Without the humanities this is impossible[...]"
www.gov.ie/en/departmen...

Lecturer on a stage with a listening audience

Great treat to have Prof Alex Walsham lecture on recycling religious materials in the English Reformation ahead of tonight's Medwards historians' dinner

Congrats to Becky Orr, for her prize winning @mbhjournal.bsky.social article, The Growth of the British Private Security Industry and the Ends of Empire, 1960-1974
www.hist.cam.ac.uk/news/rebecca...

History: Serious about Play: Childhood, Play and Policymaking in Wales, 1945 to the present (RS936) - Swansea University We offer a wide range of funded and fully funded research scholarships in all subject areas. Explore your options and apply now.

Please do share this doctoral opportunity with MA/MSt students - four years of AHRC funding to work on the history of children's play in Wales, supervised by me and the lovely and brilliant Dr Jacky Tyrie. Any questions get in touch! www.swansea.ac.uk/postgraduate...

We're looking to capture experiences of what it means to be queer in the UK today! To do that we're collecting day diaries for 12th February. It doesn't matter what you get up to, or how you record it, we'd love to have it!🧵 (1/4) #LGBTplusHM #lgbthm26

When working on historical child sexual abuse, our research team often found local press to be the only archival trace of past allegations & convictions

The articles I have learnt most from and given to my students... Probably Pam Cox's Future Uses of History, & Mike Roper's Slipping Out of View

Speakers gather on a platform in front of a screen

100th issue and 50th anniversary of History Workshop Journal. A democratising powerhouse.
#HWJ

A Companion to Rome c. 400-c. 1050 is a major new volume edited by Professor of Early Medieval History Caroline Goodson (University of Cambridge) and Professor Julia Hillner (Universität Bonn). Part of Brill’s series Companion to European History, it is the result of over seven years' scholarship by 32 contributors from across Europe and America.

NEW 🙌 'A Companion to Rome c. 400-c. 1050' edited by
Caroline Goodson and Julia Hillner.

A new urban history of late antique and early medieval Rome - the result of over seven years' scholarship by 32 contributors from across Europe and America.

🔗 brill.com/display/titl...

Fantastic treasure here

Great job opportunity here for researcher on HLF project ‘Global Ecology Not Global Economy: Archives of Environmental Resistance’, at the wonderul May Day Rooms
maydayrooms.org/we-are-hirin...

Disabled people and Labour’s first year A quarterly journal of politics and ideas, committed to exploring and expanding the radical potential of social democracy.

SUBSCRIBERS ONLY: Lucy Delap (@lucydelap.bsky.social) analyses the history of the Labour Party's approach to disability in the context of the government's failed welfare cuts

The Strange Death of Feminist Internationalism 07 Renewal 33.3-33.4_Kirby07 Renewal 33.3-33.4_Kirby.pdf105 KBdownload-circle The history of Labour’s international development policy has long been intertwined with its views and aims on gender eq...

FREE TO READ: Paul Kirby traces the history of Labour's long-standing feminist ambitions in the international sphere, and laments their apparent death amidst swingeing aid cuts

So pleased to be part of this, reflecting on the fraught place of disability in Labour's history, distant and recent

Reminds me of endless fun with my history of everyday life special subject which included tasting, historical bar tending, dress up sessions...

A woman pointing at a screen slide in room with tall windows

Great cross Faculty session on classroom innovation today @camhistory.bsky.social
including role play, field trips, archives work, object handling. Fun to be off leash and imagining anything is possible

Pay-off spend up by two-thirds as universities shed 13,000 jobs Analysis of UK sector accounts shows number of job losses well above predictions, with experts warning cuts are not over yet

UK Universities cut 13,300 jobs, paid £300m+ in redundancy.

Economic contribution of the HE sector, £265bn.

Systematically destroyed by govts - foreign students not welcome, cut real-term grants, fees, students burdened with debts, low staff pay/morale.

Govt want skilled labour.
archive.ph/favYt

Reconsidering Violence Against Women through the History of a Refuge for Trans Women Abstract. Both right-wing forces and gender-critical feminists currently frame cis and trans women’s needs as fundamentally different and conflicting. Viol

Here, for @historyworkshop.org.uk I discuss the history of a refuge for trans women.

I show women’s shared experiences of violence across the spectrum of cis and trans.

I highlight histories of solidarity against male violence by feminists and trans women.

academic.oup.com/hwj/advance-...

A shiny party hat on UL coat pegs

Low key, but definitely Christmas at the UL @theul.bsky.social

If you’re a #Humanities #ECR & in/willing to travel to York on 17 December, join me & the @historylabplus.bsky.social team for our 2025 ‘Christmas Connections’ event, a FREE & informal opportunity to support each other, build professional connections, & sample the city’s heritage & eatables. 👇&🧵

Two people talking in a red pagoda, surrounded by mountains and trees during winter

I learnt so much about China on this visit, and met such incredible people. Hoping for more conversations between historians of our respective academies

three people, one holding a framed poster advertising a history lecture, stand in a lecture theatre.

A pleasure and an honour to be invited to talk about global feminisms at @pku1898.bsky.social History Department. I greatly appreciate the specially-designed poster, featuring Nüshu characters, a woman-created script that gave them private cultural space even when outside of formal education systems

As a review is announced into who counts as disabled, I offer some reflections on disability and UK employment policies over the twentieth century
historyandpolicy.org/policy-paper...

Eight people who took action in solidarity with Palestine have been on hunger strike since 2 November in protest at their prolonged pre-trial imprisonment, censorship of communications and alleged mistreatment in custody.

Five have now been hospitalised. David Lammy must respond.

The Surprising Origins of the BBC’s ‘Left-Wing Bias’ David Nowell Smith explores how commercial rivalries inspired the first accusations of institutional bias at the BBC.

Today’s campaigns against the BBC, from Donald Trump to The Daily Telegraph, have a surprisingly long history.

In our latest article, David Nowell Smith explores how commercial rivalries inspired the first accusations of left-wing bias at the BBC.

It's a lazy populist dogwhistle that reinforces ideas of scrounging and undeserving claimants. Many disability benefits are totally unrelated to work status, but do have the effect of making paid employment possible. They also add to human dignity & alleviate suffering - surely worth something too?

Wes Streeting orders review of mental health diagnoses as benefit claims soar Health secretary has asked experts to investigate whether normal feelings have become ‘over-pathologised’

Wes Streeting accuses welfare state disabilty benefits of 'trapping people, not just in poverty, but out of work.' But where is the recognition that disability benefits are often what makes it possible for people with higher living and transport costs to work?
www.theguardian.com/society/2025...