Catherine McCullough FRHistS

Smearing Sussex (and Me): Responding to Nigel Biggar’s Latest Attack in The Spectator The University of Sussex, Feb 2026, taken by the author. Alan Lester The Spectator has published an article by Nigel Biggar smearing the University of Sussex as repressing students who ‘don&#…

The Spectator published this attack on me & colleagues just as the High Court is considering Sussex’s request for review of the Office for Students fine. It accuses us of ‘repressing’ our students. The magazine ignored my request for to reply. Please disseminate.

alanlester.co.uk/blog/smearin...

Crisp's plantation had an unusually high number of enslaved children. It was said that he 'treated them harshly' - although 'as is generally the case with all Englishmen'. But as a result, 'the number of his slaves decreased daily' as they responded to his cruelty by 'escaping one after another'.

Cover of IHTA no. 1 Kildare, by John Andrews. Cream background with an reproduction of an engraving with teh round tower in green.

For #MapMonday the Irish Historic Towns Atlas (IHTA) will be showcasing our open source material. There are 32 atlases available as open access on #IHTAonline. To start the series, we’ll look at the first atlas published in the series: Kildare, by John Andrews, published by the @ria.ie in 1986.

📢 New book alert 📢 via @manchesterup.bsky.social. New insights into #womenshistory #Irishhistory via lens of leisure. My chapter argues how Irish Countrywomen's Association created opportunities for fun & leisure for rural women. Afterword by @clairelanghamer.bsky.social. @whaireland.bsky.social 🥳

Congratulations, brilliant news!

A Cabinet of Curiosities Victorian murder, abandoned towns, and a very peculiar indulgence feature in our new venture: three short, but reliably odd, talks in one.

TOMORROW, I am doing a short talk on a MURDERER which has everything! Knives! Arsenic! Arson! Adultery! Exhumation! Toxicology! Transportation! Broadmoor!

Trying to squidge it into 15 minutes has been a trial. But it's online, so come along...

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-cabinet-...

Happening this Thursday!

Talk and Book Launch- Featuring Dr Nina Baker OBE The untold story of female Merchant Navy seafarers who lost their lives to enemy action in the First and Second World Wars

My book launch @ Scottish Maritime Museum 7 March.
I know most friends on here are nowhere near the West of Scotland, but my talk will be recorded & on Youtube early next week.
If you can attend in person (so I am not talking to an empty room......), book here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/talk-and-b...

Forgive this historian and editor a small ambition, but I would love to be able to expand the kind of high quality local history research @vch-home.bsky.social does a bit further west.

So, if you have a suitable place-based history in mind, drop me a line. 🗃️

I'm now recruiting for a crucial post in my team - Curator: Parliamentary Art Collection. A rare chance to work with a wonderful collection in a unique setting.

Please do share, and feel free to get in touch with any questions

Men studying a dragon

ENDOWED PROFESSORSHIP IN HISTORY OF SCIENCE
My home department at Uppsala University is advertising an endowed professorship in the history of science. This is the best position in the field in Sweden, and probably in all of Scandinavia. Apply before 30 April 2026. www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...

Title page of "El principe en la idea" by Diego Enriquez de Villegas, printed in Madrid at the Imprenta Real, 1656

First opening after the title page. Verso of title page has a quote from what seems to be the book of Solomon in Latin (book 3, chapter 3, verse 7). Recto of opening has a centered column of text in many different fonts ala an early modern title page

Another two pages of the weird title page/intro thing. The printer is using *ALL* the types. All the text is centered, the font size varies. It's all very dramatic and quite a statement.

The dude is still going. And it's totally like a title page advertising it's content. But we're like 6 pages after the title page??? He's just saying what is going to be in the book.

Graphic design is my passion, but make it early modern:
There's a book called _Principe en la idea_, and someone got new type & wanted to use ALL of it, or the author wanted to have a 22-page title page? & the body has an entire column for footnotes?
books.google.com/books?id=EP1...
#BookHistory

A recipe from Hannah Wolley's 1672 "The Ladies Delight" To make the Hands White. Take the flour of beans, of lupines, of starch-corn, rice, smalbedus, orris, each six ounces. Mix them and make a powder with which wash the hands in water.

EM hive mind - any ideas what Hannah Wolley means by "Smalbedus" here in this 1672 recipe for a powder to whiten hands? I'm stumped! I'm asking my plant scientist sister as well in case she has any ideas.

Call for applications!

We are looking for a small press to take up a temporary residency at UCL!

£5,000 to spend flexibly, an opportunity to work with outstanding collections & collaborate with brilliant students and staff!

blogs.ucl.ac.uk/special-coll...

New exhibition @senatehouselib.bsky.social!

Popped over the road to talk to a neighbour about my car possibly blocking their drive and she was lovely and gave me this map she'd made. People are all right, on the whole 😊

Even funnier when you translate it into Latin:

iamne aestas? interrogavit Pu
minime, Februarius remanet, ait Porcellus
tristissime fututu, dixit Pu.

At least, it tickled me.

Love this

Dear article writers, bloggers, and thought leaders: before you ask a diffusion model to barf up a banner image, please just go on one of these archives and pick something nice.

Women have been mapping the world for centuries – and now they’re speaking up for the people left out of those maps Women have moved from mapmakers using their bodies to depict maps to being leaders shaping the field of cartography.

Cartography and gender:
From feminised depictions of territory and landscape to women map-makers
theconversation.com/women-have-b...

Professor John Nightingale, iconic medievalist and Fellow of Magdalen, who taught me Einhard's Life of Charlemagne, retires this summer.
So Oxford and Magdalen are recruiting. There is no better place to teach and research medieval history than this: in the footsteps of Karl Leyser.

Friends and colleagues in Irish academia! The wonderful Dr Mary McGill has asked me to circulate her @researchireland.ie - funded survey on Exploring experiences of gender-based online abuse among female academics in Ireland - please do share! forms.office.com/pages/respon...

🚨 EXCITING NEWS - SAVE THE DATE!

The History of Education Society conference is back for 2026.

🇮🇪 13-15 November 2026. Maynooth University, Ireland.

Find out more below 👇

historyofeducation.org.uk/conference/

We are VERY excited to open the 📮call for papers📮 for #RBSCG26, which takes as its theme:

✨A Sense of Place: Collections and communities in context✨

and will explore the influence of place on collections and collections on places.

Never Too Late 60+ award - Bridport Prize This £500 award is for the highest placed writer aged 60+ across poetry, short story, novel or flash fiction.

Don’t forget the Never Too Late Award from the Bridport Prize which recognises entries from writers over 60 across all categories of prizes.

Link below

Please share :)

Pilot's boarding card, stating: Port of Cardiff, Pilot's Report Inwards to the Clerk and Collector. Ship's Name: Alice Reed; Of What Port: New York; Captain's Name: J H Killerany; Register Tonnage: 873 6/100; Where From: Havre; Name of Dock: Penarth; Draught of Water: 11 feet; Description of Cargo: Ballast, Stone and Gravel; Name of Consigne or Broker: Cooper & Alexander; Signature of Captain: J H Killerany; Signature of Pilot: David Williams.

Last year we received a bundle of almost 500 pilotage boarding cards for the Port of Cardiff. They are 150 years old, dating from 1876.

Each card records information including the name of ship, the port from which ship had sailed, the ship’s cargo, and where the pilot boarded the ship.

Fun experiment of how far back you can read english.

Just about managed the 1300's but floundered in the 1200's.

Being fluent in dutch and decent in german helped a little but not as much as you might expect.

#ScholarSunday Thread 264 (2/22/26) – Black and White and Read All Over Neither travel nor snowstorms can keep my #ScholarSunday threads from their appointed rounds—so here’s my 264th of public scholarly writing, podcasts, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add m...

Neither travel nor snowstorms can keep my #ScholarSunday threads from their appointed rounds—so here’s my 264th of public scholarly writing, podcasts, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add more below, share widely, & enjoy, all! 🗃️ +

blackwhiteandread.com/scholarsunda...