• 1655: Year of crisis

      Gaunt, Peter; University of Chester (The Cromwell Association, 2006)
      This journal articles discusses problems faced by Oliver Cromwell in 1655 - the failure of the first Protectorate Parliament, political disaffection within the army, royalist plots, the massacre of Waldensian Protestants in northern Italy, failure of the Western Design, legal challenges, financial problems, and personal issues.
    • The 1st Battalion 22nd (The Cheshire Regiment) and the reasons for the military disaster at Mons

      Barr, Ronald; Chester College of Higher Education (Cheshire Community Council and Chester College, 1995)
      This article discusses the involvement of the 22nd (Cheshire) Regiment in the Battle of Mons in August 1914.
    • The Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment: The Development of British Airborne Technology, 1940-1950

      Jenkins, Tim; Univeristy of Chester
      The evolution of British airborne warfare cannot be fully appreciated without reference to the technological development required to convert the detail contained in the doctrine and concept into operational reality. Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment is a detailed investigation of the British technological investment in an airborne capability and analyses whether the new technology was justifiable, or indeed, entirely achievable.
    • The Alien Jew in the British Imagination, 1881-1905: Space, Mobility and Territoriality

      Ewence, Hannah; University of Chester (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019-10-15)
      This book explores how fin de siècle Britain and Britons displaced spatially-charged apprehensions about imperial decline, urban decay and unpoliced borders onto Jews from Eastern Europe migrating westwards. The myriad of representations of the ‘alien Jew’ that emerged were the product of, but also a catalyst for, a decisive moment in Britain’s legal history: the fight for the 1905 Aliens Act. Drawing upon a richly diverse collection of social and political commentary, including fiction, political testimony, ethnography, travel writing, journalism and cartography, this volume traces the shifting rhetoric around alien Jews as they journeyed from the Russian Pale of Settlement to London’s East End. By employing a unique and innovative reading of both the aliens debate and racialized discourse concerned with ‘the Jew’, Hannah Ewence demonstrates that ideas about ‘space’ and 'place’ critically informed how migrants were viewed; an argument which remains valid in today’s world.
    • “Always toward absent lovers, love's tide stronger flows": Spiritual lovesickness in the letters of Anne-Marie Martinozzi

      Hillman, Jennifer; University of Chester (Berghahn Journals, 2015-06-01)
      In February 1654 Anne-Marie Martinozzi, a niece of Cardinal Mazarin, married Armand de Bourbon, prince de Conti. The newly-weds went on to experience almost concurrent pious conversions that would transform their social behaviour for the remainder of their lives. Shortly afterwards, Armand was posted to Northern Italy as commander of the French army, necessitating a six-month estrangement of the couple between May and October 1657. This article explores a corpus of “love letters” penned by the princess during this separation. It argues that Anne-Marie not only claimed to be suffering from “melancholy” as a result of her separation from her lover and spouse, but that she also constructed an image of herself as spiritually lovesick on account of her deprivation from her mentor and confidant. In doing so, this article sheds light on the centrality of co-penitents to the direction of spiritual lives in the aftermath of a pious conversion.
    • An Automated Approach for Geocoding Tabular Itineraries

      Santos, Rui; Murrieta-Flores, Patricia; Martins, Bruno; University of Lisbon; University of Chester (ACM, 2017-11-30)
      Historical itineraries, often accessible as lists or tables describing places visited in sequence, are abundant resources and also important objects of study for humanities scholars. This article advances a novel method for automatically geocoding tabular itineraries, combining approximate string matching with a cost optimization algorithm based on dynamic programming. Experiments with a dataset of historical itineraries, with ground-truth geocoding annotations provided by domain experts and leveraging also the GeoNames gazetteer, attest to the effectiveness of the proposed method. The obtained results show that while approximate string matching can already achieve very low median errors, with many toponyms matching exactly against GeoNames entries, the combination with cost optimization can significantly improve results in terms of the average distance towards the correct disambiguations.
    • Angel Veneration on Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture from Dewsbury (West Yorkshire), Otley (West Yorkshire) and Halton (Lancashire): Contemplative Preachers and Pastoral Care

      Pickles, Thomas; University of Chester (Taylor & Francis, 2009)
      Three fragments of stone sculpture — from Dewsbury and Otley in West Yorkshire, and Halton in Lancashire — preserve images of an angel and attendant figure, perhaps a monk or mass-priest. All three fragments apparently belonged to monuments including further figural images with clear pastoral resonance: narrative images of the life and ministry of Christ, or images of the evangelists or apostles. While an absolute date cannot be supplied for the production of these monuments, the Otley monument seems to belong to the period 780–800, and the Dewsbury and Halton monuments seem to belong to the early 9th century. Previous discussions of these angel images have not provided a convincing identification. Here it is proposed that the sculptors were adapting contemporary models depicting an angel and attendant figure in order to draw attention to the connections between Old and New Testament narratives of angel veneration. It is argued that these images reflect and promote the angelology of Gregory the Great, who considered angels ideal exemplars for the contemplative preacher. If so, then the monuments may have been produced in response to two broader historical trends. First, the instability of kingship in Northumbria, which prompted Alcuin to promote the Roman and Christian authority of the Church and to propose ecclesiastical reform. Second, a gradual shift from mixed communities including monks, towards communities composed exclusively of priests, which may have required a defence of the role of contemplatives in society. Finally, it is suggested that these images therefore have an important implication for debates about the pastoral organisation of the early Anglo-Saxon Church.
    • Anglo-Saxon Monasteries as Sacred Places: Topography, Exegesis and Vocation

      Pickles, Thomas; University of Chester (Brill, 2011-11-11)
      This paper supplies a new approach to reconstructing the conception of Anglo-Saxon monasteries as sacred spaces through reconstructing the monastic habitus that shaped monastic perceptions of the landscape.
    • 'Another Stafford street row': Law, order and the Irish presence in mid-Victorian Wolverhampton

      Swift, Roger; Chester College of Higher Education (Croom Helm, 1985-10-01)
      This book chapter discusses the relationship between popular disturbances and the presence of Irish migrants in mid-Victorian Wolverhampton.
    • Antiquity at the National Memorial Arboretum

      Williams, Howard; University of Chester (Taylor & Francis, 2013-01-16)
      The paper explores the use of ancient and historic material cultures and architectures within the recent resurgence in public commemoration in the UK. Using the case study of the National Memorial Arboretum (Staffordshire), the study focuses on how ancient designs (including prehistoric, classical and medieval styles and forms) interleave with the arboreal, geological and celestial themes of the memorial gardens. Together these designs serve to create a multitude of temporal poises by which auras of commemorative perpetuity and regeneration are projected and sustained. The paper proposes that archaeologists can bring their expertise to bear on the investigation of the complex, varied allusions to the past within contemporary landscapes of memory.
    • The application of micro-Raman for the analysis of ochre artefacts from Mesolithic palaeo-lake Flixton

      Needham, Andy; Croft, Shannon; Kröger, Roland; Robson, Harry K.; Rowley, Charlotte C. A.; Taylor, Barry; Gray Jones, Amy; Conneller, Chantal; University of York; University of Chester; University of Manchester (Elsevier, 2017-12-20)
      Ochre is an important mineral pigment used by prehistoric hunter-gatherers across the globe, and its use in the Mesolithic is no exception. Using optical microscopy and Raman spectroscopy with micrometre spatial resolution (micro-Raman), we present evidence that confirms unambiguously the use of ochre by hunter-gatherers at Mesolithic sites surrounding Palaeo-Lake Flixton, Vale of Pickering, North Yorkshire, UK. Our results suggest that people collected ochre and processed it in different ways, likely for diverse purposes. The quality and specificity of chemical characterisation possible with micro-Raman facilitates new avenues for further research on ochreous materials in Britain, including provenancing through chemical ‘fingerprinting’.
    • Archaeodeath as digital public mortuary archaeology

      Williams, Howard; University of Chester (Archaeopress, 2020-04-06)
      Since 2013, I have been writing an academic WordPress weblog (blog) – Archaeodeath: The Archaeology and Heritage of Death & Memory. In earlier publications, I have published preliminary reflections on the benefits of Archaeodeath as ‘digital public mortuary archaeology’ (DPMA), considering how it affords a mode of open-access public dissemination of mortuary archaeology, and a venue for debating and critiquing the archaeology and heritage of death and memory (Meyers and Williams 2014; Williams and Atkin 2015). Building on these discussions, this chapter reviews five-and-a-half years of the Archaeodeath blogging to the end of 2018, presenting the character of the blog’s content and its reception, identifying challenges and limitations of the medium, and (equally significantly in understanding its utility) considering key decisions regarding how I choose not to deploy this blog. I identify Archaeodeath as more than outreach or engagement, but as a digital platform increasingly both integral to, and transforming, my academic teaching and research practice.
    • Archaeological and palaeoenvironmental investigations at Star Carr

      Taylor, Barry; Conneller, Chantal; Milner, Nicky; University of Chester; University of Manchester; University of York (Quarternary Research Association, 2017-09-30)
      This chapter outlines the results of recent archaeological and palaeo-environmental research at Star Carr
    • Archaeology in Alfred the Great (1969) and The Last Kingdom (2015–)

      Nicholls, Victoria; Williams, Howard; University of Chester (Archaeopress, 2020-03-02)
      Alfred the Great (1969) was the first, and remains the only, feature-length film portraying the West Saxon king and his conflicts with the Danes. Forty-seven years later, Bernard Cornwell’s novels have been adapted for television as The Last Kingdom (2015–). Despite being fictional adaptions of historical events, and despite the considerable separation in time between their production, both Alfred the Great and The Last Kingdom consciously aspired to portray the Saxons and Vikings with a high degree of historical accuracy. Taking an archaeological perspective – focusing on the material cultures represented and their archaeological inspirations – this chapter asks which is more effective in representing late 9th-century Britain and what are the implications of this comparison?
    • Art on the March

      Williams, Howard; University of Chester (JAS Arqueologia, 2023-10-30)
      Commentary
    • Assembling Animals

      Knight, Becky; Milner, Nicky; Taylor, Barry; Elliott, Ben; Conneller, Chantal; O'Connor, Terry; University of York, University of York, University of Chester, University of York, University of Manchester, University of York, (White Rose University Press, 2018-04-12)
      Spatial analysis of the Star Carr faunal assemblage
    • Aura and Authenticity in the Presentation of UK Literary Figures through the Medium of the Home

      Pardoe, James; University of Chester (Taylor & Francis, 2015-10-16)
      By exploring case studies from the UK, this paper investigates how the notions of aura and authenticity at literary homes are utilised to create an impact on the understanding of the lives and works of associated writers. The boundaries of this paper have been dictated by its place within twenty-first century manifestations of the survival, conservation and reproduction of literary homes associated with four writers active in the early nineteenth century: Lord Byron, John Keats, Sir Walter Scott and Percy Shelley. Many of the works within the literary house genre highlight the significance of the link between writers and their audiences. However, whereas commentators concentrate on the links being direct, this paper shows that the association is based on narratives validated through those who were subsequently responsible for the houses in conjunction with the expectations of visitors. Consequently, the interpretation prevalent in the houses in the twenty-first century are the result of a long history based on the writers, but influenced by what was, and is, considered their significance by others over approximately two hundred years.
    • Authenticity, Commodification and Sustainable Development: Construction of Destination Image for Chester, UK

      Pardoe, James; Stone, Chris; University of Chester; Manchester Metropolitan University (Green Lines Institute, 2014-07-22)
      This exploratory paper examines the ways in which perceived authentic historical narratives are utilised in the construction of heritage destinations in an era of sustainable development - the ostensible ‘organising principle’ of the twenty-first century. The most immediately tangible value of the distinctive and high-quality environments typically encountered in cultural [urban/city] destinations like Siena and Kitzbühel lies in their ability to attract visitor audiences, and the attraction of many such well-known high-quality and value destinations typically centres on a carefully conserved historic central core. Such an approach might conceivably be criticised as backward-looking and perhaps even elitist, but that the outcomes are positive seems unequivocal from certain value standpoints, and many such historic centres might be identified as embodying many precepts of sustainable development, most notably the economic. But the issue here is: exactly what is being sustained? From a conservation perspective, the fashioning of associations with the past relies on evidence of original context. The concept of what is original is therefore a central consideration when analysing how these cities are experienced, lending an ‘authenticity’ to what is being shown and allowing a credible link to the past to be maintained. However, conservation practice in many cultural city destinations frequently relies on reproductions of a perceived past, one related less to original historical or social contexts and more to the manipulation of the experience of visitors/stakeholders. Are these historic cities reconstructed artifice whose sole purpose is to inculcate a sense of place; and to what extent might concerns to present an authentic Chester with unimpeached historical validity conflict with key elements of notions of sustainable development? The research conceptualisation has been situated in a relatively novel nexus bridging theoretical considerations and practical strategies of conservation and central tenets of sustainability. The conceptual frame of reference is further extended through reference to concepts of destination image in order to explore the more tangible outcomes of governance for sustainability in terms of long-term tourism performance.
    • Automatically analysing large texts in a GIS environment: The Registrar General’s reports and cholera in the nineteenth century

      Murrieta-Flores, Patricia; Baron, Alistair; Gregory, Ian; Hardie, Andrew; Rayson, Paul; Digital Humanities Research Centre; University of Chester (Wiley, 2014-11-14)
      The aim of this article is to present new research showcasing how Geographic Information Systems in combination with Natural Language Processing and Corpus Linguistics methods can offer innovative venues of research to analyze large textual collections in the Humanities, particularly in historical research. Using as examples parts of the collection of the Registrar General’s Reports that contain more than 200,000 pages of descriptions, census data and vital statistics for the UK, we introduce newly developed automated textual tools and well known spatial analyses used in combination to investigate a case study of the references made to cholera and other diseases in these historical sources, and their relationship to place-names during Victorian times. The integration of such techniques has allowed us to explore, in an automatic way, this historical source containing millions of words, to examine the geographies depicted in it, and to identify textual and geographic patterns in the corpus.
    • Barthomley Church and the Civil War

      Gaunt, Peter; Chester College of Higher Education (Cheshire Community Council and Chester College, 1995)
      This articles discusses the history of Barthomley Church in south-east Cheshire, particularly the Barthomley massacre in December 1643 during the English Civil War