VICTORY! Government to open up the Land Registry - bringing to an end a thousand years of secrecy shrouding who owns England. I’ve been campaigning for this for ten years: the new Land Use Framework, published later today, makes it government policy. 1/ www.theguardian.com/environment/...

We've put together a select listing of c.100 national #history societies active in the UK & Ireland bit.ly/4rANJ52. These subject specialist societies facilitate research and promote the value of historical knowledge. Many are membership organisations and invite historians to join them #Skystorians

So so pleased to see that my book ‘Body Size in Early Modern Germany’ is now available on Oxford Academic ahead of its print publication later this month: academic.oup.com/book/62409 🎉🎉🎉 To mark its online publication, I thought I’d share a bit more about the book and its contents...

Delighted to share this essay from me about de-extinction and the kinds of futures its advocates are imagining and trying to create. At the very least, we need to understand our emotiona far better, and mourn, before trying to eliminate our grief extinction with technological fixes.

All About That Place returns this year, running from Wednesday 7th October to Friday 16th October! @sogorg.bsky.social is now calling for speakers who can provide pre-recorded or live talks of around 10 minutes, tying in with the event’s daily themes. #AATP26 #FamilyHistory #LocalHistory #GenHour

Getting Started with Local History. Local history helps you better understand localities that are important to you, the lives of individuals who lived within them and the regional, national and global tapestries which these places are a piece of. www.pharostutors.com/getting-star...

The cardinal rule of British politics is never, under any circumstances, be horrible to badgers

In advance of the launch of our latest #PartnershipPublication (and the 400th birthday of John Aubery), tomorrow, please read our latest blog from @lrylandepton.bsky.social explaining the parallel paths Aubery's work and ours have taken. Thanks to @ihr.bsky.social. #Skystorians

Dear everyone, As per the post from the Bodleian librarian below, AI bots and scrapers are putting just about every website under great pressure, British History Online included. A lot of excellent tech staff are working hard to keep everything working, but outages and siruptions are inevitable.

The six-year-old has informed me that they were learning about kings and queens yesterday and there was a song. A song, I asked? Inevitably, some of @gregjenner.bsky.social's best (and certainly catchiest), work.

📣Out now on #firstview! Jenni Hyde (@wallyberry.bsky.social) on 'Providence, Editorial, and News in Early Modern Ballads' #News #Religion #God #Print #Everyday 17thc 📜🗃️ 👉Read open access: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Hi #EarlyModern Bluesky - did you know that someone brilliant has built working printing presses using Lego and they are trying to get enough supporters so that Lego will release it as a kit? They look so cool! beta.ideas.lego.com/product-idea...

We are hiring postdoc researchers to join our #WrittenWorlds project at Birkbeck, with Sue Wiseman, @mdpowelldavies.bsky.social, @richardjansell.bsky.social and I. 0.5FTE, 13 months, focus on women's or provincial non-elite writing #EarlyModern 🗃️ cis7.bbk.ac.uk/vacancy/post...

In 1550, one Elephant Power (EP) was the equivalent of 10 Horse Power (HP).

In a policy paper published today, Craig Muldrew discusses his new book ‘The Capitalist Self’ and explores what it can contribute to policy debates about the role of capital in contemporary society. historyandpolicy.org/policy-paper...

Suburbs, by Joe Saunders. Today, around 80% of England’s population are suburb dwellers and all kinds of researcher may be interested in the history of suburbs. how-to-history.com/2026/02/25/s...

‘The English Print Revolution: Caxton and Beyond’, a collab between @ies-sas.bsky.social and @senatehouselib.bsky.social celebrating 550 years of printing in England, opens @senatehouselib.bsky.social on 26 Feb 2026! www.london.ac.uk/about/servic...

Myself and Colin Breen have written in "Maritime Ireland" about seaweed harvesting on Ireland's coastline, in 19th century. These are local rights, well known and established through built features (e.g. wrack walls, kilns, etc). There is no way that such rights be taken over by foreign companies.

You know studying at degree level is not compulsory right? If you don’t want to study you can just not do higher education. You don’t need a little robot called Einstein to destroy the planet for you not to learn anything.

FYI, Academia.edu has changed its terms of service to give an irrevocable worldwide license for anything uploaded to its site to be used for generative AI. I do not consent to this and have pulled all my papers.

Excited to be teaching some online short-courses in British historical research skills over the coming months including on Probate, Title Deeds, Local History and Chancery Records. #Skystorians #LocalHistory #FamilyHistory 🗃️https://www.pharostutors.com/joe-saunders

BOOKING IS NOW OPEN for our webinar week in July, "The Ones Who Got Away": www.pharostutors.com/webinars With a star-studded speaker list and 15 talks there will be something for everyone! Buy individual webinars or save 20% with a full week pass. #Genealogy #Ancestry #OnlineTalks #OnlineLearning

So many departments that have been shrunk based on the metrics that showed unsatisfactory employability outcomes. Every single time we yelled that *it is not in our power to change the economy* that is the Prime Minister's job. Glad to have the neat graphs to point at next time. #UKHE

Turns out (says @jburnmurdoch.ft.com) it's not so much an oversupply of graduates in the UK (the same would be true of other similar countries but it's not) as an undersupply of the kind of jobs that a better-performing, more productive economy would supply.

Geograph, one of the best sources of images of places in Britain. Covering a range of historic buildings and landscapes. Mostly free to use. 🗃️ www.geograph.org.uk

'I would set off, with some sense of what I might be looking for, and see what I stumbled across...' Is going for a walk a valid methodology for a historian? And if so, how much theory do you need to read before you start? Some thoughts in my latest blog post: manyheadedmonster.com/2026/02/10/i...

Yes, the 90s is now History... 🗃️

Privileged to be working with the archives of the Commercial Travellers' Benevolent Institution, charting its history from 1849 to the present. Such organisations provided critical financial and social support recorded through a rich bureaucracy. 🗃️ how-to-history.com/2025/12/31/f...

📣Bookings now open! 👉Celebrating 50 years of the Social History Society with our 'Festival of Social History' @ihr.bsky.social Panels, zine-making stall, tours, lunch, a roundtable, & keynote by Naomi Tadmor 📅 24 Apr 2026 💷 from £10 for members All welcome! socialhistory.org.uk/events/festi...

New month, new blogging, vlogging and social media prompt! For February we have #OnePlaceNetworks – an opportunity to explore networks involving people in our #OnePlaceStudies, who were linked by a variety of familial, financial, business, charitable, religious, recreational and other relationships.

If you want to stop this because the price is too high in terms of commuting misery, impact on the heritage buildings, and placing the local community in the shadow of another tall building, please object here: Here's our helpful Guide: bit.ly/4jLWsim #SaveLiverpoolStreetStation

This is such a facile argument. Sure, let's have a conversation about how universities should be funded. But let's also talk interest rates, debt that functions like an extra tax, repayment thresholds, and what that's actually doing to millions of young people who did everything they were told to do

my dad didn’t go to university and he was extremely happy to pay taxes for his four children to do so; and, indeed, for the doctors who treated him at Addenbrookes to have gone to university as well.

Researching the history of an organisation which in 1850 declared it would 'Undertake nothing that it cannot perform, and to perform everything that it undertakes’, which feels like excellent life advice. 🗃️

Excited to be speaking at the IHR Food History seminar on 12 February 5.30 pm to 6.30 pm. Book a place to hear about cheesemaking and women’s dominance of the dairy in early modern England. Online via Zoom so no real cheese this time I’m afraid.

Spoke to Shleagh Fogarty yesterday sbout why the Chancellor is wrong: our “student loan” system is not remotely fair. It’s regressive and embedding inter and intra generational wealth inequality. It’s not a loan system, it’s a bad grad tax in all but name. youtu.be/uOC6Arrf2us?...

This is a very useful thread. The government is touting this training as ‘the most ambitious training scheme since the launch of the Open University in 1971’. Which is insulting to the OU, quite frankly.

Excellent demonstration of the variations in early modern spelling. Four versions of William Hawkes (from the Posting Book ... for Staking Out of Foundations in the Runs of the City of London). #EarlyModern 🗃️

Antiquarianism, by Joe Saunders. Antiquarians have served an important part in the study of history over the last few hundred years, and their work has helped the development of the modern historical sciences. how-to-history.com/2026/01/28/a...

The Parish of St Saviour, Southwark: Information about Parishioners, from Various Sources, 1550 to 1650. Fantastic site with a huge amount of transcribed material. Example shown, Sewer Commission records. #LocalHistory #EarlyModern 🗃️ stsaviour.folger.edu/index.html

📣3 days to go until the deadline - we can't wait to see you for our 50th anniversary in Lancaster!

Today is #PloughMonday. Thomas Tusser called it one of the feasts 'belonging to the plough' that employers in #earlymodern England should never forget. Here I explore these holidays where work & play mingled: how the festive shaped #labour relations. ludicrushistories.wordpress.com/2026/01/12/f...

Today is Plough Monday, the first Monday after Epiphany, when agricultural labourers would start to plough the fields in preparation for sowing and planting crops. Hopefully the end result would be as beautiful as these fields, from a manuscript map of Hunsdon House, Herts, c1820 @bodleian.ox.ac.uk

This new blogpost from @ihr.bsky.social by Daisy Mansfield, a volunteer with our @vch-london.bsky.social project, currently working on the parish of St Anne #Soho looks at what we can learn abut the life of the area in the 18th century from the works of William Hogarth. 🗃️

This #MapMonday we're taking you back in time ⌛ We've just added over 9,000 out of copyright Ordnance Survey maps published in 1975 to our Map Images website. What did your neighbourhood look like fifty years ago? 🗺️ 🔗: maps.nls.uk/additions/#191 #MoreMaps

#ICYMI: Calling all BALH members! Join us on 29 January 2026 to have your say at our Special General Meeting. Find out more: www.balh.org.uk/event-balh-b... #WeAreLocalHistory #LocalHistoryForAll

Amazing new publication of Thomas Machell's 17th century 'Collections Towards a History and Topography of Westmorland' edited by Jane Platt. A fantastic source for study made freely available online by Cumberland & Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological society. 🗃️ cumbriapast.com/cgi-bin/cumb...

#ICYMI: Join us on 27 January to learn about how an Atlas of London in 1666 has been researched! This webinar is in collaboration with the Historic Towns Trust @historictownstrust.bsky.social Find out more: www.balh.org.uk/event-balh-r... #WeAreLocalHistory #LocalHistoryForAll

I know it feels a long way off, but for those of you who think your August is missing a little early modern crime...why not sign up for the University of Oxford's summer school? I promise it will be more fun and less grim than you may think! lifelong-learning.ox.ac.uk/courses/crim...

Join us on 2 May for a one-day conference all about the Yorkshire Dales! Find out more: www.balh.org.uk/yorkshire26 #WeAreLocalHistory #LocalHistoryForAll