Nice little piece of Luddite history on display at Nottingham Castle Museum - the sword of a Luddite leader captured in 1817.

Our Special Issue @genderandhistory.bsky.social is now out!! Many congrats and thanks to stellar co-editors @writinghelena.bsky.social, Lisa Hellman & Rachel Jean-Baptiste, and to all our fabulous authors. Fab seeing all 140,000 words brought together! 🌟 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14680424...

A little Christmas treat to you from us at the Railway Museum - watch us make (and judge) early c19th mince pies from George Stephenson's own recipe book: www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQMz... Caution: may contain curators...

Good to see the BBC leading with a story on essay writing mills at University level, but its also depressingly predictable in its details. *of course* the guy they interview is now based in Dubai. *of course* he's absolutely unrepentant about the work. and *OF COURSE* he's now using AI.

I enjoyed working with Gemini to transcribe documents in our collection for publication on the Arts&Culture platform. I also did A LOT of proof-reading, but it was nice to be able to share transcripts with the public, who generally haven't spent years learning to tell an c18th F from a S or a TH!

Nothing more fun than a ceremonial Victorian trowel 😍

I think one of the fascinating (if depressing) things about watching Farage squirm under these racism allegations is that he really isn't very used to direct press criticism of himself.

Would anyone be interested in being part of a roundtable on Working-Class Victorians in heritage/fiction/public imagination today at next year's BAVS conference? Let me know if you're keen 😁

Please enjoy this project we've been working on with the lovely team at Google Arts and Culture: artsandculture.google.com/project/nati... Its so exciting to make so much of our collection accessible this anniversary year for the railways from models and artwork to tools and vehicles!

Does anyone have any recent reading recommendations on how people (particularly working-class people) adjusted to technological change in the long c19th? By reading list feels a little dated... Thanks!

I really enjoyed Death by Lightning on Netflix - a really interesting interweaving of the tragedy of James Garfield and Charles Guiteau with some amazing acting. I thought quite a good portrayal of late c19th society too...

Day 9: Map. For my book project I’m mapping museums in the UK which have ancient Cypriot collections. There are more than you might think! #Museum30

I thought I'd seen competitive sports parents aplenty having taken my eldest to football for years, but I'm here watching him at a interschool chess tournament and oh boy! 😬

Hello, if you've got a spare fifteen minutes we've put together a video on the emergence of the railway poster as a visual medium from the 1840s-1930s that you might enjoy! www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5is...

CfP: Tourism, Memory and Heritage Conference (2026), Amsterdam and Wageningen, The Netherlands. Full details: lnkd.in/ebPHRqgM

In one of those "quite how did I end up in this line of work" I'm sitting in the banquet hall of an c18th mayoral mansion, waiting to judge a cooking competition of c19th mince pies, listening to someone outside sing Edelweiss....

CfP: The British General Strike of 1926: New Directions of Research, 7-8 May 2026 @newcastleuni.bsky.social Deadline: 6 February 2026 More details: @sslh.bsky.social sslh.org.uk/2025/10/13/c... sslh.org.uk/wp-content/u... Kindly supported by @leverhulme.ac.uk #GeneralStrike1926 #GeneralStrike100

If #Railway200 has sparked or rekindled your interest in #RailwayHistory, and you fancy study at Masters or PhD level - then come & study with Dr Mike Esbester at the University of Portsmouth! An expert in railway, transport & mobility history: www.port.ac.uk/about-us/str...

🚨What's that?🚨 You want FREE access to 17 brilliant #RailwayHistory articles from the @jtransporthist.bsky.social? All yours! For #Railway200 the JTH has put together a virtual collection of articles, & until 15 October they're free! Download & read now: journals.sagepub.com/topic/collec...

Just a little memory nudge for kids of a certain age... 🎶See, I reckon you're about an eight or a nine Maybe even nine and a half in four beers' time🎶

Hi everyone! I am beginning my search for prospective PhD supervisors for a September 2026 start. If you specialise in Caribbean slavery and/or the East India Company, and are interested in supervising my doctoral research, I would be delighted to hear from you! #Skystorians #AcademicSky

Please forgive the shameless self-publicity, but a collection of essays on transnational working-class literature which I helped to co-edit (and also contributed to) has been published today! See the link below for details & ask your library to order a copy! link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

As we commemorate the bicentenary of modern railways in 2025, what narratives are we leaving out? 🚂 1/6

You've heard about Rail200 this year, but what about Braille200? Our amazing WROCAH placement student @tillyguthrie.bsky.social explains the dual history of Braille and the Railways in Britain: blog.railwaymuseum.org.uk/braille-200/

You've heard about Rail200 this year, but what about Braille200? Our amazing WROCAH placement student @tillyguthrie.bsky.social explains the dual history of Braille and the Railways in Britain: blog.railwaymuseum.org.uk/braille-200/

Do I, or any of you, know anybody who has worked or is working on the household of Juana of Castile (1479-1555)?

Wasn't sure we were allowed to do that as historians... 🤣 From Frank Pick's Oxford DNB page

A historiography day...

Introduced my children to Willow over the weekend and glad to report its held up 100% (at least for me!) Its on ITV player right now if you fancy a catch up.

Do you have any traveller ancestors? We have a handy guide to researching people from travelling communities in Derbyshire: recordoffice.wordpress.com/2023/06/01/t...

I thought you'd like to know that the crowd to see Manchester's funeral wreath arrangement for Queen Victoria was so big it blocked traffic for hours. Officials told the crowd it would be moved to the Town Hall, and a huge group pushed inside looking for it even though it hadn't yet been moved.

Honestly who wrote the second season of The Night Agent?! The first series was fun and compelling. This is just a mess of people wandering onto screen announcing their motivations and blundering about!

We have a brand new catalogue online to start a brand new week! The archive of multi-talented actress and writer Yvonne Mitchell is now available to search on Borthcat: borthcat.york.ac.uk/ymit

Honestly sometimes the only thing that keeps me in this job is how lovely it is to work with the team of colleagues here. Also the PhD students

Its maternity cover, so fixed-term, but this looks like a fun (and potentially remote-working) job: www.english-heritage.org.uk/about/our-pe... Very happy to talk to anyone interested in coming into the Heritage world and would like advice on applying 😀

Free, on Friday, online: conference on the impact of the landmark 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act. Hosted by the Open University. I'll be talking on how the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act was used to police sexual behaviour www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1885-and-i...

Really sad to be missing #SHSConf2025 which looks completely fab and loaded with all the best people!

Trying to make my research project bid sound a little more sophisticated than just: "Let me come and touch your early railway engines for.....history reasons"

Just out of a very enjoyable meeting of non-Uni research people who work regularly with Universities and discussing how we witness so much drama in the sector. The idea of a reality "Keeping up with the Unis" programme pitched to much agreement!

Call for Papers, please share! “Power Couples? Collaborations at work and at home, c.1750-1914” workshop to be held at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany 11-13 May 2026. Deadline for expression of interest 1 Sep 2025. Please see more info in the attached & email me if any questions.

I think maybe ten years of writing exhibition labels within a tight and informative c300 words has broken my ability to write long-form academic prose!

Next Wednesday, we host the Society's annual Prothero Lecture. This year's lecturer is Prof Peter Gatrell who will speak on 'Refugee World(s): a Twentieth-Century Retrospective' bit.ly/44xmpfx The Lecture is at 6.30pm at Mary Ward House, London, and online and all are welcome #skystorians 1/2

Join us next Wednesday (25/6) 5:30-7:30 in person at the IHR and online for our final seminar of 2024-5 to hear David Turner ( Swansea University) present his paper ‘Histories of Resistance: Disability, Agency & Embodiment in the Long Eighteenth Century’ @ihr.bsky.social shorturl.at/hMRGz

RAIL 150 (1975)

The duality of what happens when the algorithm knows you google "class" regularly!

Karen Lystra's Love and the Working Class is well worth your time. Just incredible recovery from US archives as she explores letters between lovers. One quote: "Nanie I would rather see you than any one else in the world. I could tell you more in an houre than I could write in a week"

24 HOURS TO GO! The new Railway Work, Life & Death project dataset arrives tomorrow afternoon. We're launching it at The National Archives of the UK @nationalarchives.gov.uk.web.brid.gy at 2pm! Get ready ... c.70,000 railway worker accident cases, covering England & Wales, 1855-1929 #Railway200

📢Job Alert!📢 Our AHRC-funded Victorian Hand project is looking for a 3-year, full-time Public Engagment Fellow, based at the London College of Fashion, to join our team & help deliver our programme of activities. This amazing opportunity closes on 24 June so please spread the word far & wide!

Maybe the smallest objects in our collection! These tiny LMS timetables and holiday guides were produced for Queen Mary's Dollshouse in 1925. SMG 1985-8715