'Traffic', the NASSR/NAVSA 2026 conference at Pasadena, CA; alongside the NACBS down the road. Sounds like the place to be in mid-November!

Happy Holidays from RSVP! Our gift 🎁 to you is the debut of a new interview series, starting with @patrickleary.bsky.social, who sat down with @c19thnewshound.bsky.social this past year to discuss "Getting Started with Periodicals Research." Stay tuned for more in 2026! rs4vp.org/introducing-...

Well the news is out! I'll be the next Editor of the Curran Index. Thrilled to have the opportunity to take the Curran forwards for the next five years. Looking forward to building on the work of Emily Middleton and Lars Atkin and making the Curran even more central to Victorian scholarhip.

Ever wondered about the deeper history of generational dynamics than the conventional c20/c21 one? Here's Julianne Werlin's take on how the reception of Darwin might have insights to offer.

Love this; but along with the rise of 'close reading' has apparently come the collapse of 'original reading'. So do we need to ask what all this close reading is achieving?

Glad to see my ODNB article on Jennett Humphreys, herself a significant contributor to the original DNB and an important worker on the OED as well, has been published in the latest ODNB update (on lexicographers). If you have access, do check her out. www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1...

Have just discovered that the price for accessing a copy of a will from the UK Probate Search service increased in mid-November from £1.50 to £16.00. There's no way of accessing in person, so that's just made one part of the sort of biographical/prosopographical research I do pretty much impossible.

Still time to get a proposal in for BAVS2026 in Liverpool. Go on - you know you'll regret it if you don't!

Had a lot of fun giving a masterclass with Julianne Werlin (Duke) on Generations at St Andrews last week. Thanks to the grad students for making it such a lively session, and to Matt Augustine/the Scottish Graduate School Arts & Humanities for the invitation. Let me know if I can do the same for you

BAAS invites scholars in any field of American Studies to apply for grants of up to two years in duration. Grants may be requested for up to a maximum of £2000 for a range of American Studies academic activities. Please note, from 2026, earlier submission deadlines are in place.

If you teach on undergraduate history courses, please spread the word. Small sums can often make a huge difference.

Had a lot of fun giving a masterclass with Julianne Werlin (Duke) on Generations at St Andrews last week. Thanks to the grad students for making it such a lively session, and to Matt Augustine/the Scottish Graduate School Arts & Humanities for the invitation. Let me know if I can do the same for you

www.theguardian.com/education/20... Excellent news

As @drhorrocks.bsky.social @vicmanch.bsky.social noted, Victorianists have the opportunity of back-to-back conferences with #RSVP2026 held in Dublin, 23-25 July & #BAVS2026 held in Liverpool, 27-29 July Too late to apply to RSVP, but submissions still open for BAVS! #BookHistory #PeriodicalStudies

Find out more about our #bursaries. We are always open to applicants sslh.org.uk/bursaries-gr...

Don't forget to submit an abstract for RSVP's Dublin conference on movements and migrations by tomorrow! conference.rs4vp.org

We are pleased to launch today a new funding scheme, jointly with @ihr.bsky.social & DC Thomson. Applied History Fellowships bit.ly/4ijiuII offer financial / practical support to develop the wider impact and application of academic work. £12,000 for 6 months. Closing date: 31 Jan 2026 #Skystorians

Out today (in USA) press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

Specially useful for early-career Victorianists. Register to get a Zoom link.

Just been finalising readings etc for my segment of the upcoming Scottish Graduate School Arts and Humanities seminar on 'Thinking Generationally', with Julianne Werlin (Duke). tockify.com/sgsah/detail... Looking forward to seeing everyone who has signed up in St Andrews on the 24th.

Just notching up my 50th correction to the FindmyPast census records. Still waiting for a really memorable mis-transcription, but I do like the thought of John Armsden of Bognor, 'Stationer and Fancy Seeds'; the actual entry, 'Goods', is so much more prosaic, no matter how 'fancy'.

People are frequently, frustratingly, missing from the census, but how many got to appear twice in the same year? Translator Edward Percy Jacobsen did in 1911; as a single man living with his mother in Bloomsbury, and again as a husband/father in Tooting! All the details match. Were there others?

"Here is an exciting new way to think about the century that produced Darwinism." Janet Browne's review of Martin Hewitt's Darwinism's Generations: link.springer.com/article/10.1... @vicmanch.bsky.social

ARCHIVAL FUNDING: Ann Ball Bodley Visiting Fellowship in Women’s History, to use Bodleian Libraries collections to advance scholarship in women’s history, of any geographical area and historical period. Deadline 28th Nov. www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/csb/fellowsh...

National Museums Scotland is taking part in the AHRC early career fellowships in cultural and heritage institutions scheme www.ukri.org/opportunity/... The deadline is 10 Dec, so there's still time to get in touch about an application. Let me know if it's #histSTM related 🗃️📜

The BAVS 2026 Annual Conference CfP is now live: victorianist.wordpress.com/2025/10/20/c... We hope you can join us in Liverpool next year!

We've a whole week to come up with our own suggestions....

Hope to see you there!

All the best anecdotes packed into 5k words! But even allowing for them having to be there, a sadly snide feel. For all his faults, Asa deserves more of the celebration provided by this extract than is offered by the piece as a whole. Age of Improvement and Victorian Cities a monument in themselves.

Exactly 12 months since Darwinism’s Generations: The Reception of Darwinian Evolution in Britain, 1859–1909 academic.oup.com/book/58805 was published online. Not sure if I should be pleased with nearly 500 downloads in that time. But I hope if you haven't yet, and you have access, you will today!

Are you an established or senior researcher in the humanities and social sciences? Our British Academy/Leverhulme Senior Research Fellowships allow successful award-holders to concentrate on bringing a major piece of research to completion. Find out more: https://bit.ly/3VMeTZ9

An important essay for all of us interested in the Victorian archaeology of generations and generational thinking.

The official CFP is a few days off, but I can't wait that long to announce that #BAVS2026 will be held in Liverpool, 27-29 July. We hope that some of the @rs4vp.org crowd will be able to make the trip over from #RSVP2026 and join @bavs-uk.bsky.social for more Victorian stuff. Details to follow.

For reasons, it would be v. helpful to have information from a broad range of academic and non-academic (incl. GLAM) users of the BBC Written Archives OTHER THAN historians, briefly on: 1) What you've used it for and 2) How the proposed changes would impact on your research. Reposts welcomed.

It was cool to see that Mokyr got the Nobel in economics. @antonhowes.bsky.social has a nice write up here: www.ageofinvention.xyz/p/age-of-inv...

Now open: call for the Royal Historical Society's First Book and Early Career Article Prizes, 2026. Eligible titles, published in 2025, may be submitted by the author before the closing date of 15 December. Further details and how to apply: bit.ly/3KnR47v #Skystorians

The British Newspaper Archive now includes Jackie and I was delighted to note problem pages in prominent position blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2025/10/06/j...

Have posted a short blog discussing what we now know about Sarah Lewis, author of Women's Mission (1839).

Great to see the whole archive of the BJRL available open access! A real boon to historians. (But in promoting this special issue, I might have omitted the 'local historians' designation for Alan Kidd and Terry Wyke, which rather undersells their place as social historians of Manchester and beyond.)

'fresh and fascinating ...astonishingly detailed ...I have not read any other such study that ranges so widely in Britain, is so authoritative, and so clearly expressed ...an exciting new way to think about the century', Janet Browne on Darwinism's Generations. I'd say I'm pretty chuffed with that!

'fresh and fascinating ...astonishingly detailed ...I have not read any other such study that ranges so widely in Britain, is so authoritative, and so clearly expressed ...an exciting new way to think about the century', Janet Browne on Darwinism's Generations. I'd say I'm pretty chuffed with that!

Quick response from the DNB; they are convinced. The previously unknown author of *Woman's Mission* (1839), key text of Victorian 'separate spheres' ideologies, was Sarah Lewis (1807-1878), who conducted a high class boarding school for girls in Putney, apparently from the later 1830s to the 1860s.

Pleased to announce @univeng.bsky.social small funding scheme now open to members. UE will fund up to 20 projects up to £250 each to support research/pedagogy/continuing professional development activities in Lit, Lang, Creative Writing. See details here: universityenglish.ac.uk/englishcreat...

I was there again in the summer. It's a real throwback, and with some fantastic archival collections as well.

I might have solved the mystery of Sarah Lewis, author of *Woman's Mission*, key text of Victorian separate spheres ideology. The ODNB states nothing is known about her, but I have evidence to suggest she was Sarah Lewis (1807-1878), headmistress of a girls' boarding school in Putney in the 1840/50s

RHS Funding opportunity: Postgraduate and Early Career Research Support Grants. Grants of up to £1000 for graduate and early career historians to undertake research projects bit.ly/4nWLNlI Closing date for the next round: 5 December 2025

happy 90th birthday @davidharvey.org! been learning from you for as long as I can remember. grateful for these commemorative essays! www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/h...

Stellar new issue of Oxford Art Journal in honour of @carscott.bsky.social feat. essays by Alex Potts, Thomas Hughes, Steve Edwards, Katie Scott, Clare Pettitt, Jeremy Melius, Susan Siegfried, Keren Rosa Hammerschlag, T.J.Clark…and of course Caroline herself! academic.oup.com/oaj/issue/48/1

Good morning! Did you know that our latest issue 67.2 can now be accessed through Project MUSE online? Feel free to check it out and let us know which article you enjoyed the most in the comments below. ⬇️ muse.jhu.edu/issue/55623

Well I guess that's really it then. BAVS AGM over, and the president's baton has been handed on to me. I'm honoured and humbled and really looking forward to building on the past 25 years of development. Watch this space for @bavs-uk.bsky.social related news and content.