Lauded by LGBTQ+ celebrities from activist Peter Tatchell to author Patrick Gale, the book includes a diverse range of perspectives and topics from a historian’s perspective on the scarcity of recorded LGBTQ+ history to a summary of local newspaper representation of LGBTQ+ issues over the past 120 years, a celebration of the Island’s leading LGBTQ+ heroes and heroines over the past century, as well as critical discussions of the development and impact of the infamous Section 28 and of suicide amongst LGBTQ+ people, pairing factual historical and journalistic research with reflections on personal experience and verbatim oral history extracts from the residents of the Isle of Wight.

One of our research students has begun republishing religious history books, including local history works on the work of a priest in the late Victorian Portsmouth slums. Click here to visit their website and see the growing collection of books …

Research student republishes local history books Read more »

In November 2018, I blogged about Portsmouth Municipal College and its students during the First World War. To tie in with the D-Day 75 commemorations, this piece looks at the college in 1944 and the continuing impact of events earlier …

Portsmouth Municipal College survives the Blitz! Read more »

Portsmouth’s now-demolished Tricorn Centre, once voted Britain’s ugliest building, has been honoured in an online tribute to Britain’s lost 20th century architecture. From The Tricorn Centre in Portsmouth to Birmingham Central Library, a project has been launched that illustrates ten …

Sketching the past: commemorating 20th century architecture Read more »