Category: Heritage and Culture
The Staffordshire Hoard
The Staffordshire Hoard, the largest collection of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver ever discovered, was found in a field by a metal detectorist in 2009.
Acquisition through the Treasure process by Birmingham City Council and Stoke-on-Trent City Council began a 10-year journey to conserve and study this remarkable assemblage.
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The National Health Service
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Chichester University Cuts History Degrees
“A nation which forgets its past and destroys its heritage is a nation without a future”, David Martin, North Staffordshire Heritage.
The Society for the Study of Labour History joins the Social History Society and many other organisations and individuals in regretting the announcement by the University of Chichester to suspend recruitment to two important history programmes, the unique MRes in the History of Africa and the African Diaspora and the BA Modern History.
In axing these programmes, the University of Chichester has placed two highly respected historians and engaged higher education teachers at risk of redundancy: Professor Hakim Adi and Dr Dion Georgiou. Both Professor Adi and Dr Georgiou deliver globally oriented teaching, drawing their own diasporic backgrounds to do so.
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The National Health Service
In his new book, Our NHS: A History of Britain’s Best-Loved Institution, Dr Andrew Seaton tries to answer two questions.
First, why did the National Health Service (NHS) assume such a degree of popular acclaim that it could eventually top opinion polls as the thing that makes people ‘most proud to be British’? Second, why did the NHS survive the 1980s to take on this significance, when so many other parts of the universal welfare state or public industries did not?
Many people disagree with Seaton and say the NHS is a “sacred cow that has been milked dry” by successive governments and needs radical surgery to survive and provide a health service we can take pride in.
North Staffordshire Heritage would like to know what you think. The NHS that exists today is the product of another era. If you believe the NHS should be reformed and brought into the 21st century, tell us how it should be changed to meet the needs of modern Britain.
Email us at northstaffordshireheritage@outlook.com
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Can You Help Michael?
Researcher Michael Samaras is seeking information about an organisation called the International Freedom League, which was active in the UK in the early 1930s. It was closely associated with an Australian radical Edward Alexander ‘Ted’ Dickinson (sometimes, in error, Dickenson).
Dickinson was born in Grimsby and grew up a Wobbly in Australia, where he was jailed for riot and sedition. Returning to the UK in late 1929, he formed the International Freedom League. He spoke in Glasgow, and regularly in London at Hyde Park and Finsbury Park. In 1931 he organised a welcome procession for Gandhi. In 1935 he volunteered to stand-in for Clement Attlee when the MP was challenged to a duel by an Italian fascist.
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The History of Women’s Football in England
In 1895, the first known women’s association football team, the British Ladies Football Club, was formed in London. Nettie Honeyball was the team’s captain, and Lady Florence Dixie (a Scottish aristocrat, writer and feminist) was the club’s patron.
Our photograph shows a ladies’ football team in the 1950s.
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Help Tracing Your Family History
Tracing your family history can be difficult and, at times, frustrating.
Staffordshire County Council and Stoke-on-Trent’s libraries and archives may be able to help.
For details of the help they can give you, visit https://www.staffordshire.gov.uk/Heritage-and-archives/familyhistoryresources/Tracing-your-family-history.aspx
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Celebrating the Windrush Generation
A commemorative cultural event at the National Memorial Arboretum will explore the contributions and legacy of migrants from the Caribbean.
Taking place on the 6th of August, Carnival Windrush will feature costumed dancers and music.
The event celebrates the legacy of the HMT Empire Windrush, which arrived on UK shores 75 years ago, and the significant role the Windrush Generation played in rebuilding the country after the Second World War.
Created in collaboration with female a cappella quintet Black Voices, the day-long free carnival will also feature poetry, steelpan workshops and performances by acts including the Notebenders and the Reggaelators.
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William Salt Library Shelving Restoration
Recently representatives from the Friends of the William Salt Library presented a cheque for £15,764 to fund restoration work on original library shelving in the William Salt Library Trustees Room. The shelving was installed in 1918 when 19 Eastgate Street became the new home for the William Salt Library, after the collection outgrew its first home in Market Square. The building has a long and fascinating history which is being uncovered and reinterpreted as part of the Staffordshire History Centre project.
Caption: Pictured are Richard Hinton, Margaret George and David Jacques from the Friends of the William Salt Library presenting the cheque to Mithra Tonking (Chair of the William Salt Library) & Joanna Terry (Head of Staffordshire Archives & Heritage).
During his lifetime, William Salt, a London banker, collected books, documents, pamphlets, manuscripts, drawings, watercolours and transcripts of Staffordshire where his family originated. After he died in 1863 his widow…
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