University of Hertfordshire Press

17/01/2025

This exciting new account fills a crucial gap in scholarship on Wales' built heritage prior to the Edwardian conquest and establishes a nuanced understanding of important military sites in the context of native Welsh politics.

“Dr Craig Owen Jones’s book is… a major advance, and extremely welcome. Anyone interested in native Welsh castles would benefit from reading it. The book has many strengths. It goes a long way towards integrating historical, architectural, and archaeological knowledge and also employs a relati...

15/01/2025

"Christopher Thornton and his colleagues make two highly significant wider extrapolations from their research. They reveal that the degree of association that the ordinary soldiers had developed played some part in Essex being at the centre of the Peasants Revolt in 1381; and they also argue that the expertise that Essex mariners began to develop in their international travels at this time later produced the maritime prowess for which England became so formidable in the later Tudor period. These are the formative fruits of detailed and thoughtful historical research."
Trevor James, Historical Association

The wars of the fourteenth-century English kings with France and Scotland resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of men involved in warfare on land and sea. This book draws upon new research to identify and analyse these soldiers at all social levels in the specific context of the county of E...

14/01/2025

Lady Anne Bacon was not only a highly educated, skilled translator but also a member of the privy chambers of two queens, Mary I and Elizabeth I. Learn all about her extraordinary life, from her Essex upbringing to her proximity to the centre of political power during and after the succession crisis of 1553, in this engaging talk by Deborah Spring.

Date: 4 February
Venue: Essex Record Office

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ero-presents-lady-anne-bacon-a-woman-of-learning-at-the-tudor-court-tickets-1075559259699

An intelligent and astute woman who lived through the great political and religious transitions of five reigns

10/01/2025

"... would make a valuable contribution to the bookshelf of anyone interested in the history of urban landscapes, public space, popular rights, or resistance."
Hannah Awcock, Landscape History

“Saving the People’s Forest invites the reader to return to a London which was vastly different from the city it is today when the inhabitants of Bethnal Green kept rabbit hutches and pigeon lofts in their backyards and grew flowers wherever they could; a time when watercress harvesters still li...

07/01/2025

One of our authors, Fabian, doing fascinating work with some newly digitised source material.

The 5,000-page diaries are a "fabulous gift", but could take 20 years for a museum to analyse.

07/01/2025

"The strength of the book... is in the combination of papers on a diverse range of related topics. As historians with the vast range of expertise that Thirsk held are very rare for most readers it will provide thought-provoking links between their own field and ones they may not have considered before."
Ronan O'Donnell, Landscape History

“This attractive, well-produced volume came out of a conference to celebrate the life of Joan Thirsk (1922–2013). It features contributions by those who knew Professor Thirsk well, together with papers by newer students of some of the subjects she held most dear... The book... will be of great i...

07/01/2025

"The contributors are foremost experts in their field and have covered all matters Plumian - his legacies, his family, his character, his will, his trust, the library collection, the building in which it is housed, Kent connections and the continuing professorship at Cambridge. It is an outstanding collection and literally covers the good doctor's life from cradle to grave, as well as all the things that have come down to us today."
Stephen Nunn, Maldon and Burnham Standard

“This is a model biography which illuminates its subject by examining his life as a student, a cleric in testing times, an acquirer of property, a book lover and a writer of a complex will benefitting a wide range of charities. He was a modest, almost self-effacing, philanthropist, deeply concerne...

06/01/2025

We'll be at Essex Record Office on 4 February for a fascinating talk by Deborah Spring, author of "Lady Anne Bacon: A Woman of Learning at the Tudor Court". Discover how the fascinating subject of Deborah's brilliant biography, born into an Essex family, navigated the turbulent political and religious landscapes of the Tudor era. A brilliant translator and outspoken protestant reformer, she served in the Privy Chambers of two queens and ran the estate at Gorhambury alone for thirty years. Discover how her early life in Essex and lifelong connection to the county shaped her as a writer, reformer, family woman and canny court operator.

Book now and don’t miss the story of this fascinating, fiercely intelligent Tudor woman!

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ero-presents-lady-anne-bacon-a-woman-of-learning-at-the-tudor-court-tickets-1075559259699

An intelligent and astute woman who lived through the great political and religious transitions of five reigns

03/01/2025

"This book provides a tremendous resource, with data that can be used and quoted by historians interested in the countryside, and is likely to remain one of the keystones in understanding the English landscape for some considerable time." Jan Woudstra, Economic History Review

“This book has no equal in the historical understanding displayed in how it sets out the life and history of England’s trees. It deserves to be read by anyone with a serious interest in the topic, and ranked alongside the classics of the field.”

02/01/2025

"The use of contemporary newspapers, census returns, and personal memoirs keep the narrative engaging: the book should appeal to both academic and lay readers."
Guy Sjögren, Midland History

“Nejedly understands her study as a historically informed contribution to ending child labour in our times… by underlining the emotional consequences not so much of labour, but of neglect, forced migration, and alienation. Her plea is not blinded by philanthropic thinking but based on the detail...

27/12/2024

"Kate Thompson has trawled a range of sources such as record books, newspapers, minutes and scrapbooks to provide a fascinating picture of a type of educational service that receives nothing like the attention of other institutions. The overall impression is of a high-quality facility serving a non-metropolitan community with dedication and fervour. That it has survived 100 years to justify this publication is a testament to the vision, passion and resilience of a band of people who deserve not to be forgotten."
Tim Lomas, The Local Historian

“This book is a fascinating read for anyone interested in the history of lifelong learning, often just seen as a modern phenomenon. It shows the value of keeping archives and the minutiae which can be found in them. It also illustrates what can be achieved when individuals share their knowledge. F...

17/12/2024

Anne (née Cooke) Bacon was 19 when Henry VIII died.

As evangelical reformists prepared to extend the relatively benign reforms begun during Henry’s reign, Anne’s father, Sir Anthony Cooke, was appointed one of young Edward’s new King’s Visitors.

A reliable supporter of the new religious and political establishment, he would supervise the destruction of religious imagery and catholic observances in line with the Lutheran belief that faith alone would determine an individual’s ultimate fate.

There were turbulent times ahead, not least for Edward’s own half-sister Mary, whose catholic beliefs and practices – tolerated under Henry – set her on a collision course with the radical reformists.

Anne, having had her advanced education supported and guided by her father, was herself a passionate reformer, but would nevertheless eventually find herself serving in Mary’s Privy Chamber when Mary eventually took the throne.

For more, read Deborah Spring’s superb biography of Lady Anne Bacon.

https://www.herts.ac.uk/uhpress/books-content/lady-anne-bacon

“Despite her status and her unusually good education, Anne Bacon had to contend with complex political and religious perils, and indeed with her position as a woman in sixteenth-century England. Deborah Spring has achieved with flying colours a beautifully rounded portrait of this remarkable Tudo...

16/12/2024

"An exceptional book which will appeal to historians of the locality and the war."
Jane Tunesi, Hertfordshire People

“an excellent and illuminating panorama of St Albans from 1914 to 1918.” Richard Batten, International Journal of Regional and Local History

14/12/2024

"[A] very useful starting point for anyone wishing to delve into Ellis's writings."
Susanna Wade-Martins, Historia Agraria

“This is a grand book and [UH Press] is to be congratulated on putting it out and for not charging the usual academic arm and a leg.”

06/12/2024

"Well researched and richly illustrated, in a way which foregrounds the documentation of Repton's commissions, in texts, correspondence, estate accounts and sale catalogues, as well as a repertoire of visual sources, Repton's drawings and prints, also contemporary views and maps, and subsequent ones too, like Tithe maps, Ordnance Survey plans and photographs, which reveal the extent to which Repton's work was realised on the ground."
Stephen Daniels, Landscape History

“In short, the book is an object lesson in the presentation of local history, with its combination of considerable investigation and research by local experts and authors who are knowledgeable in garden history more widely. The introduction in particular sets Repton in a national context as well a...

05/12/2024

By the first decades of the twentieth century Moseley had become part of the metropolis of Birmingham. This engaging account of the process from village to fully integrated suburb will be of particular interest to urban historians.

“I enjoyed reading this book; Berry's extensive research pulled together a broad range of archive resources which she has used to benefit the narrative. I particularly enjoyed the layering of histories of middle-class men and women who lived in Moseley during the second half of the 19th century wi...

04/12/2024

"This book is a fitting way to commemorate the excellent work of David Dymond in many areas of local history and the inspiration that he has given to so many aspiring local historians over the years."
Hillary Walker, The Local Historian

“The book's principal value is in setting out the range of methods, sources and approaches currently adopted by leading local and regional historians, and making these accessible to a wide readership… There is a good chronological spread of topics, with notable strength at the medieval end… [T...

29/11/2024

This is the Sevenoaks 'Pest Cart'. The Pest House, or Fever Hospital, was located away from town to keep those suffering from small pox, typhus and cholera from infecting others. The 'Pest Cart' was the late nineteenth century version of an ambulance.

For more, visit https://www.herts.ac.uk/uhpress/books-content/sevenoaks-1790-1914