Founder(s) | A. F. Pollard |
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Established | 1921 |
Director | Claire Langhamer |
Members | 5,500 worldwide |
Owner | School of Advanced Study, University of London |
Location | Senate House, Malet Street , , |
Coordinates | 51°31′16″N0°7′43″W / 51.52111°N 0.12861°W |
Website | www |
The Institute of Historical Research (IHR) is a British educational organisation providing resources and training for historical researchers. It is part of the School of Advanced Study in the University of London and is located at Senate House. The institute was founded in 1921 by A. F. Pollard.
The IHR was founded in 1921 by British historian Albert Pollard with the help of Eliza Jeffries Davis. [1] [2] Appointed professor of Constitutional History at University College London in 1903, his inaugural address, a year later, argued for the need for a postgraduate school of historical research. [3] With a generous and anonymous donation of £20,000 from Sir John Cecil Power in 1920 [4] towards the founding of the institute, Pollard's dream was realised. The institute was formally opened by H. A. L. Fisher on 8 July 1921.
The IHR was directly administered by the Senate of the University of London, rather than being part of one of the federal colleges. It was the first organisation to be administered under such an arrangement, and as such provided the model for other institutes, many of which later joined the IHR in the University of London's School of Advanced Study.
The IHR's first premises were in "temporary" huts on Malet Street, on a site now occupied by Birkbeck College. [5] Despite the supposedly temporary nature of this accommodation, the IHR was not to move until 1947, when it took up residence in the north block of Senate House. The new location was built by architect Charles Holden, along with the rest of the university, at a projected cost of £3,000,000 and duration of 30 years for the whole project. [6] Still occupying this position, many rooms in the IHR overlook the grass lawn in between Senate House and SOAS, which is where Senate House's unbuilt fourth court would have been.
With the start of World War II in September 1939, the institute's work and construction of its permanent building were disrupted, with the Ministry of Information occupying Senate House, and closing the institute in May 1940. The IHR was struck by a bomb on the night of 22–23 September 1940. The impact resulted in "the destruction of six books and almost the entire collection of London maps, as well as of furniture". [7]
The IHR's role comprises the following:
To promote the study of history and an appreciation of the importance of the past among academics and the general public, in London, in Britain and internationally, and to provide institutional support and individual leadership for this broad historical community
To offer a wide range of services which promote and facilitate excellence in historical research, teaching and scholarship in the UK, by means of its library, seminars, conferences, fellowships, training and publications (both print and digital)
To further high quality research into particular aspects of the past by its research centres – the Centre for Metropolitan History and the Victoria County History of England
To provide a welcoming environment where historians at all stages in their careers and from all parts of the world can meet formally and informally to exchange ideas and information, and to bring themselves up to date with current developments in historical scholarship
In order to fulfil its role as defined above, the IHR maintains different academic institutions, such as a library, the seminar programme as well as several integrated bodies and programmes. It also publishes the results of historical research.
From its inception, the founders of the Institute of Historical Research envisaged a combination of scholarship and library. This tradition is continued in that many seminars still take place in the rooms of the library. The library itself collects sources for the History of Western Europe and areas affected by the European expansion. It now contains over 190,000 volumes. There are sizable holdings for the British Isles, as well as for Germany, Austria, France, the Low Countries, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Latin America, the US and colonial history, ecclesiastical, Byzantine and crusader history as well as small holdings for Eastern Europe, Switzerland and Scandinavia. The library is particularly good for sources on local history both of the British Isles and Europe. It contains the largest collection of Low Countries material outside of the region (due to gifts from the Netherlands and research interests of scholars working there), the most complete collection of French cartularies outside France as well as collections of poll books for the United Kingdom and a complete run of the Victoria County History books.
The collections have been supplemented by donations and bequests from many different scholars, such as the Wright collection. In its early years the IHR library was built up by actively seeking donations, and much of the collection was formed from bequests and gifts by individuals and organisations. By 1926, three-quarters of the collection had been acquired through private benefactions and presentations by governments from Europe and other parts of the World. [22] Among the IHR's extensive collection of books on European history are a set of volumes of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica and other works donated to the University of London by the Nazi government of Germany in 1937. [23] The accessions records highlight the collaborative nature of library collection development; many donations were shared between the IHR and other libraries to build on existing collection strengths or through an agreed division of collection policy. As an example, the sizeable portion of the IHR's colonial and early national holdings in the United States collection was donated to the library by the widow of George Louis Beer between 1921 and 1925. [24]
The IHR supports and promotes a wide variety of seminars. They are accessible to all interested in the topic under discussion. Seminar topics range from the Early Middle Ages to Modern Britain, from the history of gardening to the philosophy of history. [25]
The IHR is also involved with organising and running a number of conferences and workshops, including its annual conference on a historical theme.
The IHR co-manages British History Online , a digital library of key printed primary and secondary sources for the history of Britain and Ireland, with a primary focus on the period between 1300 and 1800. [26]
Discipline | History |
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Language | English |
Edited by | Lawrence Goldman |
Publication details | |
Former name(s) | Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research |
Publisher | Institute of Historical Research (UK) |
Frequency | Quarterly |
Standard abbreviations | |
ISO 4 | Hist. Res. |
Indexing | |
ISSN | 1468-2281 |
Links | |
The IHR publishes Historical Research, a scholarly historical journal. The journal first appeared in 1923 under the title Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research; and the present title was adopted in 1987 (beginning with volume 60, no. 141).
The IHR publishes the online journal Reviews in History. The journal was launched in 1996, and publishes reviews and reappraisals of significant work in all fields of historical interest. [27] [28]
The Layers of London project brings together digitised historic maps, photos and other information provided by key partners across London including: the British Library, London Metropolitan Archives, Historic England, The National Archives, MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology). These will be linked on a website which will allow visitors to create and interact with many different "layers" of London's history from the Romans to the present day. It runs on the Humap platform and contains over 12,500 records, most of which are sourced through user-generated content.[ citation needed ]
The institute hosts the Marc Fitch Lectures with funding provided by the Marc Fitch Fund. The lecture was held at the institute until 2012, when it started touring the counties with a planned three lectures a year. Previous lectures have been presented by Linda Colley, Roy Strong, Michael Wood, Simon Thurley and David Starkey. [29]
In IHR leads an inter-institutional initiative within the School of Advanced Study to explore and deliver open access research publications. This has culminated in the launch of the Humanities Digital Library, a catalogue of open access books published across the School, as well as an open access book series focusing upon early career authors and published in partnership with the Royal Historical Society.
Besides the core activities, two research centres are integrated into the institute. These are:
The IHR formerly housed a third research centre, the Centre for Contemporary British History. In August 2010, however, this transferred to King's College London, where it is now known as the Institute of Contemporary British History. [32]
Nicholas Andrew Martin Rodger FSA FRHistS FBA is a historian of the Royal Navy and senior research fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.
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Arthur Geoffrey Dickens was an English Historian, academic and author, notable for his contributions to history surrounding Tudor England and the Reformation.
Richard Sharpe,, Hon. was a British historian and academic, who was Professor of Diplomatic at the University of Oxford and a fellow of Wadham College, Oxford. His broad interests were the history of medieval England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. He had a special concern with first-hand work on the primary sources of medieval history, including the practices of palaeography, diplomatic and the editorial process, as well as the historical and legal contexts of medieval documents. He was the general editor of the Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, and editor of a forthcoming edition of the charters of King Henry I of England.
Maxine Louise Berg, is a British historian and academic. Since 1998, she has been a Professor of History at the University of Warwick. She has taught at Warwick since 1978, joining the Department of Economics, before transferring to History.
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Susan Elizabeth Brigden is a historian and academic specialising in the English Renaissance and Reformation. She was Reader in Early Modern History at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Lincoln College, before retiring at the end of 2016.
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Peter Spufford, was a British historian and academic, specialising in the economics of Medieval Europe. He was Professor Emeritus of European History at the University of Cambridge.
Gregory Duncan Woolf, is a British ancient historian, archaeologist, and academic. He specialises in the late Iron Age and the Roman Empire. Since July 2021, he has been Ronald J. Mellor Chair of Ancient History at University of California, Los Angeles. He previously taught at the University of Leicester and the University of Oxford, and was then Professor of Ancient History at the University of St Andrews from 1998 to 2014. From 2015 to 2021, he was the Director of the Institute of Classical Studies, and Professor of Classics at the University of London.
Julia Steuart Barrow, is an English historian and academic, who specialises in medieval and ecclesiastical history. Since 2012, she has been Professor in Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds and previously served (2012–16) as the Director of the University's Institute for Medieval Studies.
David Edward Luscombe was a British medievalist. He was professor emeritus of medieval history at the University of Sheffield. He was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 1986. He was also a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Society of Antiquaries of London. He was the joint editor of volume four of The New Cambridge Medieval History.
Anthony Applemore Mornington Bryer was a British historian of the Byzantine Empire who founded the journal Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies and the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies at the University of Birmingham.
Deborah Janet Howard, is a British art historian and academic. Her principal research interests are the art and architecture of Venice and the Veneto; the relationship between Italy and the Eastern Mediterranean, and music and architecture in the Renaissance. She is Professor Emerita of Architectural History in the Faculty of Architecture and History of Art, University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge.
Vincent Gillespie, FEA is Emeritus J. R. R. Tolkien Professor of English Literature and Language at the University of Oxford. He was editor of the Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies Series from 2002 until 2023, and was the Honorary Director of the Early English Text Society from 2013 until 2023, having previously served as its Executive Secretary from 2004 until 2013. His major research area is late medieval English literature. He has published over sixty articles and book chapters ranging from medieval book history, through Geoffrey Chaucer and William Langland, to the medieval mystics such as Richard Rolle and, most recently, Julian of Norwich. He has a special interest in the medieval English Carthusians, and in Syon Abbey, the only English house of the Birgittine order. In 2001, he published Syon Abbey, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues 9, an edition and analysis of the late-medieval library registrum of the Birgittine brethren of Syon Abbey. He is the author of Looking in Holy Books, and the forthcoming A Short History of Medieval English Mysticism. He is the co-editor, with Kantik Ghosh, of After Arundel: Religious Writing in Fifteenth-Century England, with Susan Powell of A Companion to the Early Printed Book in Britain, 1476-1558, with Samuel Fanous of The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Mysticism, and with Anne Hudson of Probable Truth: Editing Medieval Texts from Britain in the Twenty-First Century.
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Sean Joseph Connolly, is an Irish historian, initially specialising in the social history of Irish Catholicism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, but more recently on post-Reformation and early modern Ireland and modern Belfast. From 1996 to 2017, he was professor of Irish history at Queen's University Belfast, and has been emeritus professor there since 2017. After completing his undergraduate degree at University College, Dublin, and his doctorate at the University of Ulster, Connolly worked as an archivist at Public Record Office of Ireland from 1977 to 1980, before spending a year lecturing in history at St Patrick's College, Dublin; he returned to the University of Ulster in 1981 as a lecturer and became a reader there in 1990. Connolly was also Vice-President of the Royal Historical Society from 2014 to 2016, and was twice editor of the journal Irish Economic and Social History.
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John Frederick Matthews, is a British historian and academic. Since 1996, he has been a professor of Roman history at Yale University, where he was also the John M. Schiff Professor of Classics and History from 2001 to 2014.