special-collections-news

Wellington Congress 2025 Call for Papers

Mon, 18 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0100

The University of Southampton will be holding its Eighth Wellington Congress on Friday 4th and Saturday 5th April 2025.

New archive catalogue launched

Mon, 11 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0100

Special Collections guest stars on the Universi-Tea podcast

Tue, 18 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0100

Find out what Special Collections have been up to during lockdown and what treasures we hold in this Universi-Tea podcast, hosted by Alumna, Jo Fisher.

Special Collections releases The Written Word and The Printed Word activities as part of #SOTSEF goes digital

Wed, 27 May 2020 00:00:00 +0100

Looking to try a new skill? Then why not have a go at our The Written Word and The Printed Word activities, as part of #SOTSEF goes digital.

Special Collections launches new Basque child refugees "Telling their stories" resource

Mon, 04 May 2020 00:00:00 +0100

Special Collections is pleased to present its new Basque child refugees "Telling their stories" web page. This features documents drawing on oral histories, manuscript memoirs, other testimonies and writings to develop a series telling the stories of the individuals in their own voices.

Special Collections launches its first Flickr online exhibition

Fri, 01 May 2020 00:00:00 +0100

Special Collections is pleased to present its first Flickr online exhibition, which is based on the University's sports teams through time.

Special Collections joins YouTube

Tue, 21 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0100

Special Collections is delighted to announce the launch of its YouTube channel People, Papers and Pasts with a series of films on items within the Archives and Manuscripts and Printed Special Collections.

Update regarding the ongoing coronavirus outbreak

Fri, 20 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

As part of the University's response to coronavirus, all libraries will be closing from Friday 20 March and staff will be working off-site.

Special Collections writes for Archives Hub February 2020 Feature

Wed, 19 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Every month Archives Hub provides record repositories from around the UK the opportunity to talk about one of their collections as part of their Feature blog posts.

Special Collections joins Twitter

Tue, 18 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The Special Collections Division has set up its very own Twitter page. Here you will find our latest announcements and information on all our current and upcoming events and activities. We are also using Twitter to provide a glimpse into our collections using themed tweets such as “Document of the Month” and other social media campaigns, such as our “Highfield Campus 100 tweets”!

Special Collections hosts 2019 Natalia Benjamin Essay Prize award ceremony

Tue, 18 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

In an event hosted at the Hartley Library on 27 January 2020, a special prize was awarded for the best undergraduate essay on any topic connected to the history of Basque refugee children.

Special Collections exhibition We Protest!

Fri, 07 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Plots, protests and pressure groups feature in the Special Collections Gallery exhibition - from the Cato Street Conspiracy of 1820 to the work of the Women's Campaign for Soviet Jewry or student protests in the latter part of the 20th century. In the Level 4 Gallery the Trinity Art Group presents an intervention on the theme of protest. Trinity is a Winchester-based charity offering solutions, hope, choice and control to people experiencing the effects of homelessness or vulnerability.

Special Collections Christmas Closure

Mon, 16 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The Archives and Manuscripts and Rare Books Reading Room will be shut for the Christmas vacation from Monday 23 December 2019 until Friday 3 January 2020 inclusive.

Special Collections Christmas closure

Thu, 22 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

The Archives and Manuscripts and Rare Books Reading Room will be shut for the Christmas vacation from Friday 23 December 2016 until Monday 2 January 2017 inclusive.

Limited access for summer 2016

Mon, 11 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0100

Due to the on-going building project taking place in the Hartley Library, there will be limited access to the Archives and Manuscripts and Rare Books reading room during the following periods:

Restricted service notice for summer 2016

Fri, 08 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0100

From June until December 2016, there will be a building project taking place in the Hartley Library, which will impact on the Special Collections.

Special Collections joins Facebook

Thu, 07 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0100

The Special Collections Division has recently set up its very own Facebook page.

Special Collections Roadshow!

The Special Collections team at the University of Southampton will be hosting a Roadshow in the level 2 foyer of Hartley Library.

New students and others in our University community are very welcome to come and meet us to find out about our archive collections, which cover a broad range of subject areas including: nineteenth-century and twentieth-century political papers; archaeological collections; archives of the Jewish community in Britain; papers on refugees and migration; and many STEM collections too! You will also learn about our rare books and named Printed Collections, such as the Cope Collection or Parkes Library, which include books from the fifteenth century.

To see what other treasures we hold, check out our browse collections page: https://archives.soton.ac.uk/collections

No booking is required for these Roadshow events.

These are the dates that we will be in the Hartley Library foyer:

Monday 23rd September: 2pm – 2:30pm

Tuesday 24th September: 1:30pm – 2pm

Thursday 26th September: 11am – 11:30am

Monday 30th September: 1pm – 1:30pm

Wednesday 2nd October: 11:30am – 12pm

Thursday 3rd October: 11am – 11:30am

If you would like to contact us, email archives@soton.ac.uk.

Hope to see you soon!

Wellington Congress 2025 - Keynote speakers announced!

The University of Southampton will be hosting its Eighth Wellington Congress on Friday 4th and Saturday 5th April 2025.

Papers will focus on a range of topics covering Wellington’s military career as well as political, social and literary topics. Keynote speakers will be Professors Ed Coss and Beatrice De Graaf.

Further details will be published soon.

For any queries, please email archives@soton.ac.uk

Wellington Congress 2025

The programme features keynote addresses by Professor Beatrice de Graaf and Dr. Ed Coss, along with a wide range of papers exploring the career of the first Duke of Wellington. Discussions will also delve into the broader historical context of Britain, Ireland, the Empire, and Continental Europe during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There will be a congress dinner on Friday 4 April. A programme for this event is below. Register here to join us for this event. Registration closes on Monday 17 March.

Wellington Congress 2025

Draft Programme

Friday 4 April 2025

09:30-10:00

Registration at Avenue Campus main entrance, including coffee

10:00

Welcome and introduction

1. Plenary session

10:05-11:05 [LT: B]

Professor Beatrice de Graaf

Chair:

Parallel sessions

2A. Session

11:15-12.30

Luke Reynolds

The Iron Duke Behind the Velvet Curtain: Theatrical Representations of the First Duke of Wellington

Ugo Bruschi

‘A mob armed with bludgeons’ and All That: Popular Politics and Wellington’s 1834 Interim Government

Chair:

2B. Session

11:15-12:30

Eamonn O’Keeffe

No Common Man: Searching for Shadrack Byfield, a Veteran of the War of 1812

Paul Thompson

'Wellington's "Drunken Dog": Sir Nicholas Trant (1769–1839)'

Chair:

Lunch

12.30-13:30

Parallel sessions

3A. Session

13:30-14:45

John McAleer

‘A sad copy of a dear epistle’: Life, death and letter-writing in the world of the East India Company

Severine Angers

Cured to Enthusiastic Expectations: Co-Constructing Felicia Hemans’ Experience of the Napoleonic Wars between Home and the Battlefield

Chair:

3B. Session

13:30-14:45

Paul Chamberlain

Villeneuve: The Inconvenient Admiral

Kevin Linch

‘Wellington’s Men?’: insights from the Georgian Army Officers database

Chair:

Tea

14:45-15:15

4. Panel

15:15-17:00

Philip Ball, Rachel Blackman-Rogers, Rory Butcher

Interbranch Relationships within the British Military in the French Revolutionary Wars

Chair: Jacqueline Reiter

5. Film

17:15-18:15

Roy York, Phil Watts, Denis Kenyon

The Battle of Waterloo (1913)

Courtesy of Irthlingborough Historical Society Archives

19:00

Conference dinner

Saturday 5 April 2025

09:00-09:30

Registration at Avenue Campus main entrance, including coffee

09:30

Welcome and introduction

6. Plenary session

09:35-10:35 [LT: B]

Dr Ed Coss

Chair:

Parallel sessions

7A. Session

10:45-12:30

Zack White

Sepoys and the Scum of the Earth: Crime, punishment, and Arthur Wellesley in India 1796-1805

Robin Thomas

‘Zeal and gallantry were conspicuous on all occasions, but could not make up for all deficiencies’: an assessment of the Ordnance Department in the Flanders campaign, 1793-1795.

Martin Howard

Wellington and the British Army's Medical Department in the Peninsular War: A Study of Dispatches

Chair:

7B. Session

10:45-12:30

William Fletcher

Ideas, Networks and Operational Effect: The Influence of the Scottish Enlightenment on the British Army at the turn of the Nineteenth Century

Kyle van Beurden

The Duke of York’s ‘Reform’ of Light Infantry in the 1790s

Andrew Bamford

A Post-Waterloo ‘Lessons-Learned’ Exercise

Chair:

Lunch

12:30-13:30

Parallel sessions

8A. Session

13:30-15:15

Garry Wills

‘Highly Meritorious’ - Another Day in the Retreat from Burgos, 23 October 1812

Alistair Nichols and Philippe Calmettes

The Battle of Orthez, 27 February 1814 – an archaeological discovery

John Peaty

Wellington and Napoleon's Last Victory

Chair:

8B. Session

13:30-15:15

Gareth Glover

Peninsular Preparation? The British deployment in Portugal 1796-1802

Stephen Petty

Crossing the Douro, 12 May 1809: ‘His conduct during this short campaign gives him the first rank among British Generals of the day.’

Anthony Gray

Wellington’s strategy for the defence of Lisbon: the wider impacts of the third French invasion of Portugal 1810-1811

Chair:

Tea

15:15-15:45

9A. Session

15:45-17:00

Magnus Guild

Nationality , Nationalism and Alienation during and after the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars

Professor Agustín Coletes-Blanco

An English poet’s afterlife in the Spanish Carlist War

Professor Alicia Laspra-Rodríguez

Between Fernando and Carlos: The Spanish Liberal Revolution in the British Press

Chair:

9B. Session

15:45-17:00

Silvia Gregorio-Sainz

‘Not Free, but Licentious’: Wellington’s clash with the Spanish Press during the Peninsular War(s)

Lilly Iwona

The media image of Prince Albert based on selected British press titles and journalism (1840-1861)

Chair

17:10

[LT: B]

Farewells and close of conference

Wellington Congress 2025- booking is now open!

We are pleased to announce that you can now book your space for the Wellington Congress 2025!