Projects with topic Social history
There are now 182 projects under the topic Social history.
Click on ID for more information on a project.
| ID | Description |
| 82 | Food & drink in N.Devon |
| 86 | Memories of holidays in Bognor, 1950s |
| 100 | Social history of Ware? |
| 165 | Nationwide survey of memories of school, using U3A members |
| 166 | Interviews with U3A members who grew up in London 1930-60 |
| 193 | Social history of Croydon airport, esp.1928-39 & impact on surrounding area |
| 291 | Stories of men from Sussex villages who fell in WW1 and families left behind |
| 302 | Health, housing, cinema, photography & suffragettes in Victorian times, N.Ireland |
| 306 | Causes and effects of WW1 battles, conditions and social history, by Northampton U3A World War 1 Group |
| 411 | To Have and to Hold - the history of weddings using dresses, invitations, orders of service, original bills, telegrams, boxes for wedding cake and original dress patterns. |
| 138 | Interviews about memories of Kirkby in 1940s, 50s and 60s, before Kirkby became a New Town. Photography and art groups researched old images of Kirkby and new paintings were produced. |
| 414 | Uncovering the History of the Kingston Hill Campus and the centenary of Gypsy Hill Teacher Training College |
| 418 | History of street names in Shoreham, Sussex - about 30 people took part and researched and wrote a short article on their allocated name. |
| 196 | Researching Visitor Book 1867-8 at Dulwich. This was a pilot project of one volume to assess whether scanning all 49 volumes would be practical or worthwhile. |
| 204 | The presence of black people in London 1750-1950. Research to look at contribution of black Londoners to the professions, the arts, sport, trade and in service. |
| 212 | Social history of objects at Imperial War Museum, using the resources of the museum to find the relevant stories |
| 233 | History of N.Islington child welfare from 1913 - Manor Gardens Centre began as a School for Mothers and its history covers the period before the start of the NHS. |
| 234 | History of N.Islington child welfare, 1945-2000History of N.Islington child welfare from 1913 - Manor Gardens Centre began as a School for Mothers and its history covers the period before the start of the NHS. |
| 235 | To study plants, artefacts, historical data & botanists and create garden trails at Museum of Garden History, Lambeth |
| 254 | Pilot project to collect oral histories at Royal Opera House - training given for interviewing |
| 417 | Research at Transport Museum in two formats - oral history through interviews about people's memories of travelling on or working for London Transport. Another group was based at the Museum researching objects for a planned Handling Collection |
| 427 | Memories of racing and racecourses recorded by Lewes U3A Oral History Group |
| 428 | Reminiscences of shopping in Lewes, recorded by U3A Oral History Group |
| 429 | Study of the history of postal services in Salisbury |
| 434 | A celebration of Sussex for the Millennium |
| 443 | Research into old buildings in Somerton by U3A Local History Group |
| 305 | Philanthropy of shoe manufacturers, interviews with descendants, Northampton, by U3A Buildings Group |
| 104 | Coming of the railways and their impact on Crawley by U3A History Group |
| 202 | Education of Foundlings, whether boys and girls were treated differently and if girls were educated to a level that would fit them for jobs other than domestic service |
| 216 | Study of Hampstead, local people & their trades at time of Keats and are any of them still operating, which families lived there, are any of their descendats still there, what houses were built in 1818? |
| 463 | Origins of rural nursing service in Gloucestershire, founded by Elizabeth Malleson |
| 18 | Online survey to show how memories of the Beatles shape personal identities |
| 473 | What Makes Lochaber Tick? A look behind the scenes at important organisations in the region, to understand how they operate, how they contribute to life in the area and how they are evolving into 21st century. |
| 479 | Kingswinford's Architecture Appreciation Group have researched their favourite buildings in Dudley town centre and also the work of famous architects, such as Gaudi and Pugin. |
| 292 | Oral history of old hospital, Minehead, Somerset |
| 487 | Background research on the role of WRENs at Greenwich for their Centenary in 2017. |
| 490 | Research into the Cold War and how it affected our lives; the public’s experience of the Cold War from 1945 – 1962 through oral history interviews with men and women about their daily lives, families, jobs, leisure time and awareness of the Cold War especially in the 1950s |
| 491 | The Disappeared Shops of Shetland, especially the Scalloway shops 1851-1901 |
| 492 | Tto research the Shetland whaling stations which were in operation from approximately 1904 to 1929. Our aim was to collate the information from the many sources held at the Archives, and online and produce a history of the stations |
| 496 | A pilot study looking at how both teachers’ experiences of ageing,and their relationships with their pupils, have changed from 1970 to the present |
| 498 | Oral history project to provide a means for Cambridge members to talk about their lives whilst being videoed, giving them a record which they could give to their descendants and to provide an in-depth body of knowledge about the current and future membership of the U3A, which could be used in research projects in the future |
| 563 | The Reminiscence group have produced a number of small booklets about Life and Work in Brightlingsea, with more to follow. They have interviewed many mostly older people about their life and work, which has produced an insight into the life of the town as it used to be. |
| 569 | A study old documents, based at the museum of the Royal Institution of S.Wales.This work is under the guidance of museum staff, and often involves newly acquired subjects when members of the public contact the museum, perhaps after the death of a relative. One of the ongoing projects concerns a firm of photographers set up in Morriston in the early years of the 20th century. |
| 335 | School Transport. This research project (which forms part of a wider study on school transport and choices in education) hopes to make a contribution to the development of understanding about how decisions made about schooling impact on one’s life course and how the physical journey from home to school affects families choices of schooling for their children, the school experience and future education and work decisions. To start this project, we would like to speak with people who consider themselves life-long learners and listen to their experiences of education. |
| 340 | Antibiotics Resistance Research - inqury into the historical impact of the introduction of antibiotics and what health care had been like before it. |
| 325 | House to Mouse; a history of shopping in Perth from Middle Ages to present |
| 579 | History of local shops and shopping in south west London |
| 580 | Research into housing for working women after WW1, using a recently discovered archive belonging to Women's Pioneer Housing. This project was the brain child of a prominent suffragist, Etheldred Browning. |
| 592 | Lives that led us to Braintree' is a spin-off from a family history group - the members have traced their own lives and set them in the context that has brought them together in 21st century whilst relating this to the social history and changing attitudes of the times. |
| 606 | Home for Good Project: exploring the history of social housing in Chesterfield |
| 286 | Oral history of Wellworthy's, Lymington - the main employer in the town from 1919 to 1989 - manufacturer of piston rings. Study was mainly oral history. |
| 616 | Women in 20th century - presented as a mix of oral and written accounts |
| 618 | A team of U3A members will transcribe the names of individuals from Registry of the Chartist Land Company and then develop personal history profiles for a number of them. |
| 619 | The life of Anna Sewll, author of Black Beauty, was also a committed abolitionist and a campaigner against poverty and the ill treatment of children |
| 620 | The Levellers in the Thames Valley 1646-48 |
| 621 | The story of Elizabeth Wilks who was one of the first female doctors and who refused to pay her income tax because she could not vote. Her husband was deemed responsible and imprisoned. |
| 622 | The history of Baptists in Reading, whose church there was established in the aftermath of the Civil War |
| 623 | The life of Sam Wood who went to work in the mines at the age of nine but went on to become a trade union leader and eventually an MP who introduced the unsuccessful Miners' Eight Hour Bill in 1893 |
| 624 | The Battersea Redevelopment Action Group was set up in the late 1970s to challenge the local authority's planning strategies and to campaign for the building of new homes for local people. |
| 625 | The 'Battle of Lewisham' in August 1977 when 500 members of the National Front and a large force of police were confronted by 4,000 counter-demonstrators, leading to violent clashes. |
| 626 | The life of the Rev.John Morton who farmed Holly Farm on the Bucklebury estate in Berkshire and defeated an 1885 Bill to enclose Bucklebury Common, one of the largest commons in southern England. |
| 627 | Greenham Common and the Bomb - an assessment of the extent to which women protesters were responsible for the eventual US withdrawal from the base. |
| 630 | Researching the staff who worked at Normansfield between 1868 and 1997 and creating a series life stories of people in different periods of time with photographs and documents. |
| 640 | Redditch U3A's photography group collaborated with Redditch History Society to chronicle the visual history of the town's evolution from agriculture to industry. |
| 645 | Florence Nightingale and Medical Statistics - this presentation looks at the position in the early 19th century as the background to Nightingale’s life and work, including medical knowledge and practice, statistics and their use and education. It considers her life and work against this background – family, friends, contacts, beliefs - leading to her well-known role in the Crimean War, and explores the way in which she used her fame politically. It shows that she was very much more than “the Lady with the Lamp” and evaluates the lasting effects of her life and work. |
| 646 | Shops, Slums and Sanitation - Watford 1849 and beyond. The 1848 Public Health Act was the first step to improved public health and to stemming outbreaks of cholera, which were to claim in excess of 52,000 lives in the 19th century. Many towns set up Local Boards of Health which assumed responsibility for drainage, water supplies, removal of nuisances, and setting down new paving. Watford is presented as a case study, and illustrations with archive photos and drawings of some of the slum dwellings allow you to 'savour' conditions. Quite radical and surprising changes came about in terms of local governance, and in how High Streets looked and operated, as well as huge improvements in health and welfare. |
| 652 | The Listening Bench on Southend Pier is intended for people to sit and at the press of a button learn about Southend and its people |
| 657 | Bexley U3A's Life Story group has researched the development of holiday experiences from the late 1930s, based on reminiscences, and linked them to worldwide changes in leisure, transport and politics. |
| 658 | Bexley U3A's Life Story group has researched school experiences back to the 1930s, based on reminiscences, including those of members who grew up in Germany and India |
| 133 | Voices of Hickling - Recording early 20th century oral history of village of Hickling, Norfolk through recollections of older residents |
| 148 | Reminiscence boxes - memory project in residential home in Lea Valley for dementia patients. The aim was to provide objects that could be handled to stimulate memory. Various themes eg Toys, Kitchen, Ladies' items, Gentlemen's items, Handicrafts etc |
| 400 | Interviews with people at day centre by Woking U3A Writing Group |
| 401 | Interviews with people at a day centre by Woking U3A Writing Group |
| 431 | Life histories collected by U3A Living Memories Group, to preserve experiences and ways of life which would otherwise disappear |
| 438 | Memories of Hull in 1930s, collected by U3A Local History Group |
| 442 | Recollections of Fife collected by U3A Oral History Group |
| 671 | A study by Salford U3A's local history group of the major changes in travel since early 17th century in East Lancashire |
| 675 | Warrington U3A family history group have transcribed a 90 page hand written diary of a working class man in 1886, chronicling his daily activities and giving monthly accounts of his personal income and expenditure and of his money lending activities. |
| 676 | Warrington U3A's Family History Transcription Group has transcribed two volumes of police records from the beginning of 20th century, one a Register of Warrants, and a second one of Robberies. These will both be compiled into publicly searchable electronic databases. |
| 677 | East Kilbride's family history group has researched the Hunter family, local residents amongst whom were the eminent physician, William, and his son John Hunter, the surgeon. |
| 688 | Henry Hetherington and the Paupers' Press - Henry had trained as a printer with Luke Hansard and by 1822 was able to set up his own printing and book-selling business. Throughout the 1820s he was already involved in cooperative and radical movements. In particular, he supported the early London Cooperative bodies based on the ideas of Robert Owen, including the London Mechanics’ Institute (now Birkbeck College, University of London). From 1830 to 1835 he published newspapers priced at one penny, first the Penny Papers for the People (a daily published from 1830 – 31) then the Poor Man’s Guardian (a weekly published from July 1831 to December 1835). Hetherington made clear his intention to defy the tax, giving the paper a heading saying “Published contrary to ‘law’ to try the power of ‘might’ against ‘right’ . . . . .. |
| 689 | Dig-In Doris' Saves an Acre - Since time immemorial, or since as early as 1189 at least, Bachelor’s Acre, a parcel of land in the centre Windsor, was used by the inhabitants of the town for the practice of archery and other pastimes. This usage was confirmed in 1651 when reference was made to ‘where Butts were usually set up’ (Butts are archery targets). Over the centuries, the local council (claiming ownership) sought to encroach upon the land. This was resisted by the townspeople on a number of occasions and in the 1740 the Society of Bachelors of Windsor (leading citizens) was set up to safeguard the amenities. In 1809 an Ox Roast took place to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of King George III, an obelisk commemorating the event was erected (and is still there). The Acre was used regularly for similar Revels and there was an annual October Fair. In 1847, the council attempted to dig a well in the Acre. Some two hundred people took part in the ‘Battle of Bachelors Acre’ in opposition to this and the council confirmed their rights and privileges in relation to the Acre. Despite these events and activities the council gradually took more and more control . . . . |
| 696 | Maggie Jones has proposed to research the life and campaigning of Annie Bessant prior to her well-known involvement in the Matchgirls strike. Drawing upon archival material held by the Bishopgate Institute, Maggie will examine Annie's earlier writings on subjects including morality, liberty and equality, punishment, landowners and farm workers, and English republicanism. |
| 698 | Tony Twigger is researching the Chartist Land Cooperative Society, devised by Feargus O’Connor, a leading Chartist. The aim was to resettle industrial workers on smallholdings. Though ultimately the scheme failed, its legacy can be seen in the ideas of William Morris and the smallholding movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. |
| 699 | Linda Hampson has proposed to research Jayaben Desai, a leader of the Grunwick strike which took place in the borough of Brent between 1976-78. The strike was a landmark event in that the majority of strikers were low paid,black and Asian women, being led by an Asian woman. |
| 700 | Verne Hardingham is looking at the women involved in the women's suffrage campaign in and around Rugby, Warwichshire. In particular, Verne is looking at how coordinated the local movement was and what contact it had with the national leadership of organisations like the NUWSS and WSPU. |
| 701 | Pat Krivine is proposing to explore the 1984/5 strike at the Betteshanger Colliery in Kent, specifically the role of the Women's Support Group. The group, among other activities, collected food to send to the strikers' families in Kent. |
| 703 | Patsy Clarke is researching the life of Gertrude Von Petzold, the Prussian born first women church minister in England (1904). Gertrude had travelled to England, 'a land of freedom', in 1897, studying medicine at Edinburgh and then for the Unitarian ministry at (Harris) Manchester College in Oxford. |
| 704 | Linda Walton is exploring the Women's Suffrage movement in South Buckinghamshire and in particular the differences between the NUWSS and the WSPU. This will be illustrated through the lives of two leading local campaigners, Dame Frances Dove and Emily Brandon. |
| 705 | John Croxford and fellow researchers in Richmond are exploring the life and work of Barbara Bodichon, a nineteenth century campaigner for women's rights, author of a Brief Summary of the Laws of England concerning Women and founder of the English Women's Journal. |
| 706 | Joanne Sanderson and Renate Muller are examining the life of Ada Salter (1866-1942), socialist, suffragist, union organiser and environmentalist. She worked and lived throughout her adult life with and for the poor of Bermondsey. She was the first women to be elected to Bermondsey Borough Council and the borough's first Labour woman Mayor. |
| 707 | Andrew Collins plans to research the history of riots in Birmingham from the 18th to 20th century, emphasising the variety of underlying causes for these disturbances. Andrew plans to use local archives and libraries to undertake this research, drawing in particular upon local newspaper reports. |
| 708 | Max Beran is exploring the history behind a note posted in his home village in 1795 threatening arson against local farmers and bakers. Max is comparing this incident with similar events elsewhere to identify the social, political, agricultural, and legal circumstances behind this threat, drawing upon newspapers, court and parliamentary proceedings, and vestry reports. |
| 709 | Carole Chapman is leading a team from Portsdown U3A that is exploring the Women's Suffrage Movement in the Portsmouth area. The group is looking at some key individuals and the context in which they were working. |
| 715 | Local heroes and events |
| 720 | Working with Downside Abbey Outreach Team, the project is concerned with researching and recording a collection of photographs taken by Monks of the Abbey, Masters and Pupils of Downside School. We are currently creating a database of the 300 or so photographic albums in the archive and we are also scanning all photos to produce digital images. All of this information will be used as material for a future book whose working title is a Pictorial History of Downside. |
| 160 | Transcribe the gravestone memorials at Stapleford cemetery. The first burials took place in the 1880's and many of the inscriptions were virtually illegible and as time goes by even more headstones will become broken or unreadable. |
| 728 | An account of Rosa May Billinghurst, a remarkable woman who would not be defined by her disability or let it hinder her support of the Suffragette’s cause. Billinghurst was born and raised in Lewisham and was paralysed from the waist down following a childhood illness. As a result, she had to use a wheelchair for the rest of her life. As a young adult her voluntary work at the Greenwich and Deptford Union Workhouse exposed her to the living conditions endured by the poor. This led to Billinghurst’s interest in politics. Inspired by Christabel Pankhurst, Billinghurst joined the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in October 1907, becoming secretary of the Greenwich branch in July 1910. |
| 729 | The 1688 Battle of Reading Julie McLaren (Wokingham U3A) plans to research the Battle of Reading, a skirmish between an advance guard of William of Orange's invading Dutch army and Irish forces stationed in Reading loyal to James II. This was one of the few violent clashes in England during the 'Glorious Revolution'. |
| 737 | Charles Kitching was an advocate for William Morris's Social Democratic Federation, campaigning for improved haousing for urban and agricultural workers, free compulsory education and an eight hour working dy. |
| 738 | Cottonopolis is a large research project based on Manchester, the world's first industrial city. |
| 739 | Northampton U3A's Leathercraft Activity Group became volunteers on the National Leather Collection's project to help sort and catalogue 800-plus boxes of leather related objects, including fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls and leather under garments. |
| 742 | Ecomic and social development of Manchester |
| 743 | Economic and social development of Manchester |
| 744 | The Slough Project is a one-man art exhibition at Slough Library, created by a member of Slough U3A and with input from study groups including local history, current affairs and walking. |
| 746 | Wyre Forest's local and social history group developed a project on the War Graves Commission. |
| 747 | Holmes Chapel's local history group has received an award from the Local Community Fund to create photo boards for a 'museum in the street' |
| 748 | Spirits of Sussex - Sussex U3A Network (SUN) are working on a special Shared Learning Project during 2018 exploring Sussex ‘s rich tapestry of legends, mixing history with myth. The term ‘spirits’ can be widely interpreted and could include spiritual beliefs, ghostly spectres and brandy smuggling. |
| 751 | As a long standing family history group who only rarely discover anything personal, we decided to research social history in a family history context. Topics have included workhouses, asylums, various regiments, the census, Irish records, evacuees, the co-op movement and memory boxes. |
| 678 | Locating the lost histories of the City of London in the late 17th century through the Restoration Hearth Tax and other historical sources. The Hearth Tax provides evidence of who lived in every property, its taxable wealth and location. Volunteers will be provided with core hearth tax data which will be used as a basis from which to explore the early modern history of the area and the lives of the local people. |
| 756 | A group in Beccles U3A researched the history of their public hall and wrote a book about it. |
| 757 | Members of Buckingham and District have worked with Stowe House on the history of the Temple family in the area. |
| 762 | Remembering 1968 - 2018 is very much a year of historical anniversaries, some of which we might come back to discuss as a group. One anniversary that is relevant to us all is that this year is the 50th Anniversary of the worldwide radical upheavals of 1968. |
| 767 | Pershore's Family History group has produced a booklet for beginners to the subject |
| 769 | Epping Sanitary Steam Laundry is at the end of Bower Vale which is a cul-de-sac of mainly old housing ending at the railway line. I started with an article in a 1996 commemorative edition of the former local paper, the West Essex Gazette, which gave a brief history of the laundry which opened in 1894. By 1906 it faced financial ruin and a number of well-known local families put together a rescue bid. |
| 770 | Maps - Hands On - one of the elements of an East of England SLP |
| 771 | Wood Green Potteries, Upshire. Waltham Abbey is in the Lea Valley, which has been associated with growing fruit, vegetables and flowers for the London market over many years. Wood Green Potteries belonged to friends of my husband so I have been lucky to have had access to the history of the Potteries and Upshire Hall, the house associated with them. I have found photographs of the workers and the premises which closed in 1964. |
| 773 | A Museum Object - When we first met at the museum I had no idea of a subject to follow not having been born and raised locally so I took the suggestion of researching a museum object. I settled on a picture promoting tobacco. I found a wealth of information on international companies. I produced a Power Point Presentation. |
| 783 | Discover the hidden history of Woodley in a shared learning project with Wokingham and Reading U3As. Woodley has grown from a few scaered coages and farms into a suburb of Reading, but has kept its sense of community. |
| 785 | Shapurji Saklatvala 1874-1936 Saklatvala was a fervent supporter of Indian independence, a strong advocate of the rights of Indian, British and international workers, and a charismatic public speaker. He was an anti-imperialist parliamentarian protesting in the heart of the British Empire. |
| 786 | The Suffragettes in South London and the Arsonist Campaign. In 1912, Emmeline Pankhurst’s eldest daughter, Christabel, planned to escalate the WSPU’s militant action by launching an arson campaign. According to Sylvia Pankhurst, “Women, most of them very young, toiled through the night across unfamiliar country carrying heavy cases of petrol and paraffin. Sometimes they failed, sometimes succeeded in setting fire to an untenanted building- all the better if it were the residence of a notability – or a church, or other place of historic interest.”[1] |
| 788 | Charlotte Despard: “A misfit, a rebel and a legend” While Charlotte Despard is well known for her work as a suffragist, her work with the poor is less recognised. Despard left her upper middle-class life and home in Esher, Surrey to move to one of the most deprived areas of London and improve the lives of the people that lived there. She helped make fundamental changes to regulations surrounding outdoor relief and improved the lives of those in workhouses. Her legacy of change was monumental. |
| 793 | Suffragettes or Suffragists? the campaign for women's franchise. Millicent Fawcett's National Union of Suffrage Societies (1897) advocated peaceful means of protest like leafletting and petitions, whereas the Pankhursts' Womens' Social and Political Union (1903), favoured violent tactics like hunger strikes and damage to property. Historians are divided as to which methods led to success in 1918. |
| 794 | The Life and Influences of Mary Hays 1759-1843: although she is unknown to many today, she was an important early feminist, whose ideas were well ahead of her time. She lived in an era when women had few legal and social rights and their options were restricted by social convention. |
| 796 | In Their Own Write - for volunteers in the Nottinghamshire area who might be interested in transcribing and researching letters from 19th century paupers. The letters provide an intimate and detailed account of how the recipients of 19th century welfare saw and how they judged the welfare provided. |
| 807 | Home for Good Project. Historical research, photographing of social housing in the area and transcription of oral recordings |
| 156 | Transcribe and publish Grantham Hall Book 1649-62 |
| 605 | Heckington Mill Renovation Project near Sleaford: From Field to Fork |
| 809 | John Archer is often held up as an icon of black British history. He was the first black man to become mayor of a London borough, and only the second in the whole country. In April 2013, he was selected by the Royal Mail as one of the subjects for a series of stamps celebrating “Great Britons”. |
| 820 | The project was conceived for members of Sheffield U3A born between 1945 and 1955 in order to gather information about being a young person during the sixties. Although it may feel like yesterday, these members are now aged between 63 and 73 and a whole module within modern history courses is devoted to this period! Sharing and recording our Sixties memories now will be both enjoyable for members and useful for students. It will be important to place this decade within the context of both a post-war childhood and the changes which occurred in Seventies Britain. |
| 837 | How extensive were Suffragette militant acts and what forms did they take? Join us as we delve into the online newspaper archives to discover how far some Suffragettes were willing to take the motto 'deeds not words'. |
| 838 | What was the reaction to the Peterloo Massacre in August 1819? Join us as we examine copies of testimonies held at The National Archives and review contemporary newspaper accounts of this seminal event in our democratic heritage. |
| 839 | What was the response to the first mass Chartist petition presented to Parliament in 1839? Join us as we delve into contemporary newspaper archives and biographies of key figures to find out more. |
| 840 | The Great Unrest - The period 1910-1914 saw a wave of industrial action across Britain. In this Research Retreat we will look at one month in particular to map, using contemporary newspaper accounts, the scale of the challenge facing the government. |
| 841 | Peers vs the People - What was the press coverage like of the constitutional crisis that followed the House of Lords' attempts to frustrate Lloyd George's 1909 budget, dubbed 'the People's Budget'? Join us as we explore the newspaper archives. |
| 843 | Dame Margery Corbett Ashby was a dedicated supporter of women’s rights. She spent much of her long life fighting for women’s right to equal suffrage and citizenship around the world. |
| 844 | For the 3 million people living in slums in post-war Britain, the refrain that “they had never had it so good” was an insult. Families were living in single rooms with no bathroom, sharing toilets and cooking facilities with multiple other residents. The housing was often substandard, with no foundations and crawling with vermin. Paying extortionate rents, they were exploited by rogue landlords and lived with the daily fear of eviction. One man, the Reverend Bruce Kenrick, was moved by their plight, inspired a group of like-minded people to take action against the appalling housing conditions in post-war Notting Hill. He established the Notting Hill Housing Trust (NHHT) and co-founded the homeless charity, Shelter. |
| 845 | Eric Lubbock, 4th Baron Avebury, came from a long line of bankers and philanthropists. Although he considered the hereditary peerage to be against his political and personal principles, he served in the House of Lords from 1971 until his death in 2016. He was a champion of human rights both at home and abroad and his Buddhist and humanist beliefs were reflected in the causes he supported. His passion for reform and worthy causes may have been influenced by his ancestor, Sir John Lubbock (1834 – 1913), who had introduced bank holidays and a reduction in working hours in order to provide a healthier lifestyle for the working classes. |
| 846 | Pat Wilson was a stalwart campaigner for people’s rights to use our network of public footpaths and rights of way. She was for many years the Ramblers’ Association representative in North-West Kent. As Local Correspondent, and later Vice President, of the Open Spaces Society (the oldest conservation society in the country), she also campaigned for the preservation of public open spaces. She founded local walking groups which merged to become the Meopham and District Footpaths Group; she later became their President for life. |
| 847 | Riot and Rebellion in Mid-Nineteenth Century Devon - The records show numerous occasions when riot and rebellion occurred in Devon. The reasons for disorder were many and included food shortages, price rises, and opposing religious views. |
| 848 | Torquay is regarded as a sleepy and affluent place. Yet, despite its ‘sleepy’ reputation, the Riot Act was read twice in the nineteenth century. The town was one of great inequality. While large villas were built for wealthy families, there was a shortage of homes for the working people. In one slum, two thousand men, women and children lived in 6 lodging houses. In Torre and Ellacombe, in the town centre, the population rose up, protested, and rioted in pursuit of reform. |
| 855 | A 'Snapshot' of The High Street Watton 2015-17. The start of a social/business survey of the High Street in Watton focusing on the period from 1900 to the present day. |
| 858 | Working together on a project to capture memories and create an audio archive. Buxton’s ‘Present from the Past’ project will capture sound-bites and snap-shots of the town and bring the rich history of Buxton and surrounding area to life. |
| 859 | WOMEN'S COMMUNITY ACTIVISM IN PORTSMOUTH SINCE 1960: THE HIDDEN HERITAGE OF A NAVAL TOWN |
| 861 | How a village grew from a few farms and hamlets to its thriving current state is described in a new book from Chorleywood U3A |
| 862 | Holmes Chapel and District's local history group has looked at the impact of WW1 on agriculture, community involvement in volunteer activities such as nursing, and the arrival of Belgian refugees. |
| 869 | Thrapston & District U3A in North Northamptonshire partnered with Lyveden National Trust for a project aimed at providing clear, detailed reference files that the National Trust could consider when creating future information boards, leaflets or guidebooks. The team made up of three U3A members, three National Trust volunteers and two who are members of both, started last year, by researching Meriel, Lady Tresham who resided at Lyveden Manor. The team researched many aspects of her life and where possible, either attached Primary Sources to the research (if they were available), or labelled the research as being word of mouth hearsay. |
| 897 | A survey in preparation for launch of the East End Women's Museum. The museum will have a permanent space in Barking in less than two years and we are trying to collect people's ideas and input as to what they'd like to see represented in the museum, what sort of facilities it should have etc. |
| 911 | Can you read Pitman Shorthand? The GNM Archive, part of the Guardian Foundation charity is asking for help from U3A members who can read Pitman shorthand. The Archive collects, preserves and makes accessible records of the Guardian and Observer newspapers. It has acquired the unique collection of Clyde Sanger, the Guardian’s first Africa correspondent, reporting for the newspaper between 1960 and 1965. Clyde’s papers include around 130 notebooks mostly covering his work in Central, Southern and Eastern Africa. Many are partially written in Pitman shorthand, which the archivists (and most researchers) can't read! U3A members have so much experience and expertise that the archivists hoped to find anyone who might be willing to transcribe the shorthand text. |
| 915 | Lynn Dorf discusses the interesting history of the building that Harrow U3A now uses for some of its classes. The site housed the Royal Commercial Travellers’ School in Pinner, Middlesex. This impressive building has quite a history. |
| 939 | Wearside U3A worked with their Architecture group and drew up a questionnaire on housing which was filled in by 75 out of 78 U3A members. The replies gave valuable information on the histories of their house occupation and their future requirements as well as attitudes to moving and size of home, etc. Enquiries of this kind should be of great value to the national debate. |
| 945 | Architecture, art, social history, science and technology, but where does modern design fit? Three years ago a few members grouped together to look at a range of ideas beginning with the Festival of Britain 1951. Clearly the Festival did not spring into life from nowhere; it was post war and a younger generation (our generation) was looking for fresh ideas. In our initial discussions it soon became clear that the Festival was only a feature of changes already tried in the earlier part of the century. We looked at the Bauhaus and the strange influence of the Larssons in Sweden and realised that design goes back, at least, to the 1890s and is an inter-related subject with other disciplines. As the group enlarged we redefined our aims to include changing fashions, urban design in the modern city, industrial design and packaging, communications technology and modern art. This enabled each member to find a place of special interest and it placed an emphasis on their contribution to the programme rather than relying on guest speakers. |
| 951 | Dr Mike Nevell, head of Salford University’s Centre for Applied Archaeology (CAA) suggested that a mills survey would fill in an important gap in their field record. This led to the Salford Mills Survey, a project undertaken by ten members of Salford U3A. The proposal chimed with existing interests in Salford U3A’s Local History Group, and their leader Mark Child coordinated their local research and fieldwork. The survey covered a total of twenty mills in the Salford area. The group also looked into the two families largely involved in the management of the factories, Ermen and Engels. |
| 952 | We are currently living through an unprecedented period, due to the coronavirus and everyone’s daily lives are being affected. The situation is impacting on people in lots of different ways and you will all have your own experiences, thoughts and reflections on what this time is like for you and how it is affecting you, both on a practical and on a psychological level. We would really like to capture all of this as part of a UK wide living history project. |
| 953 | Evacuees Project - first hand accounts from evacuees and those who got to know them. |
| 954 | We are not sure where this project is going but the underlying thought is that if we don’t record our memories they will one day be lost forever .Our plan is to capture as many memories as we can and then set about categorising what we have collected. It seems that photographs are a good way of reviving memories so if can upload one with your comments we will and try and add it to the post . Most importantly however we value your recollections so please add a comment. |
| 956 | NHS at 70: The story of Our Lives an oral history project |
| 960 | Some Outdoor Poor Relief records for Warrington from the late 18th Century have been digitised by the Transcription Group attached to Warrington u3a Family History Group. |
| 964 | Transcription of the Knight Family Archives |
| 965 | When the Pioneer Sailing Trust completed the renovation of the 1864 deep sea oyster smack, the 'Pioneer', they asked Brightlingsea U3A to research the kind of clothing that would have been worn by the fishermen in the harsh winter conditions of the North Sea |
| 966 | Research into the men in the village of Gilwern who fought in WW1 |
| 987 | Whickham U3A's history group wanted a new direction. The aim was to collect information through personal interviews, and by visits to archives and libraries to research books, journals and maps to show how much life styles have changed in the the 20th century. The final project will record how our fellow citizens were educated, lived, worked, worshipped and spent their leisure time over the last hundred years, from rural views to urban sprawl and from small shops in the front room to the massive Metro Centre. |
| 399 | Project 16 - Major intergenerational project with A-level students from local secondary school on theme of 'being 16' . The following year the group worked with primary pupils on Victorian history and ran a joint project on community arts. |
| 1002 | This was a practical project looking at, and cooking, historical food, such as that from Richard II's kitchen, the history of nutmeg and the role of women cooks. Tasting was central to the group sessions. |
| 1008 | Leatherhead's Government and Politics group have researched the ways in which our government works, in both theory and practice. The group has looked at the monarchy, parliament, the executive, the EU and made comparisons with other countries |
| 1013 | To transcribe the pitman shorthand notebooks of Clyde Sanger, the first African correspondent for the Guardian Newspaper in the 1960's |
| 1015 | Shop survey George Street, Hove BN3 3YB |
| 1016 | Changes in retail trading in my local high Street. |
| 1017 | The High Street project is the first national survey carried out by U3A. It began in 2018 with the intention of recording changes in retail, but in response to the pandemic of 2020 a survey carried out in both 2020 and 2021 was added to the original format. |
| 1020 | An investigation into the changing world of the High Street from 1950's - 2020's |
| 1033 | Addressing Health was a three year study by Kings College of the historical health of postal workers. Part of the project was the transcription of the original records. |
| 1037 | VOICES THROUGH TIME: THE STORY OF CARE We need your help to turn our vast archive collection into documents that can be easily accessed and read online. Thomas Coram established The Foundling Hospital in 1739, as the UK’s first home for children whose mothers were unable to care for them. Today, the charity Coram continues to support vulnerable children and young people. Our archive contains thousands of handwritten records, going back to the 1700s, which contain the stories of children who were cared for at the Foundling Hospital. With your help transcribing these records, we can make them available online for the first time. We can find out more about the lives of children in care in the past, the institutions that cared for them, the history of Coram and the story of care in the UK. |
| 1050 | Brunels' Tunnel. which connected Rotherhithe and Wapping, was constructed between 1825 and 1843. It was the first ever tunnel dug under a river and is still in use today as the route for TFLs Overground Railway. However the Brunels did not dig the tunnel themselves, they had a large workforce probably around 36 men on each shift and two shifts a day plus lots of other labourers doing a variety of other support tasks. The museum has good records of the tunnelers who perished whilst working on the tunnel but very limited records of the rest of the workforce. This is where our SLP may be able to help. Our project is likely to research the workforce, what were their names? where did they live? what about their families - did they move with them or stay at home? Indeed where were their homes? were they recruited from the tin mines of Cornwall or the coal mines of Somerset? |
| 1065 | Trust u3a has a new group - How Trade Grew the World: A new Economic History. Trade is the lifeblood of economic growth. And although globalisation may be in a period of retreat, especially since the pandemic, the changes that have been wrought by the increased connectedness of the world have had a huge impact on both highly-developed and newly-developing economies.The aim of this group is to explore collaboratively how all these elements have interacted to create our modern world. Even in the last few weeks, huge changes have been happening to the shape of the global economy, from cereal production and distribution to the availability of the rare earths and metals that make all electronics possible. The group’s approach will be to choose some top-level topics and explore these by individual research with presentations that fit together so that we can learn and understand our complex world depends on trade in all types of commodities. |
| 1066 | What started out as a survey of local high streets led to Barnsley u3a members connecting with their area’s history and feeding into the vision for its future. 2020 saw the birth of the u3a High Street Project with members across the movement looking at the pandemic’s impact on local shops and the communities using them. Barnsley u3a’s local history groups developed a relationship with the local museum, ‘Experience Barnsley’, and now have an ongoing display filled with artefacts donated and lent by Barnsley u3a members. The group have big plans for future displays – and are currently considering an upcoming focus on memories of food. A new group was formed researching the history of individual streets – a particularly interesting discovery was a pipe smoking competition, held in 1937. u3a members are now working with the council as part of the High Street Heritage Action Zone. |
| 1069 | Over fourteen years, Anorak Communications at Crewkerne U3A has grown from very humble beginnings to become makers of professional social history films. |
| 1076 | Holywood is the only town in Ireland which still has a maypole and the Holywood History group researched the history of maypoles in the town, back to 1625. |
| 1071 | The shops or buildings on the corners of streets. |
| 1072 | The effects of changes in shopping practice in Huntingdon |
| 1074 | Experiences of COVID lockdowns on Family History Group members and their young relatives, have been compiled into a booklet by Warrington u3a Family History Group. |
| 1078 | The history of the main shopping area of Leigh on sea, Essex. Members of the group researched particular types of shops and designed an A1 sized display board. |
| 1085 | High Street Project: Canterbury u3a is involved in this national u3a project and is recording pictures of Canterbury city centre. |