To mark the centenary of the First World War, the Arts and Humanities Research Council has funded five First World War engagement centres which connect communities with researchers from universities. The centres can support First World War research by:

• Providing support for community projects, including those funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund
• Connecting projects with academic advisers.
• Recommending archives and resources.
• Advising on documenting and sharing research findings.
• Coordinating training and events.
• Promoting First World War centenary projects.
• Sharing stories about the First World War.

Each of the five engagement centres focuses on a number of key themes relating to the First World War and its legacies, so whatever the subject of your project there should be somebody to help.

The centres bring together teams of researchers from all over the UK who are keen to get involved with projects, share their knowledge, and support communities who are commemorating the centenary of the First World War.

Our local centre is the CENTRE FOR HIDDEN HISTORIES based at the University of Nottingham which looks at the experience of different ethnic, faith and national groups in the years 1914-1918 and the impact that the war had, and continues to have, on the diverse communities of modern Britain. The aim is to help spread a broader understanding of the First World War as a global conflict and help groups excluded from established mainstream coverage to explore and share their stories.

The Centre’s themes include race, empire, migration and displacement, independence movements, remembrance and commemoration, contrasting national and community memories of the war.

The Centre is keen to work with a diverse range of community groups including those from Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, West Indian/Caribbean, Eastern European and Jewish communities. Support is available to groups that wish to carry out projects related to the war in partnership with professional researchers. Current projects include investigations into the experience of Punjabi communities, the internment of British Germans in the UK and the variety of experiences of people from Eastern Europe.

For more information have a look at CENTRE FOR HIDDEN HISTORIES

250 ships and 100,000 men were involved in the only major naval surface engagement of World War I which took place off Denmark’s North Sea coast on Wednesday May 31st 1916.  The battle began in the afternoon with gunfire between the German and British scouting forces. When the main warships met, British Admiral John Jellicoe maneuvered his warships to take advantage of the fading daylight, scoring dozens of direct hits that eventually forced German Admiral Reinhard Scheer into retreat. Both sides claimed victory in this indecisive battle, though Britain retained control of the North Sea.

The British Grand Fleet enjoyed a numerical advantage over the German High Sea Fleet of 37:27 in heavy ships and 113:72 in light support craft. It also enjoyed the advantage of having broken German signal codes. There were two major phases of the battle. At 4:48 p.m. on May 31, 1916, the scouting forces of Vice Admirals David Beatty and Franz Hipper commenced a running artillery duel at fifteen thousand yards in the Skagerrak (Jutland), just off Denmark’s North Sea coast. Hipper’s ships took a severe pounding but survived due to their superior honeycomb hull construction. Beatty lost three battle cruisers due to lack of anti-flash protection in the gun turrets, which allowed fires started by incoming shells to reach the powder magazines. Commenting that “[t]here seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today,” Beatty after this initial encounter turned north and lured the Germans onto the Grand Fleet.

The second phase of the battle started at 7:15 p.m., when Admiral John Jellicoe brought his ships into a single battle line by executing a 90-degree wheel to port. Gaining the advantage of the fading light, he cut the Germans off from their home base and twice crossed the High Sea Fleet’s “T.” Admiral Reinhard Scheer’s ships took seventy direct hits, while scoring only twenty against Jellicoe: Scheer’s fleet escaped certain annihilation only by executing three brilliant 180-degree battle turns away. By the full darkness at 10:00 p.m., British losses amounted to 6,784 men and 111,000 tons, and German losses to 3,058 men and 62,000 tons.

Kaiser Wilhelm II showered his sailors with Iron Crosses and his admirals with kisses but by early morning, June 1, Jellicoe stood off Wilhelmshaven with twenty-four untouched dreadnoughts and battle cruisers, while Scheer kept his ten battle-ready heavy ships in port. Three German battle cruisers and three dreadnoughts required extensive repairs.

Strategically, Jutland proved as decisive as the Battle of Trafalgar. The German High Sea Fleet had been driven home and would put out to sea only three more times on minor sweeps. Like the French after Trafalgar, the Germans now turned to commerce raiding. In his after-action report to the kaiser on July 4, Scheer advised avoiding future surface encounters with the British Fleet because of its “great material superiority” and advantageous “military-geographical position,” and instead demanded “the defeat of British economic life–that is, by using the U-boats against British trade.” Although the British public was disappointed with Jutland, Winston Churchill commented that Jellicoe was the one man who could have lost the war in an afternoon.

More information at Battle of Jutland or see events page for talk at Nottinghamshire Archives on 31 May 2016 

In this training excavation members of the community will learn hands-on archaeology by being part of a small team working with professional archaeologists to complete a real dig. They’ll be excavating the outer bailey at Nottingham Castle, and we hope to uncover evidence of the Civil War period or the medieval occupants of the castle.

We Dig the Castle! The training excavation is running 18 July to 19 August, on weekdays, from 9.30 to 4pm.

Thanks to the support of Nottingham City Council we have a limited number of free 1 or 2 day places available to people living in the city and county. These are available on a first come, first served basis.

Prices start at £50 for a taster day, with daily rates reducing the more days attended. For people who have volunteered on other community heritage or archaeology projects that TPA has been involved with we’re also offering an additional reduction as a thank you (this includes projects such as Dig for History, Toton Unearthed, Ey Up Mi Duck!, the Lenton Priory Project, Burgage Manor Revealed, Heritage JIGSAW and many more).

People with all levels of experience are welcome, and we will cater to different levels of skill and prior knowledge. Adults of all ages can get involved – we have a digging volunteer on another project who’s 81! – but as this is a working dig people do need to be 16 (or 14 if coming with a parent/guardian).

The We Dig the Castle! team at Trent and Peak Archaeology (0115 8967400 or nottinghamcastle@yorkat.co.uk) is very happy to provide more information or answer any questions.

Completed in 1833, this splendid classical building with its domed tower was designed by Sir Robert Smirke, inspired by a temple he had visited on the banks of the Ilyus at Athens. Commissioned by the 4th Duke of Newcastle as a mausoleum for his wife, designed to reflect the family’s wealth and status, the building is unusual in that a parish church is incorporated into the mausoleum, with the nave separated from it by an elegant Ionic reredos screen. Inside is Sir Richard Westmacott’s stunning marble memorial to Georgiana, Duchess of Newcastle, and her twin babies.

In 1949 financial difficulties forced the Duke to inform the diocese that he was no longer able to fund its upkeep. After years of disrepair, neglect and vandalism the Mausoleum was rescued by the Redundant Churches Fund, now known as The Churches Conservation Trust, a national charity protecting historic churches at risk.

Address: Markham Clinton, The Avenue, Milton, Newark, Nottinghamshire, NG22 0PW

See more at: www.visitchurches.org.uk/Ourchurches/Completelistofchurches/Milton-Mausoleum-Markham-Clinton-Nottinghamshire/#sthash.i8k7etCv.dpuf

Greasley Castle Farm, on Church Road and Manor Farm, on New Lane were connected in the 14^th century when the land was owned by Nicholas de Canteloup, who endowed Beauvale Priory. Both farms have mediaeval remains – castle walls, fishponds and earthworks at Castle Farm, and some building remains at Manor Farm.

Both farms are now owned by the Hodgkinson Trust, and the family are very keen to delve into their history, to discover more about them, and to preserve both farm sites for posterity.

A project group has been set up to carry out research and report on its findings. Some investigations have already been carried out at Castle Farm, and the group will build on that.

FARM-FEST 2016 will be held on Farm Open Day, Sunday 5^th June at Greasley Castle Farm, Church Road, Greasley. NG16 2AB

It is being held to raise funds for the project, and the proceeds of the day will be spent on starting the research, both documentary and landscape. There is no charge for entry, but all donations will be gratefully received.

In addition to other attractions, visitors will be able to enjoy unique guided tours of the castle remains – an opportunity not to be missed, as the site is not usually open to visitors. Put the date in your diary, email me on jen.wren@btopenworld.com to book a place, and see the next newsletter for more information about what will be an exciting, full-day event.

Jenny Page MA – Project Manager

Weston Gallery, Nottingham Lakeside Arts, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD

Friday 29 April – Sunday 7 August  – Admission Free

This exhibition, jointly curated by Dr Ross Balzaretti (School of Humanities) and Manuscripts and Special Collections at The University of Nottingham, takes the visitor on a journey through the history of travel since the sixteenth century drawing on the University of Nottingham’s rich archives. Beginning with the elite ‘Grand Tour’ of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and ending with the more commercial tourism of the mid-nineteenth century, the exhibition explores the travels of local families and others throughout Europe and beyond. People travelled for education and pleasure, to buy and sell things, to escape pressures at home, and much more besides. The trips of men and women, girls and boys, servants and even pets are recorded. Many places across Europe and some beyond feature among the exhibits, with a special focus on Italy which became and remained the country most people were keen to see.

Exhibits include passports, diaries and journals, sketches, bills, prints, photographs and guide books, objects which are still familiar now when we travel abroad. Follow travellers as they walked around Rome, climbed Vesuvius, boated around Venice, and looked at art in Florence. Watch them shop for the latest fashions in Paris, and bargain in Naples. Travel with them as they try foreign food, attempt to speak the local language, and encounter both danger and excitement; just as we do today.

The exhibition will be opened on Thursday 28^th April (5pm-7pm), by Levison Wood, explorer, author of Walking the Himalayas, and History graduate (Nottingham 2004).

Items of particular interest:

• Mystery album of photographs associated with Prince Leopold: The exhibition features images from a photograph album which, research seems to be confirming, belonged to Prince Leopold, youngest son of Queen Victoria. The pictures, of the South of France, Italy, and Switzerland, are likely to have been purchased on the tour which the Prince made of northern Italy in the late spring of 1876. Prince Leopold opened University College Nottingham in June 1881. The album was donated to the University in 1981 by Col. Abel Smith, a direct descendant of Prince Leopold. The album has been conserved and digitised using funds kindly donated by alumni of the Department of History. The original album is unfortunately too large to display in the exhibition but a virtual version is being prepared which will make it possible for viewer to flick through digital pages of the album.

• University Park residents on tour: Whilst researching the exhibition, Dr Balzaretti made a chance discovery revealing the travels of some former residents of University Park. Visiting cards found within the papers of William Drury-Lowe advertised that a Mr and Miss Needham of Lenton House, were living at no. 6 Lungo D’Arno Nuovo on the third floor. This was a fashionable address in Florence on the banks of the River Arno, in a new street which was opened in 1855. Visiting cards were used by tourists to insert themselves into local social life while they were travelling. The Needham family had lived at Lenton House, one of the historic houses visible from Beeston Lane (now owned by Walgreens Boots Alliance), since the 1820s. They sold the property in 1865. This information means that these two Needhams were in Florence between 1855 and 1865, something which would not be known without the survival of these two ephemeral objects.

• Diary of a young explorer: The exhibition is being opened by explorer Levison Wood, but visitors to the gallery will be able to see a diary kept by 12 year old George Chaworth Musters when he visited Spain with his uncle in 1853. George went on to become an explorer, who in 1870 became the first Englishman to cross Patagonia from north to south. He recounted his exploits in a book At Home with the Patagonians, which was a best-seller and can also be seen in the exhibition. In his diary, the young George describes their sightseeing in Spain, including visits to bullfights, by which he was particularly impressed.

• Famous Nottinghamshire travellers: The exhibition features a letter from Lord Byron (1788-1824) who lived at Newstead Abbey as a young man. Notoriously ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’ his scandalous life abroad formed the subject of much of his work, especially his long poem Don Juan. The letter, dated 15 May 1809, is addressed to a male member of the Chaworth or Musters family, and Lord Byron states that he is sailing for Gibraltar in June and then to Malta. This marked the start of his Grand Tour of the Mediterranean.

A series of talks/events will be held to accompany the exhibition. Places are limited so please book in advance via the Nottingham Lakeside Arts Box Office: 0115 846 7777

LUNCHTIME TALKS – Djanogly Theatre – Admission free 1-2pm

Archives of Travel: Grand Tourists and Others – 5 May 2016

Gain an insight to the preparations behind the scenes the exhibition with curator Dr Ross Balzaretti. He explains how the research process for the exhibition took place, and how the resulting exhibits fit into the exciting history of travel since the sixteenth century.

The Grand Tour of the Fanshawe Sisters in 1829 – 14 June 2016

In this richly illustrated talk, Professor Charles Watkins and Dr Ross Balzaretti (University of Nottingham) will focus on the Grand Tour of the Fanshawe sisters who ‘did Europe’ in 1829. Using their surviving sketches, letters and poems this talk sheds light on the difficulties and pleasures of travel in the early nineteenth century.

Danger and the Grand Tour – 14 July 2016

Mountain precipices, erupting volcanoes, battles, malaria and the ever-present danger of social failure: travel on the eighteenth-century Grand Tour could be unpleasantly hazardous. Join Sarah Goldsmith (University of York) to explore why Grand Tourists risked such dangers. Could these perils ever be more than a dangerous nuisance?

FILM SCREENING

Journey to Italy

Djanogly Theatre

Thursday 19 May, 7.30pm (2 hrs)

£5 (£3 concessions)

Dr Ross Balzaretti (Department of History) and Sarah Lutton (BFI London Film Festival Programme Advisor, co-editor ‘Roberto Rossellini: Magician of the Real’ ) will introduce a showing of Roberto Rossellini’s 1954 black and white classic Journey to Italy, one of the great films of the fifties. There will be a post-show discussion.

WORKSHOP FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

The Art of Travel

Nottingham Lakeside Arts

Saturday 23 July, 10.30-13.00

11-13 yrs

£8

Make art inspired by your travels and your imagination with local artist Pilar Chamorro-Pascual and Ross Balzaretti, curator of ‘Grand Tourists and Others’.

The Grand Tour Season 2 Fringe

Grand Tourists and Others is part of the Season 2 Fringe Programme of The Grand Tour, a partnership of Nottingham Contemporary, Chatsworth, Derby Museums and The Harley Gallery, together with Experience Nottinghamshire and Visit Peak District & Derbyshire, creating a compelling cultural adventure that is a Grand Tour for our own times. It offers a chance to see great houses, extraordinary art collections and romantic landscapes, interpreted anew by some of today’s most exciting contemporary artists. Season 2 delves deeper into these historical collections and the historic relationship between Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and The Grand Tour alongside contemporary interpretations from Turner Prize-winner Simon Starling, Sir Peter Blake and Rose English. The Fringe Programme of events celebrating the tradition of the Grand Tour, a rite of passage for young gentlemen in the 17^th and 18^th century, includes Doug Fishbone’s Venice Biennale installation Leisure Land Golf at the New Art Exchange and Derby Cathedral’s exhibition The Enlightenment Cathedral

Fringe Connections:

• A selection of passports from the Drury Lowe Collection at The University of Nottingham have been loaned for display in one of the Grand Tour Season Two exhibitions Joseph Wright and the Lure of Italy at Derby Museums.
• The Grand Tourists and Others exhibition itself features a loan from one of the Fringe partners, Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery, of The Castelbarco Tomb in Verona, by Richard Parkes Bonington, a Nottingham-born celebrated of English watercolourist, painted following a tour of northern Italy in 1826.

Broxtowe Borough Council have advised amended opening hours and admission prices for the D.H. Lawrence Birthplace Museum. The museum will now operate from Tuesday to Saturday (10:00am to 4:00pm) and admission will be £6.90 for adults, £5.10 for concessions, £3.30 for children (5-16) and £16.80 for families.

The Museum is at 8a Victoria Street, Eastwood and is the childhood home to the controversial author D.H. Lawrence, it is open to the public and everyone is welcome.

1.30 pm Sunday 3rd July 2016

Starts at the river end of Queens Walk, Nottingham, near to Wilford Bridge. Now accessible by tram (Clifton Line) from city centre or station.

This walk goes through all the Recreation Grounds allotted to the townsfolk when their commonable Fields and Meadows were enclosed to give more space for desperately-needed housing. No other town in Britain has anything like it.
Much of this ground was laid out as Walks, recognising that cricket and other team games and events need catering for, and play-space, but that the regular Sunday walks of the family were just as important for the Town’s health.

Dr. Judith Mills will start the Walk and she and Dr. Jonathan Coope will accompany the walk to explain the importance of the 1845 Inclosure Act and discuss how the parks and open spaces created by that Act have been used, abused and developed over the last 171 years

The walk finishes at the Inclosure Oaks, (yes, there are now two), on the Forest, where a certificate will be presented to those completing the route.
Guides will be available to buy on the day, or from the tourist centre, for your future use. The Forest cafe will be open at the end, highly recommended.

The Framework Knitters Museum is the only Nottinghamshire museum to have been awarded VisitEngland’s prestigious ‘Best Told Story’ accolade.

Best Told Story is one of five accolades VisitEngland give as part of their Visitor Attraction Quality Scheme. These awards recognise attractions that provide an exceptional visitor experience.

Vicky Howell, the Quality Assurance Schemes Executive at VisitEngland, said, “We only award Best Told Story to attractions where visitors can expect to enjoy a genuinely entertaining experience, and the Framework Knitters Museum truly deserves this accolade. Over the last few years the museum has gone from strength to strength in their assessment. All the hard work they have put into the redevelopment of the museum really shows, and we’re really excited to see what they are going to do next”.

The Framework Knitters Museum shows visitors how the framework knitters worked and lived by immersing them in a historic site that has been creatively brought back to life. It examines the development of the trade from which Nottingham Lace emerged, and the conditions which led to the violent Luddite uprising, which started in Nottingham before spreading across the country.

Paul Baker, Museum Manager, said “The museum has been on a dramatic journey of development over the last five years, and to been awarded this accolade shows us that we are heading in the right direction. The story of the framework knitters, and the Luddite Riots, is Nottinghamshire’s history. A story we should all know, a story that must be learnt from”.

For more information on the Framework Knitters Museum please visit www.frameworkknittersmuseum.org.uk.

At the Nottingham Playhouse on Monday 23rd and Tuesday 24th May, at 8:00pm, COAL by Gary Clarke Company tells the true story of an industry and a community’s fight for survival.

Featuring members of Thoresby Colliery Band

Main House – Tickets: £10 – £13 + optional £1 postage fee
Age Guidance: 12+ – Duration: Approx 80 minutes (no interval)

For more information phone Nottingham Playhouse 0115 941 9419 or go to the website at www.nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk

“All of us owe the comparative decency to poor drudges underground, blackened to the eyes with their throats full of coal dust, driving their shovels forward with arms and belly muscles of steel” George Orwell (1934)

Marking the 30th anniversary of the end of the 1984/5 British miners’ strike, award winning choreographer Gary Clarke proudly presents COAL, a riveting dance theatre show which takes an nostalgic look at the hard hitting realities of life at the coal face.

Strong, powerful and emotive, COAL explores the darker underbelly of the mining industry unearthing the true nature and body wrecking demands of a working class industry now almost forgotten.

Bringing together Clarke’s striking physical language performed by a company of 7 high class dancers, a local community cast of women and a live colliery brass band, COAL is an emotional, moving and ever-relevant exploration of community, solidarity and survival.

“One of the most powerful, moving pieces of theatre I’ve ever seen on the miners strike”.
Ex miner (preview July 2015)