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Jonathan Hunt

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Unit 31: Southampton’s Time Capsule

Last semester, Year Three History students and their tutors on the module, ‘Between Private Memory and Public History’ visited a Southampton space not usually open to the public, Unit 31. Unit 31 — sited on an industrial park between West Quay shopping centre and IKEA — is Southampton City’s Management Centre and houses some of the many objects that the city’s museums, including Southampton’s Sea City and Tudor House. Continue reading →

How to review orphan books

It’s the time of year when those high profile history books not heavily discounted in December are available at half price in Waterstones.  With honourable exceptions, too many titles heavily promoted in the run up to Christmas were heavyweight stocking fillers, of which – with due predictability – a depressingly high number focused upon ever more arcane aspects of the Second World War. Continue reading →

Interview with recent PhD graduate, Dr Louise Fairbrother

What was the subject of your research? My research looked in detail at how the town governments of Southampton and various other English towns organised their industry and trade in the sixteenth century.  It focussed specifically on the way in which they controlled the groups involved.  In Southampton’s case, this was by the use of devices such as licences, oaths and ordinances on the three groups of the burgesses, the freemen and the strangers. Continue reading →

The Many Lives of Calouste Gulbenkian, World’s Richest Man

  At a ceremony in Lisbon last Thursday His Excellency Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, President of Portugal, helped launch Jonathan Conlin's new biography of the Anglo-Armenian oil baron Calouste Gulbenkian (1869-1955). Published in English by Profile Books as Mr Five Per Cent: The Many Lives of Calouste Gulbenkian, World's Richest Man, Jonathan's book coincides with a year of festivities marking the 150th anniversary of Gulbenkian's birth. Continue reading →