Secondary History- Old Newspapers- they’re only good for wrapping up fish and chips, right?

Many of us have used adverts from old newspapers to illustrate various aspects of history – early C20th adverts for, for example, Fry’s Chocolate or Palmolive Soap suggest both continuity and change, but why not use some of the stories too? They can help to round out our studies of people and events which can often appear two-dimensional or ‘flat’. They provide students with the ‘human’ side of life that they find so fascinating, but often struggle to get to grips with.

Take for example this story, from the Birmingham Daily Post, Friday January 2nd 1880:

Petty and opportunist crime was rife in Victorian times as well as today. The image of a hairdresser buying a revolver and showing off, blowing away part of his own hand, is priceless!

Or this story from the same issue of the paper:

The image of Victorian life, and crime and punishment, projected by cases such as these in nearly every newspaper you look at, suggests that life was tough in Victorian times too, and that plenty of people were on the lookout for the opportunity to make some money quickly and easily. You can also compare stories such as these with stories from your own local newspaper today to see if our attitudes to crime and punishment have changed all that much.

Copies of old local newspapers are available freely in most libraries – try the Local Studies Collection – or in County Records Offices. Many local papers publish facsimile issues from time to time and it is worth approaching the publisher to see if they have ‘back copies’ lying around in their offices. Don’t just use the adverts, however fascinating –there are plenty of stories to enliven your study of Victorian and C20th Britain.

If you are in Further or Higher Education you can access the British Library newspaper collection free via JISC:  www.jisc-collections.ac.uk/19thblib

Alf Wilkinson, May 2012

Secondary History - Evidence

Look at the evidence! When examining cartoons, pictures or drawings, students often find it difficult to see beyond the obvious, which is usually staring them right in the face. How do you train them to search for all the evidence in the picture? I always remember as a pupil being shown a photograph of Emily Pankhurst, dressed in furs and a swanky coat, walking smiling towards the camera. Why was she smiling? Why dressed up? Where was she going? Pulling back from the close up showed she was being led away by two burly policemen, after breaking windows at a London department store. Who says the camera never lies? Here are a few ideas.
If you have an Interactive White Board the ‘hide’ or ‘highlight’ features are invaluable. Choose your piece of evidence carefully and move the ‘highlight’ around the evidence bit by bit. You can make the highlighted area as large or as small as you wish. Get your students to carefully examine each and every bit of the evidence, explaining clearly what they can see. A variation of this is to use one of the ‘Jigsaw’ types of software freely available on the web. Choose a suitable image and chop it into as many pieces as you wish, then ask students to reassemble it. They will have to look closely at the evidence to do that!
Equally, you can do the same kind of activity on paper, either A3 or A4. Copy your piece of evidence then cut it up into several pieces. Give each group in your class one piece to explore. Ask them to describe what they can see, then suggest what might be in the rest of the evidence. Finally, project the complete image on your board and feed back.

Finally, of course, is our old favourite ‘Powerpoint.’  Project an image, perhaps like this one:

It is instantly recognisable as a German stamp, with the image of Hitler on it. But we can learn so much more from a close scrutiny. Using the ‘arrow’ function and textbox questions, students can be directed to look at very specific parts of the stamp. Add one arrow per ‘Powerpoint’ slide, until finally your slide will look something like this:
They are exploring all of the image, and are then in a position to deduce information from it. The stamp, of course, was overprinted ‘Ukraine’ after the Nazi invasion of Russia, and thus can be clearly dated. It also opens up a discussion on all the ‘normal’ aspects of life that need to be catered for by an invading power!
By carefully choosing the most appropriate images you can easily train your students to look beyond the obvious, and thereby enhance their skill at evidence work. Have fun!
Alf Wilkinson CPD Manager for the Historical Association and previously National Strategist for Key Stage 3 History. Alf has over 30 years history teaching experience and was lead author for Collins Key Stage 3 History resources.

Secondary History - Women and Children First

Whenever I hear the phrase ‘women and children first’ I always think of the Titanic, the unsinkable luxury liner that sank after hitting an iceberg in the Atlantic 100 years ago, with the loss of over 1500 lives. Outdated regulations meant there didn’t have to be a space in a lifeboat for everyone on board – in fact there were lifeboats for only about half of the complement. One of the enduring stories of the tragedy is that the band played on as the Titanic sank, helping to keep passengers calm. The 1997 feature film ensures the story of the Titanic lives on in popular culture, indeed a new Titanic Museum has just opened in Belfast, Titanic’s home port.

But the phrase ‘women and children first,’ and even the idea of an unsinkable ship, is much older than 1912. In 1845 HMS Birkenhead, one of the first iron steam ships built for the Navy, was ordered. She had 12 watertight compartments, designed to prevent her sinking if she was holed. Unfortunately she was obsolete before she was launched as trials in 1845 showed that screw propellers, rather than paddle steamers which powered her, were much more efficient. In 1848 HMS Birkenhead was transformed into a troop ship and used to carry troops to Africa.

In January 1852 she left for South Africa with about 643 men, women and children on board – no one is sure quite how many. On leaving Cape Town, heading for Algoa Bay, HMS Birkenhead hit a rock and sank within 20 minutes. Despite the captain giving the order to abandon ship, Lieutenant-Colonel Seton, the highest ranking Army officer on  board, insisted on the men assembling on deck and assisting the women and children into the boats. Every woman and child on board was saved. As there were not enough boats for everyone, many of the soldiers – mostly new recruits - knew they were going to die but still complete order prevailed. The band played as the ship sank. Nearly 100 men were saved, some swimming the 3 miles to shore through shark-infested waters, others by clinging to the rigging until help arrived the next day.

At the time the men on board HMS Birkenhead were hailed as heroes. Queen Victoria ordered a memorial to them to be built in Chelsea Hospital. The Kaiser of Prussia had an ‘order of the day’ read out to every one of his soldiers asking them to ‘act like those on the Birkenhead.’ Later, Kipling wrote a poem about the ‘Birkenhead Drill’ – ‘to stand and be still, like the Birkenhead drill, is a damn tough bullet to chew.’ Paintings of the event, copies of which you can easily find online, adorned most Victorian classroom walls.

So why do we not know about these events today? Why do we remember the Titanic, and not HMS Birkenhead? HMS Birkenhead is credited with starting the tradition of ‘women and children first,’ and the parallels between both events are striking. It made me wonder which other events, famous or infamous at the time, no longer appear in our national story. Why do we remember some things and not others? And who decides what we remember, or what we teach? At a time of Curriculum Review perhaps we ought to be asking these kinds of questions about what we teach and why we teach it.

Alf Wilkinson

CPD Manager for the Historical Association and previously National Strategist for Key Stage 3 History. Alf has over 30 years history teaching experience and was lead author for Collins Key Stage 3 History resources.

Managing Behaviour

Anyone who was following the Local Elections coverage recently would have got sick of hearing how bad ‘times’ are. It’s of course no different in education – we have our own hard times as the Coalition seemingly declares war on us…pay freezes, pensions under attack, constant belittling of the profession, Heads attacking a ‘culture of fear’ imposed by OfSTED (BBC News, 6th May 2012)… Although only 32% of us bothered to vote – worryingly the lowest turnout since 2000 – perhaps we did just enough to give the Coalition a bloody nose. George Osborne has accepted the ‘tough message’ and even the dictatorial Gove appears to have realised he cannot take on the entire profession on his own and has backed down on no-notice inspections! Politicians seem surprised by how resilient the profession is – but then of course we’re used to it. Whoever is in charge, left, right, centre, use us as political point-scoring football. One thing is clear though – despite the rhetoric, no politician ever acts upon perhaps the most pressing issue in the classroom – discipline. Blaming the teachers for not giving students high enough aspirations is easier than admitting socio-economic policies since 1979 have failed big time…

During a recent interview - which I am pleased to say turned out to be successful – I was asked about how I deal with disruptive students. A very simple question… and a very simple answer - of course my classroom management is perfect… After all, I’ve read Sue Cowley’s Getting The Buggers To Behave (both 1 and 2), Bill Rogers’ Practical Guides, Jim Smith’s Lazy Teachers Handbook… ok, perhaps I shouldn’t have admitted to the last one, it gives a bad impression, but the book’s title is ironic, and I never send students out of lessons so my classroom management must be perfect.

If only! Dream on… and its probably the thing us teachers fear the most and the hardest thing to master. As every NQT knows, you can read all the books you want, nothing prepares you for the realities of the classroom. I thought my PGCE course was excellent, especially the seminars on behaviour and psychology, but even then there were times during that dreaded first year when I thought how the hell do I deal with this? The seminars didn’t prepare me for this! Going back to the interview, in the true words of a politician, I was glad they asked me that question. I think I’d got a bit complacent over the years and it gave me a chance to think over why I’d been relatively successful in the field of behaviour management.

The obvious things to do, the well researched theories that we’re all taught on our PGCE, Teach-First or whatever course we’ve done or are doing, are to think about your lesson plan, differentiation (all/most/some), seating plans etc… I’m not going to go into this and I don’t want to teach my grandmother to suck eggs, but it goes without saying engaging the students with accessible tasks, relevant topics and

I once saw a PGCE student ‘set the scene’ in a year 8 lesson on the Black Death by reading out a passage from a scholarly tome by an eminent Cambridge professor. Needless to say the lesson was not a success, although I learnt a lot!

What is key to me though and what has really made the difference in my ten years of teaching is getting to know the students – and I don’t mean just their reading ages, statements and data, I mean getting to know them as an individual and treating them as such. Never lose track of the individual in front of you, no matter how hard it gets – and we all know it gets very hard at times. Engender a feeling of mutual respect – let them know you are on their side, you are a professional and you are not going anywhere and, it might take longer in some schools than others, you will earn their respect. When you take an interest in even the most difficult of students they will react in a positive way… find their interests, their likes and dislikes – I’ve even created whole worksheets around certain students’ interests that have worked wonders even at secondary level.

Knowing your students also means knowing your allies – from the very first lesson find out who is on your side and use them. They can help you appear human by allowing humour and banter – but of course only certain students fall into this category – you need to know who you can rely on to help you out and who will help create a positive atmosphere of mutual respect where the whole class, staff and students are working together – its hard to achieve, but its possible.

Getting the atmosphere right is essential too. It’s a tough balancing act between not appearing so laid back that you will let anything go and not being draconian and ruling through fear. During some recent work with an EBD unit I learnt more about this than ever – you need patience! Ok, these students had severe emotional problems and poor beahviour stemming from this but it was true that they responded to a calm, measured approach at all times. If, on occasions I got a bit over the top and excited or the starter was a bit too interactive, they reacted in exactly the same way and it was difficult to get them back. The same happens in mainstream schools too.

One last piece of advice - develop a thick skin and don’t take it personally! This is so, so difficult to do – we put so much of ourselves into teaching that it is hard not to go mad when 7C rip up the worksheets you were up until midnight preparing, but you have to remember, you are not the target as an individual. Let it bounce off you and carry on… There is also the chance that if the class see your Achilles Heel they will exploit it, so make sure they don’t! Also remember that you can’t do it all on your own and you shouldn’t have to – use the support from management, discuss things with your line manager – it is not a sign of weakness. ‘We’re all in it together’ seems to have take on a different meaning recently, but in teaching’s case, we are, so don’t be afraid to ask for help!

Joe Wilkinson
History Teacher

Secondary History - Show the Passion!

It was WB Yeats who told us that, “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” It’s a quote I’ve long admired and to me it sums up the reason why I went into teaching. It’s something I’ve always tried to remember when planning lessons and delivering them and when building a rapport with students. Looking back, this approach has been quite successful (this can be supported by exam result data – there, I am being ‘accountable’ therefore a good teacher) – although I would argue this is a common sense approach.

If students want to be in your lesson, they know why they are studying the subject and they know what they are getting out of the subject they will, and ten years of experience tells me this, for the most part, be enthusiastic and keen to learn. Sadly, in the ‘League Table culture’ in which we work, I’m worried we’re losing this a little bit. Students increasingly seem to ‘just want to know what they need to pass the exam’ and nothing else – and the pressure we are under as teachers to meet Gosplan’s targets means we often, and I say this reluctantly, do just that. We spoon feed, and sometimes there are other factors in play too. There is often political pressure, for example when an Academy has to prove it is successful not for its pupils' sake, but for the sake of saving a politician’s bacon. Students can therefore pass exams – but are they better educated? Politicians can boast that on their watch exam results went up 63%... but what disappoints them is that education is simply not measurable.

Anyway, let’s keep politics out of education (I wish MPs would just ‘let the teachers be free to teach’ as I believe they promised)… in part contradiction of Yeats I would argue that of course we need some ‘filling of the pail.’ Without any historical knowledge at all students are going to struggle to get any idea of the past – facts, dates, battles and people all help students get a sense of historical context and why things happened. Chronological facts helps students string things together, link events and see that history is not packaged into nice little compartments and, taught properly, it will help them see things did actually happen between the Romans, Tudors and the Industrial Revolution!

In short, we need knowledge and facts, but not just knowledge and certainly not a curriculum based around Core Knowledge – facts we all must know. History has fought hard to move away from being just a memory test requiring factual recall of dates in order for someone to be ‘good at it’. Some good news coming from the government – surprisingly, it would seem, as all that seems to come out of Westminster is a continual bemoaning and belittling of our profession – is that History is soon to become compulsory up to the age of 16. Three cheers all round – Mr Gove has finally got something right! This should hopefully counter the worrying trend of less History being taught. I was a little disappointed to find out that the school I taught at for six years before moving abroad, building up both the GCSE and A-Level cohorts considerably, now offers a three year Key Stage 4. This problem is heightened by the three-tier system they have so students arrive from Middle School and have little more than a week before they decide their options – this has led to very small numbers taking the subject as we don’t have Year 9 with every student to develop skills and interest. We hope that making the subject compulsory will mean decreasing numbers of students taking the subject is merely a blip, but even then we can’t get complacent. We still need to light the fire Yeats talked of.

So what about the lighting of the fire? How do we do it? Having just helped out our English department with some GCSE tuition with some very disaffected Year 10s and 11s I am aware of the difficulties a compulsory subject faces. ‘When am I ever going to need to know about Macbeth?’, as I was asked many times, could soon become ‘When am I ever going to need to know about Abraham Darby?’ if we do not approach it right. I’ve highlighted earlier the need to always let the students know why they are doing what they are doing, how relevant it is and the skills they are getting out of it. Something else that has worked for me is the mantra ‘teach as you would like to be taught.’ All teachers have different styles and whilst we seem to be constantly observed and scrutinised it is important to remember that you have to teach your way. This way you feel more comfortable in front of the class. Thorough lesson planning will mean you know the different needs of the learners in front of you and you can adapt accordingly but you need to lead, to inspire, to be a good role model and to show the students that education is not just about passing exams or that GCSE History merely leads to becoming a museum curator or librarian – not that there is of course wrong with either of those professions. One particularly able student of mine at the international school I taught at used to ironically shout out “but that’s not on the syllabus we can’t discuss that” every time one of our IB History lessons drifted off topic. If a debate is going off topic then let it – if the students are engaged and thinking and learning from one another, keep going – that is education. That is inspiring students to think for themselves. That is lighting their fires.

After one whole staff meeting where we’d just been told the expectations for forthcoming observations, I remember one old cynic chirping up at the back “Oh, so we’re supposed to be entertainers now are we?” Cue much laughter, but the fact remains that if we’re doing our job well then well, yes we are but that doesn’t mean role plays, field trips and TV clips featuring blood and guts. Showing warmth, humour and appearing human through a variety of anecdotes have worked for me. You may not look forward to your double with 8Y on a Friday afternoon – we all have an 8Y - but you always have to show the passion and yes, it’s not easy when you have to discuss proportional representation in the Weimar Republic for the fifteenth time, but it is a relatively simple solution. Showing the passion for your subject rubs off on your students and of all the possible ways of lighting the fires Yeats dreamed of, I’ve found this is the easiest way to light them.

Joe Wilkinson

Head of History

Secondary History - The Richard Holmes Memorial Prizes

In 2015, Britain and Europe will commemorate the 200th anniversary of the end of the Napoleonic Wars  (1792-1815). The war more or less ended with a clash of giants - on one side the Allied armies, led by the First Duke of Wellington, the Prince of Orange and Prince Marshal Blücher and on the other the army of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte - on the fields of what was to become Belgium, south of a little village called Waterloo.

The Waterloo Association supports study of the Battle of Waterloo and a myriad of allied issues. It was founded by the 8th Duke of Wellington and others, in 1973. Waterloo200, an offshoot of the Waterloo Association is the official body, set up to support, network and advise on the bicentennial commemorations.

The Waterloo Association is to award prizes for two submissions by school students:

Firstly, a project design competition for 11-14 year-olds (KS3), which should consist of an article of around 2,500 words suggesting ideas/proposals for the use of a reconstructed derelict chateau (Hougoumont), as a memorial to the British Army, also a visitor and education centre. This farm was a key defence area for the Duke during the Battle of Waterloo.

Secondly, an article/essay written by a student of 16-19 years (KS5) of around 5,000 words, on an unusual, controversial or novel aspect of the Battle of Waterloo.

The prizes, which are to be awarded annually, from at least 2013 to 2016 (so covering the years 2012/13/14/15), are each entitled the ‘Richard Holmes Memorial Prize’, in memory of Professor Richard Holmes OBE, TD, who was an iconic figure in military history. He sadly died in 2010.

Prizes of £150 (for 2012/13/14) and £200 in 2015 for the KS3 project and £200 for the KS5 essay (for 2012/13/14) and £300 in 2015, will be awarded for the best submissions by the two groups.

The judges for both submissions have been selected from historians and teachers. The winners of the first prizes will probably be announced in the 2013 Summer Journal of the Waterloo Association and the winning submissions published therein.

Both entries should be original in research and ideas. They will be judged by people who know these subjects well.

The submissions should be sent in electronic form to MKH Crumplin, Education Lead for Waterloo 200  by Christmas Day, 2012.

Application forms can be obtained from the above person by e-mail. Please note - a disclaimer will be required be signed.

Secondary History - Reinforcing chronological understanding

Students often find it difficult to sequence events or people, yet it is crucial to understanding cause and effect, continuity and change, and most other things in history. Here are a couple of well-tried and tested ways to reinforce chronology.

Let’s start with a pillar box:

Why is it green? When was it made? Who installed it? Where was it made? 

Nearly all of these questions can be answered from a close examination of the pillar box. It is green because it is in the Republic of Ireland, and was originally red, installed in the reign of Edward VII. 

Now, how about these pillar boxes?

Can you put these pillar boxes in chronological order?

(Download the images in a Word document here.)

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Each pillar box has the cipher of the monarch on it, so VR dates from Queen Victoria’s reign, and so on. Which monarch is missing from the above collection? In ‘Powerpoint’ in ‘outline’ mode it is easy to manipulate images around a page. Of course it is even easier with an Interactive White Board if you have one. This activity can be endlessly recycled using houses, modes of transport, inventions, battles, political leaders, whatever is appropriate. Used regularly as a starter activity it helps build up a sense of chronology and of linking events together.

Of course you can do this activity on paper too, as a card sort or, if you want to involve the whole class, using the Washing Line Game. Write 20 or so names, events, etc, on to individual sheets of paper, and hand them out to your class, one to each student. One at a time get them to come out to the front of the class and put their event in the right place standing along a timeline, or peg it onto a string stretched across the classroom. Get the rest of the class to ascertain whether or not the event is in the correct place. It gets very noisy, but it is very effective at reinforcing chronological understanding!

Alf Wilkinson

CPD Manager for the Historical Association and previously National Strategist for Key Stage 3 History. Alf has over 30 years history teaching experience and was lead author for Collins Key Stage 3 History resources.

Secondary History - The White Slave Trade

We all teach about the triangular slave trade, but how many of us teach about the White Slave Trade?

In June 1636, seven boats fishing off the Cornish coast were taken by the "Turks" and their crews, around 50 men in total, and were carried away as captives. The same Turkish vessels had just previously taken 5 boats off the fishing port of Looe. The men that put to sea were never seen again. This was only one of many examples of the actions of Barbary Pirates, from Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli who, for several hundred years, raided shipping and coastal towns across Europe for slaves. Admiralty records show, between 1609 and 1616, 466 British ships were attacked in this way. It is estimated that, between 1580 and 1680, nearly one million European men, women and children were captured and taken into slavery by Muslim rulers.

Slaves were captured for work and for ransom. Those that survived the sea trip to North Africa were auctioned off on arrival. Men were often put to work in the galleys - capturing more slaves - and in mines; in hard manual labour. Life was often brutal and short. Women were often kept as servants or in harems. Samuel Pepys records in his diary in February 1661 spending an evening in a tavern talking to two men recently returned from slavery.

In 1645, the English Parliament was so concerned about the condition of slaves held there that they sent Edmund Casson to Algiers who managed to ransom 244 slaves. Arriving in September 1646, he paid about £40 per head for men, but women cost at least double that! From time to time naval expeditions were sent against the Pirates, and peace treaties were signed and broken. Charles II and his strong Navy were more successful in dealing with the problem. Tunis, for example, was bombarded in 1675, and Algiers made peace after similar bombardments in 1682, 1683 and 1688, and Tripoli in 1686.  It was only after 1815 and the end of the Napoleonic Wars and a return to more peaceful conditions that the threat of the Barbary Pirates was finally removed.

Was it a race issue, or a religious issue, or a trade issue? Certainly the peak of the Barbary Pirates coincided with Muslim dominance in the Mediterranean, and the attraction was to capture Christian slaves to work for Muslim rulers. Their dominance also coincided with rivalries – both religious and political – between leading European powers. But it is a fascinating and fairly well documented episode that is rarely taught in schools.

Alf Wilkinson
CPD Manager for the Historical Association and previously National Strategist for Key Stage 3 History. Alf has over 30 years history teaching experience and was lead author for Collins Key Stage 3 History resources.

Secondary History - Victorian Baby Farms

Sometimes something you read can open up a completely different way of looking at things!

Whilst reading Mary Hooper’s new novel ‘Velvet,’ which is mainly about Victorian spiritualism, I came across a reference to Amelia Dyer, who was hanged in 1896 for the murder of a baby. In the novel Velvet goes to a baby farm and steals a baby for her boss, to pretend it is a dead baby brought back to the real world by a spiritualist.  Intrigued by Mary Hooper’s notes about baby farms I decided to look up Amelia Dyer’s case on Old Bailey Online [www.oldbaileyonline/org Case Reference Number: t18960518-451]

It turns out that Mrs Dyer had a previous form... a Bristol newspaper advert offering to adopt a child, for £10, provoked a mother to write to a ‘Mrs Harding’ and agree to hand over her illegitimate daughter and pay a one-off fee of £10 for her care. Within 10 days the baby was fished out of the River Thames at Reading, dead. Amelia Dyer had moved from slowly starving and neglecting babies in her care to actually murdering them. It is believed that, between 1879 and 1896 she may have been responsible for the death of over 400 infants! But how could she get away with it? By setting herself up in one place, putting adverts in the papers, moving on when things got a bit difficult, starting again somewhere else under a different name… it was hard for the police to catch up with her.

So what does this tell us about Victorian society? Life was virtually impossible for unmarried mothers, especially poor ones who had to ‘disappear’ to give birth and then find some way to look after the baby and go back to work. Unscrupulous people like Amelia Dyer would advertise and offer to adopt unwanted babies for a one-off fee, paid upfront, sometimes as much as £50 or more, plus baby clothes. Many baby farmers would have 6 or 8 or more young babies in their care, slowly dying of neglect or starvation. Patent medicines like ‘Godfrey’s Cordial,’ largely made up of opiates, were used to sedate babies and keep them quiet and listless. It was easy money if you could get away with it. Unmarried mothers were unlikely to make a fuss when they eventually received a letter announcing an unfortunate accident or death.  And Amelia Dyer was not the only woman executed in Victorian Britain for baby farming deaths.  What a great case study to create a debate about social conditions in Victorian Britain!

Alf Wilkinson
CPD Manager for the Historical Association and previously National Strategist for Key Stage 3 History. Alf has over 30 years history teaching experience and was lead author for Collins Key Stage 3 History resources.

Secondary History - It's Complicated...

To help our students make sense of history quite often we generalise, so Hitler’s war becomes Germany’s war, where all Germans are involved in fighting against the Allies.  During the Industrial Revolution all factory owners were oppressive, making their workers work very long hours for very low pay and beating them if they didn’t toe the line. I’m sure you can think of lots more examples from your own schemes of work.

But things are not quite so simple. For example, at one stage during World War Two, in the South of France, the head of the Gestapo was a Frenchman, and the leader of the French Resistance was a German! And of course some employers in C19th Britain built model factories [Titus Salt, the Cadbury brothers] and made children go to school for half a day before they were allowed to work [Robert Owen.]

The Church, we teach, was a force for good in people’s lives, encouraging them to live decent lives, not to cheat, or lie, to follow God’s teaching. But what about this example?

Little Jack Horner sat in the corner, eating a Christmas  pie: 
He put in his thumb, and pulled out a plum, 
And said, “What a good boy am I!” 

But do you know the real story behind the nursery rhyme?

‘Jack’ Horner was the steward of Richard Whiting, the last Abbot of Glastonbury, in the sixteenth century. His real name was Thomas, but, as in playing cards, a ‘knave’ was always known as ‘Jack!’ At the time of the dissolution of the monasteries, Thomas Horner was sent by the abbot to take a pie to Henry VIII in London. The pie contained a gift of the title deeds of twelve of the richest manors owned by Glastonbury. The Abbot hoped such a gift might persuade Henry to leave his abbey alone. The deeds were ‘baked’ in a pie partly to captivate the King (it being the fashion to have novelty pies at table – remember the ‘four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie?’) and partly as a protection from highwaymen. The story is told that Thomas Horner ‘dipped’ his fingers into the pie and removed the deeds to Mells Manor, the biggest and best estate of the twelve in the pie – hence pulling out the ‘plum.’

True or not, the Horner family moved in to Mells Manor shortly after the dissolution of the monasteries, and a descendent of Thomas was still living there in 1975. This story first appeared in print in 1764.

What a terrific way to bring Henry VIII and the dissolution of the monasteries to life. An abbot – a leader of the Church – resorting to bribery and skulduggery to try to keep his abbey open; a trusted servant of the Church who steals in order to feather his own nest; a king who is obviously after money and susceptible to bribery – why else would the Abbot have tried to bribe him? Doesn’t that humanise the topic in a way that is often missing from our textbooks? Doesn’t it put another perspective on Henry’s struggle with the Church? And you thought it was all about having a son to rule after him. As I said, history is complicated!

Alf Wilkinson
CPD Manager for the Historical Association and previously National Strategist for Key Stage 3 History. Alf has over 30 years history teaching experience and was lead author for Collins Key Stage 3 History resources.

Secondary History - Hyperinflation

‘In August 1923, the dollar reached a million Mark.’  

-Hyperinflation through Defying Hitler

‘That extraordinary year is probably what has marked today’s Germans with those characteristics that are so strange and incomprehensible in the eyes of the world...’  So wrote Sebastian Haffner in 1939, a memoir eventually posthumously published by his son as Defying Hitler in 2001.  The hyperflation crisis to which Haffner refers, rocked the fragile Weimar Republic between January and December 1923, and yet often leaves my Year 9 students throwing their hands up in despair, not in sympathy for those Weimar citizens forced to spend their earnings as quickly as they could in the face of over-night devaluation, but in consequence of an hour-long grapple with economic terms and price indices.

By year 13, when the topic is re-visited as part of the study of Germany 1900-45, the situation is somewhat better, (especially if I am lucky enough to have some A2 Economists in the class!), yet my trusty price index and anecdotes about men carting their wages home in wheelbarrows doesn’t quite go far enough at showing the impact of  hyperinflation on an economy already crippled by Treaty of Versailles reparations, and yoked by the terms of Hugo Preuss’ new constitution to a hopelessly over-ambitious welfare state.  So this year I decided to take a new approach; using Defying Hitler, and offering students the use of a selection of plasticine, pipe-cleaners, and a flip-camera.

Following an hour long lesson on the origins and course of the hyperinflation crisis, the next lesson was spent enabling students to really grasp the impact of the year in which ‘an entire nation of Germans had a spiritual organ removed.’  What follows is the course of this second lesson.

Part One (up to 15 minutes)

1. I chose 15 quotations from Chapter 10 of Defying Hitler (download the quotations here).  The first five were selected to illustrate the wider impact of the crisis on the German psyche.  Haffner is writing from voluntary exile in England during Nazism and so he has some strong opinions on how the hyperinflation primed German society ‘not specifically for Nazism, but for any fantastic adventure.’
   
2. The remaining 10 quotations were chosen to illustrate the immediate impact on ordinary lives, both the disasters, but also the opportunities for the ‘young and quick witted.’
   
3. Each student was given a quote upon their arrival to the lesson, asked to read it and make one inference about the impact of the hyperinflation.
   
4. Students then grouped themselves into threes, and together made a further inference about the impact of hyperinflation this time based on a broader spread of 3 quotations.
   
5. Each group of three then paired up with another group of three, and made a further inference based this time on 6 quotations.  By this time students had access to a mixture of the wider impact and specific impact quotations.
   
6. This was followed by a brief (7 or 8 minutes – I never deal in multiples of 5!) discussion, drawing on the facts and figures of the previous lesson combined with Haffner’s recollections in order to offer a coherent picture of the impact of hyperinflation.

Part Two (the remaining 45-ish minutes)

My students love plasticine, and they also love film cameras.  I use both as way of allowing them to creatively express their own understandings. Neither has ever, in my experience, served to do anything other than deepen and consolidate students’ knowledge. Win win!

1. Students were offered the choice of modelling the effect of hyperinflation using plasticine to create a stop-animation film, or just going straight in with the camera and starring in the show themselves.  The extroverts seem always to pump for the pure film option, the more kinaesthetic make a bee-line for the modelling and the stop-animation.
   
2. Students had the best part of 40 minutes to make the model/record the film.  The only rules were that it must be historically factually accurate, and it must directly reference Haffner.
   
3. Photographing models and downloading films is the last step. We watched the films back at the beginning of the next lesson, and the photographs of the modelling process are up on the wall.
   
4. Hyperinflation – grasped!

Charlotte Grove
History Teacher, Dame Alice Owen's School

Secondary History - Taking a Second Look

Sometimes you know a topic really well, you’ve taught it many times, you are familiar with the key ideas and subject knowledge. You know which text book has the best images, the best activities, or which clip of film to show to engage your students. But sometimes, going back to original documents can make you – and your students – see a topic in a different light.
Take for instance, this extract from a monthly report from Leicester, November 1940:

‘We fed 100 men with a hot meal at an hour’s notice one day, and the next day 30 turned up without any warning...

...During the fortnight 17th to 30th [November] we served over 268,800 cups of tea and have used over 6 cwt of tea, (305 kilos) 15 cwt of sugar, (762 kilos) 270 lbs margarine, (122 kilos) 351 x 3lb (1.4 kilos) slabs of cake and [more than] 300  loaves. Buying this has been a very difficult problem, especially tinned milk. We are still very short of tinned milk... The food office have helped us all they could and granted us extra permits for sugar and margarine, and also released three whole cheeses for us. The bakers came to an end of their fruit ration, so we got a case of currants and sultanas and these they made into cakes...’

[Women’s Voluntary Services for Civil Defence Leicester report for the month of November 1940]

We are all familiar with the image of a canteen van after an air raid, serving tea. But how long would it take to make 268,000 cups of tea, or to drink it? In a time of rationing how on earth do you get hold of 6 cwt of tea, or 15 cwt of sugar? Or serve dinner for 100 men at one hour’s notice? What impression does it give you of the Women’s Voluntary Service, and the volunteers providing this service? By going back to original sources like this you do get a different perspective, and a clearer understanding, of the difficulties of ordinary everyday life on the Home Front during World War Two.

You can find lots more original sources about the Home Front during WW2 – and activities to go with them for Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 – on the website ‘The Army That Hitler Forgot’ at www.wrvs.org.uk/schools

Alf Wilkinson
CPD Manager for the Historical Association and previously National Strategist for Key Stage 3 History. Alf has over 30 years history teaching experience and was lead author for Collins Key Stage 3 History resources.

Secondary History - From Cause to Consequence

Cause and consequence appears as the fourth key concept on the QCDA KS3 National Curriculum, and underpins much of our study of history as a discipline. Come GCSE and A Level it’s still key as students begin to make a distinction between conditional and contingent causes, immediate and delayed consequences.  Whilst I have found my students handle the idea of a cause followed by an event leading to a consequence well, they often find it more difficult to really explain how the cause caused the event, and why the consequence is a consequence. Chronological ordering is one thing, supported historical analysis another!

The idea behind this activity is to get students to explain causation from one event to the next.  I have used it with Year 7 explaining the collapse of the Roman Empire, Year 10 searching for the causes of the October 1917 Revolution and Year 12 analysing Mussolini’s rise to power.  What I have seen in all is both how students are constructively critical of each other’s arguments, and how they offer help and suggestions of explanation to a peer teetering perilously on a stepping stone in the middle of the ‘stream’.

The activity

Using the stepping stone template, the students write each cause and consequence on individual stones.  I usually photocopy the template up so that each stone is A4.  They also need one central stone called ‘EVENT’ on which they write details of the event whose causes and consequences they are analysing, this can be done individually or in small groups.

I get students to make their notes on the templates in bullet points, or single prompt words, rather than continuous prose. The reason being they place the stones on the floor and need to be able to read them easily whilst standing!

Students then lay their stones across the floor, which becomes a stream, in chronological order – causes -> event -> consequences.  In order to step onto each stone they must explain either how it is a cause, or why it is a consequence. This also allows for the construction of a continuous argument.

If their teammates think the explanation is adequate they are able to step onto the stone, and then explain the next in order to step, one at a time, right across the stream. The ‘event’ stone can either be a temporary respite, or students can narrate the event as part of their ongoing explanation. Should any student fail to match up to their teammates expectations, they risk slipping off the stone into the stream and either have to start again, or become a soggy spectator as the next member of the team takes their chances!

The quality of explanation and ensuing discussions were really pleasing; Year 7 were able to make links between the causes of the fall of Rome and the ensuing consequences.  At A Level the activity highlights the conditional or contingent status of causes, and demonstrates the interrelation of consequences.

Example PowerPoint slide using stepping stones to explain Mussolini’s rise to power as AS level

Download the stepping stone template for yourself here to try this activity out with your own classes!

Charlotte Grove

History Teacher, Dame Alice Owen's School

Secondary History - Remembrance

Who do we remember?

We are all familiar with the two minutes silence on Remembrance Day, at 11.00 am on the 11th November, to commemorate the end of World War One. It was introduced in 1919 to commemorate all those who lost their lives during World War One. The main national focus is on the Cenotaph, built in 1919-20, in Whitehall, although all war memorials around the country feature wreath-laying ceremonies on Remembrance Sunday [the second Sunday in November.]

Remembrance has since been extended to include those killed in all conflicts since 1914, including the Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan. Indeed recent conflicts have been instrumental in the reintroduction of the two minutes silence on November 11th itself, as a mark of respect for military personnel killed in those most recent of wars.

But who are we remembering, and why? There has been much emphasis recently on Diversity in history, and an increased recognition of the part played by Empire and Commonwealth troops in Britain’s wars. See, for example, Black and Asian soldiers of the First World War webquest: http://www.comptonhistory.com/ww1webquest.htm. But what about our Allies during World War One?

Russia, we know, fought on the side of the Allies, on the Eastern Front, until the Revolution of February 1917, and finally made peace with Germany at Brest Litovsk in March 1918. But from the middle of 1917 Russia was fighting a ‘defensive’ war. Who can forget that scene in the film ‘Dr Zhivago,’ when a column of new troops is heading for the front and meets a mass of Deserters who persuade most of them to turn round and go back home after shooting most of their officers? Russia, of course, played no part in the war on the Western Front, so how do we make any sense of this gravestone in a cemetery in France?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

                               
What was he doing on the Western Front? Why is he buried there? A single photograph can open up our preconceptions of World War One, and prompt lots of questions. History, it seems, is much more complicated than the textbooks suggest!

Alf Wilkinson
CPD Manager for the Historical Association and previously National Strategist for Key Stage 3 History. Alf has over 30 years history teaching experience and was lead author for Collins Key Stage 3 History resources.

Secondary History - The reality of teaching in Mauritius

“I feel sorry for you.”

I remember that sentence all too well! Indeed, two and a half years later, these words still ring around in my head! What had I done? I’d left a good school in the UK where I’d felt quite at home and enjoyed six years of good results as Head of Department. Now I was here, in Mauritius, in the middle of the Indian Ocean at a young, but growing, International School, with the brief of setting up a history department from scratch.

The wise old sage who had uttered those words of warning was right. It was not going to be easy! Two years down the track however, I’ve managed to get somewhere. As I enter the last half-term of my contract and head back to a HoD position in London, I feel I’ve met my brief. But yes, it was not esay!

Despite Mauritius’ rich and varied history – think Portuguese, Dutch, French, British, dodos, slavery, sugar and indentured labourers – for reasons mostly political, this is not an island that likes to dwell on its past. In its desire to be the new Singapore, kids are encouraged to study Accounts and Business Studies, to repeat and not to question.

This is what I was up against – an island that doesn’t even offer History pre-Sixth Form in state schools and where parents of the students I was trying to win over remember dull lessons of endless dates. I remember the Biology teacher catching up with me in the Staff Room one day – I’d had to go to the capital, Port Louis, to sort out some red tape and he’d covered a lesson. “If I’d had history lessons like that, I would have become a history teacher and not a biology teacher.” I knew I was getting somewhere.

So, what is the moral of the tale? The message is there for us history teachers – loud and clear. Make it interesting, make it relevant and make sure your passion comes out in every lesson. I’d always believed this, but my Mauritian adventure taught me more than ever that we simply have to make our subject relevant – spell it out, we’re often so passionate about the subject as we teach it that we can’t see the wood for the trees. There is nothing more rewarding than parents coming up to you and saying they are sorry to hear you are leaving as their son/daughter loves your lessons.

A driving instructor would not get into a car with a novice driver and say “go on then, drive.” Sometimes we fall into this trap. We need to spell out to the students why this subject is important. For example, tell the students that they are not simply studying the Depression in the 1930s but they are seeing Economics in action - far preferable to the rather dull ‘theory’ they have to listen to in Economics lessons! By studying this period they can actually ‘see’ tariffs in action, protectionism, supply and demand, the social consequences of economic action etc. Tell them they are studying psychology, politics, sociology and philosophy too and they are hooked. They often don’t realise it. My IGCSE students are now convinced they are going to be the generation that solves all the problems caused by mistakes of the past – well, all except miserable Pravin of course. We all teach a miserable Pravin – through studying International Relations modules, he’s convinced wars and conflicts are inevitable and we can’t avoid them. Still got some work to do with him, but nonetheless his arguments are well supported so that’s something. His face was a delight when I told him “As long as you can support it, you’re entitled to any view you want!”

Good resources are important too – and in a remote Indian Ocean island getting hands on good textbooks cheaply and quickly was not easy. Most worksheets I produced myself. This had the beneficial result that I was more comfortable teaching the lesson and I could include things more relevant to Africa and the Indian Ocean. I’m afraid to say that ‘official’ histories of Mauritius are turgid to say the least and as they are written by the Hindu majority, they often, shall we say, overlook the Creole minority’s contribution to the island’s development. Someone needs to produce a truly international IGCSE textbook – they would make a killing! (Must get round to doing the IGCSE version of Ben Walsh’s ‘Bible’...)

Getting that scheme of work right is not easy either – I found a balance of the local and the international to work well. A mix of skills work and knowledge work is essential too. Schemes of work can also lead to a dilemma at times too – do I skip topics because they are ‘boring’? Interestingly Henry VIII seems to be a winner wherever you are in the world! To return to a theme – if you can deliver it in an interesting, relevant and fun way, you’ve cracked it.

All good practitioners will know the importance of getting to know the students and like all of us, I quickly identified the ‘rebellious’ students who actually enjoyed it when I told them I wanted them to argue back. “How many lessons a week do you have where the teachers wants you to argue with them?” I asked. Answer came there: none.

As I alluded to earlier, for too long my beloved subject has been taught as an absolutist subject. For me, we are far more relativist and that’s how it should be. Socrates and his students at the Lyceum asked questions, most of these questions had no answers, yet much more knowledge was gained in the asking of the question!

As The Beatles once sang, its been a ‘long and winding road’ but I’m happy with what has been achieved out here in the baking sun. It may seem obvious but we’re often too busy trying to meet targets or produce something for yet another meeting that we can overlook it. Remember the mantra – keep it interesting, show why it's relevant, keep it fun!

Joe Wilkinson
Head of History
Northfields International High School, Mauritius

Secondary History - Interpreting Sources

Who am I?

Students always have problems getting their head around the idea of Interpretations. They look for certainty, and find it hard to grasp that most history is a construct, it is someone’s opinion, put together by carefully selecting the evidence used to support a [usually preconceived] argument. Even when given two completely contrasting interpretations of someone they are still likely, even after highlighting the differences and carrying out the activity carefully designed by you to show the different interpretations, to sidle up to you at the end of the lesson and say, as happened to me, "That was really interesting, Sir, I now understand this idea of interpretations, but, tell me, what is the right answer?"

One simple way to help them realise an interpretation is just someone’s carefully argued view is to play the ‘Who am I?’ game. Choose a character from history, but present them in a series of bullet points, highlighting just one side of their achievements. I like to start with Adolf Hitler, because you can easily present him in a way that seems, to us, a very positive light.

Try this series of statements, one by one, and see if your students can guess who you are talking about:

1. I am a vegetarian
2. I don’t smoke
3. I don’t drink alcohol
4. I was named ‘Man of the Year’ by Time Magazine in 1938
   
   ………. all these are generally regarded as a ‘good thing.’
   
   
5. I wanted to make my country strong
6. I was very popular in elections
7. I gave everybody a job
8. Many people could get free or very cheap holidays
   
   …….. these are the positive aspects of Nazi rule in the 1930s. 

Where you go from here depends on the responses. You could leave them guessing, and do a similar ‘bad things’ list – you probably won’t have to go beyond ‘I killed 6 million Jews’ for them to realise who you are talking about. Or you could ask them to choose someone they have studied and produce a similar, very one-sided, list of bullet points to share with the rest of the class. It doesn’t take long for them to realise that their interpretation, like mine of Hitler, is a very misleading one, but is valid, as it is based on carefully selected evidence. And it is a very effective way to help students understand where interpretations come from, and how important it is to carefully select the evidence you use to construct them!

Alf Wilkinson
CPD Manager for the Historical Association and previously National Strategist for Key Stage 3 History. Alf has over 30 years history teaching experience and was lead author for Collins Key Stage 3 History resources.

Secondary History - How to argue at A Level

Can you negotiate your hostage’s path to freedom?

‘But it’s really hard, it’s a big step up Miss’.

This was the slightly hysterical cry of one of my not-quite-so-new Year 12 students last week. Indeed when they come back after the enviably long post-GCSE summer break, students often enter into a very different learning environment (complete with very different uniform!) from whence they left. Whilst I will never lower the expectations I have of what my students can achieve, I sometimes wonder if I need to pay a little more attention to this transitional phase. Not only is there a big step up in the level of historical detail we expect them to master at the beginning of AS, but the pressure to get the course started, mould anywhere between 10 and 20 disparate individuals into a cohesive ‘class’and just get them to talk to each other, all seems to conspire against the relaxed and gentle entry into AS for which the majority of them are begging by the end of week one.

One month in, and still I am faced with a wall of foot-shuffling silence when I try and lead my class of ever-so-slightly more cohesive students towards a discussion. So this year I decided to take definitive discourse-inducing action. Inspired by an episode of The Philosopher’s Arms on Radio 4, I thought about the skills required by a hostage negotiator and how they could be deployed by the argumentative historian.

What we are asking students to do at AS level is to build an analytical argument, sustain it, support it with evidence, and draw it to a close in a substantiated conclusion. The hostage negotiator at the Philosopher’s Arms spoke of how she needed to create and support her argument, and the importance of being able to defend it against attack. Whilst there are many obvious differences between the negotiator and the historian, this focus on presentation of opinion, use of supportive evidence and negotiation towards a successful conclusion gave me an idea…

The Year 12 class were working on an argument in answer to the question:
‘The revolutions of the 1820s and 1830s failed primarily due to Austrian intervention.’ How far do you agree with this statement?

Students had already decided on four key factors, including the titled statement, which they felt explained the failure of the revolutions. The consequent negotiating activity worked as follows:

1. Divide the class into teams of 3 (or 5 in a larger class – just as long as they are an uneven number)
2. Each group then decides which of the agreed factors they consider to be the most significant (e.g. their pro-argument) and begin to gather evidence to support their statement.
3. They also gather evidence to support the remaining three factors (the counter argument).
4. At the end of preparation time (I allowed 14 minutes – I never work in multiples of 5!) you pitch two teams against each other. If you have an uneven number of teams you could go for a triad formation.
5. One team in the pair opts/is chosen to go first, and to select one member of their opposing team to take hostage. Often I found students made a hostage of the one they considered to be the most able negotiator. I both commended their sneakiness and was pleased that shyer or less forward students would therefore be induced to argue.
6. It is now the role of the hostage’s remaining team-mates to secure his/her release by arguing against the hostage-takers. The hostage’s team are therefore able to state the argument they’ve built around their chosen most significant factor (see step 2) whilst the hostage-taking team are forced to use their arguments for the remaining three factors.
7. (The hostage is free to be as irritating as they like, bearing in mind their captors could metaphorically silence them at any point…)
8. At the end of an agreed period of negotiation (I chose 6 minutes but a shorter time span might be appropriate for younger students) the hostage takers must make a decision: if they consider the argument put forward by the hostage’s team to be adequate, they are duty bound to release the hostage. If they consider it inadequate, the hostage forms part of their team (reluctantly or otherwise!).
9. The next round then begins with teams smaller, larger or unchanged. Should a team that began as 3 fail to negotiate the successful release of their second hostage they cease to exist. Depending on the size of your class, the depth of argument to be made or the number of factors available you can run this either until you have one enormous team left, are simply hearing the same argument on loop, or the bell rings.

My negotiation situations were based on the failure of the 1820s and 1830s revolutions in pre-unification Italy, but since then I have applied them to the February Revolution of 1917, the downfall of the Weimar Republic, and the contribution of President Gorbachev to the end of the Cold War. I've also discovered Year 10 can create arguments to rival Year 12!

My year 12 students all said they really enjoyed this activity. The quality of argument I heard listening in to various negotiating teams was far more advanced than I have seen at this stage in the year before, and the consequent essay plans they turned in showed the interlinking of factors and maintained a clear focus on the question. Most importantly for me, every single student made a contribution and showed they could both create and defend an historical argument. And all hostages were eventually safely returned to their teams!

Charlotte Grove
History Teacher, Dame Alice Owen's School

Secondary History - Industrial Revolution starter activity

What can you do with an advert from a Trade Directory?

You know the feeling - you are looking for a good starter activity that will promote discussion and debate, then lead to more detailed thinking about the topic under consideration – in this case the [to many people] dreadfully dull Industrial Revolution. Try using this source – or find something very similar in one of your own County Trade Directories.

This is a tiny, one-eighth of a page advert from the rear section of Kelly’s Lincolnshire Directory 1885. Try projecting it on the whiteboard and asking pupils to tell you their reactions to it.

Normally, it is one of surprise - who would want to order ice, and by train from Grimsby? And intrigue. What size would the blocks need to be in order not to melt? How do you move blocks of ice? How do you carry them? How long would it take? Where do you store them when they arrive from Norway, presumably in the winter, until they are wanted in the Spring and Summer? How much of the ice do you lose in the process? How do you get ‘Pure Norwegian Block Ice’ from Norway to Grimsby? How much would it cost to transport? And then how do you deliver it by train? And then from the station? Without it melting? Who would be able to afford it? Lots of questions which your students may or may not be able to answer. History does not always give us the answers!

Link the discussion back to that grand Tudor or Stuart or Georgian House they visited or studied. It almost certainly had an Ice House in the grounds, usually underground and well insulated. Where did the ice come from? Why did they need so much ice anyway?

The 1880s is the time New Zealand [frozen] lamb started to arrive in the UK, and beef from South America, butter from Australia. Steam ships and railways opened up the world. What part might ice from the more frozen parts of the world play in this process?

Now turn specifically to Victorian housing in the new industrial towns. What were living conditions like - many families lived in one room, most houses were shared. No electricity. No cooker. No freezers. How do you keep food fresh? Tinned food was just beginning – and expensive. There was an insatiable demand for ice.

So you see a simple advert from a trade directory can open the door to many aspects of life in the Victorian period. And liven up your study of the Industrial Revolution too!

Alf Wilkinson
CPD Manager for the Historical Association and previously National Strategist for Key Stage 3 History. Alf has over 30 years history teaching experience and was lead author for Collins Key Stage 3 History resources.

KS3 History - measuring significance of historical events

Why do we remember some events in history and not others? Why are some events regarded as important at the time but not now?

This is what the 2010 Secondary Curriculum has to say about Significance:

• Key concept 1.5 Significance: Considering the significance of events, people and developments in their historical context and in the present day.

Here’s an example that might help us explore this. Everyone remembers the Titanic – the unsinkable ship that hit an iceberg in the Atlantic on its maiden voyage to America in April 1912. At the time this was a devastating event, over 1,500 people died. It was also a big shock to British pride. It is credited with originating the saying ‘women and children first,’ as there were not enough boats for everybody. People still talk about the Titanic today, and not just because of the film!

Yet how many people remember HMS Birkenhead, the troop ship that sank on its way to South Africa in 1852, with the loss of around 450 soldiers?

HMS Birkenhead was carrying about 650 men, women and children to South Africa. Most were new recruits. About 3 miles off shore, at 2 in the morning, the ship hit a rock. It too, like the Titanic, had a series of watertight compartments designed to keep it afloat – in fact it was the first steam ship to do so.  In an attempt to get off the rocks the captain reversed the engines, making the hole much bigger. In 15 minutes the ship sank. The captain gave the order to abandon ship. Only three of the boats could be lowered.

Lieutenant-Colonel Seton, the senior army officer, ordered all ranks to assemble on deck and stand to attention, while the women and children were put in the boats. The men waited as the ship went down. Most died, although some managed to swim the three miles to shore through shark-infested waters. It really was the first example of ‘women and children first!’

Queen Victoria praised the bravery and discipline of the men, and ordered a memorial built at Chelsea Barracks. The King of Prussia paraded his army and in an order of the day demanded his soldiers be as brave as those on the Birkenhead. On the 50th anniversary, Thomas Hemy, a famous Victorian painter, produced a painting of the ship going down, which would have been found on most Victorian classroom walls. About the same time Rudyard Kipling, the ‘poet of Empire,’ wrote ‘Soldier an’ sailor too,’ about the event. So the event obviously had an impact both at the time and at the turn of the century. Yet no-one today remembers the Birkenhead. Why?

There are several sets of criteria for measuring significance – such as those from Ian Dawson, Partington, Christine Counsell – and it is important that students have the chance to ‘measure’ significance against these criteria. Yet it is equally important that they have the opportunity to develop their own criteria for measuring significance. That, after all, is what history is really about.

Alf Wilkinson
National Subject Lead for History, 2010 Secondary Curriculum