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Category: Lecture

Celebrating St Mildred and other Canterbury and Kent saints

As well as containing large numbers of meetings yet again this week, it also included the pleasurable occasion when Dr Diane Heath and I handed over the pop-up banners on aspects of the history of St Mildred’s church – parish and people to those at St Mildred’s.

Future Centre events and Jews in medieval Kent

Before I turn to the main event this week, the fortnightly meeting of the Kent History Postgraduates group and Dean’s presentation, I thought I would bring you up to date with the virtual ‘Tudors and Stuarts History Weekend’ that will take place on Saturday 27 and Sunday 28 March 2021, as well as Centre events before that.

Ian Coulson Awards, Maritime Kent and Canterbury

This week’s blog contains several items of good news, somewhat in contrast to the national situation. Firstly, it gives me great pleasure to record that Tracey Dessoy and Jane Richardson have been awarded grants from the Ian Coulson Postgraduate Award fund.

Tudors and Stuarts, and Paul Bennett’s retirement

I thought I would begin this week with the news that I am now only a couple of speakers short for the virtual Tudors and Stuarts History Weekend on Saturday 27 and Sunday 28 March 2021. Moreover, I’m still waiting to hear back from a couple of people, so if they agree I shall have a full, albeit streamlined programme compared to normal years.

Rochester, ‘history from below’ – more exciting developments

As the week before teaching officially commences, this has been a week of meetings for Freshers Week as well as other activities linked in various ways to the Centre. For example, Dr Diane Heath and I used her quiz based on Bethany Brown’s internship work on the St Mildred’s church and parish history posters for the new BA History and Medieval & Early Modern History Studies students.

History Weekend 2021 and Kent History Postgraduates

Stop press – Tudors and Stuarts History Weekend moved to the weekend of Saturday 27 and Sunday 28 March 2021, and, as I said last week, it will be a virtual affair, and our speakers will include Professor Alec Ryrie, an expert on the Reformation, and Professor Andy Wood, a brilliant ‘history from below’ early modernist. This week I have also been in talks with Craig Dadds at the Canterbury Christ Church University bookshop, and even though we don’t know exactly what form it will take, Craig does want an online bookshop in some form for the History Weekend.

A Milestone in Kent History and Heritage

This is the Centre’s 300th blog! To mark this splendid milestone, I thought I would reflect on the Centre’s achievements since the blog started almost six years ago in October 2014 when I highlighted Dr Martin Watt’s forthcoming lecture on the WWI War Memorial in what had been St Gregory’s church (now CCCU’s St Gregory’s Centre): https://blogs.canterbury.ac.uk/kenthistory/war-memorial-lecture/

Book culture and Kent History Postgraduates

Thanks firstly to Dr Diane Heath for last week’s blog, and today I thought I would start with Professor Louise Wilkinson’s virtual ‘Farewell’ last Friday where she was joined by most members from History, several members of the School of Humanities administration team and Dr Harriet Kersey from CCCU Research, who is a former doctoral student of Louise’s. As all agreed, it is a great pity that such a great scholar and lovely, caring person is leaving CCCU after about sixteen years, but as her parents will still be here in Canterbury for the time being, we haven’t ‘lost’ her completely. Consequently, there will be a ‘proper Farewell’ once the lockdown is over when she will be given a rather special gift to mark everyone’s appreciation of what she has done for History and the university more widely.

Celebrating women – as queens and historians

This blog appears in the final week of Professor Louise Wilkinson’s time at Canterbury before she takes up her new appointment at the University of Lincoln. I, Diane Heath, am writing it instead of Sheila Sweetinburgh, but all of us at the Centre of Kent History and Heritage, and everyone (staff and students alike) in the School of Humanities at Canterbury Christ Church University shall miss her very much and wish her a wonderful time in Lincoln.