New Year, New Museums
In this newsletter
Hello
Mary Rose Museum
History News
Latest Blog Post
Hello
Hello everyone, and welcome to a very prompt February newsletter. It’s been lovely to see a flurry of new followers over the past few weeks since announcing I was coming off Facebook, so a big hello to all of you, new and old. A few days ago I visited the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth, so I’m very excited to tell you a bit about that, and then we turn to look at some bits of history that have been in the news recently. So let’s get started!
Mary Rose Museum
The Mary Rose was a warship commissioned by Tudor King Henry VIII within his first year on the throne. At the time, England only had a handful of ships, and Henry was eager to change the naval might of the country, commissioning the Mary Rose from his own personal purse. The ship turned out to be a fearsome force for the next few decades, seeing action for 34 years until it suddenly and shockingly sunk in the Solent in 1545 during battle with France.
A few items from the ship were later salvaged under Henry’s orders, including some of the guns and sails, but thereafter the ship faded to obscurity, coated in layer upon layer of silt. It was partially rediscovered in the 19th century then lost again until 1971, where a decade-long recovery project was undertaken. After carefully excavating it, retrieving the surviving objects from within, and painstakingly lifting the wreckage from the sea floor, it was placed at Portsmouth docks. Years of conservation and protection went into salvaging what there was left of the wreckage, and today a museum stands around it.
If you want to know more about the history of the Mary Rose and the museum itself, I’m hoping to publish a blog post about it in the coming weeks, but I thought I’d give you a little preview now. The museum is, in a word, excellent. I was so excited to go and visit and finally lay eyes on it myself, and it surpassed expectations. The ship itself is breathtaking, and the lighting changes intermittently from complete darkness, to small illumination, to having projections of people on the decks undertaking ship tasks. The gallery is built in a U-shape around it, with one long gallery placing objects in a mirror to the ship opposite, showing correspondingly where they were found in the wreckage. At either end of the ship are more detailed exhibition spaces which house many more artefacts and fascinating stand-alone cases centred on particular people who served on the ship.
These cases in particular really struck a chord, as it really emphasised the human loss of life that came with the shipwreck, but it also created a personal collection with the artefacts. Sometimes, seeing items lined up in cases, whilst interesting, is easy to forgot that they were connected to a person or group of people. Showing groups of items believed to belong to one individual, alongside analysis of both the items and skeleton to draw conclusions about the person (where they likely grew up, whether they had worked as a child, what ailments they had, what social rank, and so on) was incredibly impactful.
I’ll leave any further thoughts for my future blog post, as otherwise this newsletter will be just as long, but in conclusion I can highly recommend visiting the museum if you are ever in the area!
History News
In time for Holocaust Memorial Day, the Wiener Holocaust Library announced that following a three-year digitisation project, they now have over 150,000 items available online for the first time. The collection includes letters, pamphlets and photos which follow the rise of fascism in Europe and life under the Nazis. You can read more about the announcement and find links to the platform here.
In fantastic news, the UK Ministry of Justice has announced that they will be retaining all original wills after a huge public and professional backlash to a consultation proposing that after digitisation, all wills (apart from those of “famous people”) would be destroyed. Beyond the vital importance of preserving original archival material, the recent spate of cyber attacks, including that on the British Library, only served to highlight that digital records are not safe from harm. You can read more here.
A warrant has been issued for the arrest of a man who has been found guilty of stealing an extremely valuable Viking hoard. George Powell failed to appear at court for sentencing, after being found guilty alongside another man for theft, conspiring to conceal criminal property, and converting criminal property by selling it. The pair discovered a hoard of 300 coins and gold jewellery in 2015 and instead of declaring it as treasure, sold it privately. Some items have since been recovered, including 31 coins, a ring, a crystal rock pendant, a bracelet and an ingot. Historians have since studied the recovered items, which have already changed understanding of this particular historical period. Learn more about the hoard and the charges here.
Latest Blog Post
In case you missed it, and missed my previous newsletter, my last blog post was an announcement on where I am taking Just History Posts this year. Astonishingly, the blog is now over 8 years old. My situation is so different to when I started – from university graduate to heritage worker and thrice-published author – and I decided everything needed a real shake-up. My current stack of juggling plates was just unsustainable, and I want to provide the best for my readers and loyal blog followers, whilst not completely burning myself out and neglecting one thing for another. I’m hoping these changes will finally see that through. I’ve already found an incredible community on Bluesky, and my inspiration for the blog has rocketed – I already have one blog post almost ready to go live, and three more in the works. If you want to read more about my thoughts and planned changes, then catch up here!
Thank you all for reading, and I hope that 2025 brings us all wonderful things.
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