Goodbye to all that? Legacies of the First World War

Two PhD students from the School of History have co-curated a new exhibition exploring the legacies of the First World War.

Two PhD students from the School of History have co-curated a new exhibition exploring the legacies of the First World War.

The exhibition, currently running in the Treasures of the Brotherton Gallery at the University of Leeds explores the lives of children, women and men who experienced the First World War and asks whether the war meant saying goodbye to all that had gone before.

The exhibition looks at themes of grief, memory, disability, women’s rights and politics, displaying items from the University’s Special Collections. The exhibition design was inspired by the contemporary relevance of the many legacies of the First World War. From women's role in society to the reception of refugees; from the way we understand disabled veterans to the rise of the Labour Party, the legacies of the Great War continue to shape our society.

 Two of our postgraduate researchers, Eilis Boyle and Alexander Shaw, who are working towards a PhD in History, co-curated the exhibition. They said: We wanted to tell the story of the children, women and men who experienced the conflict and its aftermath in Leeds and around the world. Artefacts including an original Haig Appeal poppy, the mourning outfit worn by Ann Dennison from West Yorkshire, some of the first British election posters to appeal to young women, and the doll brought to England by a Belgian refugee remind us of the enduring legacies of the Great War.  Bringing together these items with many others from the Liddle, Mattison, Read and Bamji collections (amongst others), we ask how much the world changed and was it really 'goodbye to all that'?"

The exhibition is open until January 2019 and is open to the public to visit. Find out more about the exhibition.