Conference: Land Forces of the Crown, c. 1660- c. 2000

Building on the success of our Centenary Conference, which saw some excellent contributions from early career researchers, we will also be hosting a networking event for postgraduates and postdoctoral researchers which will take place on Saturday morning before the main conference opens. PGR students, those post-PhD, and those holding postdoctoral postitions are all welcome. If you are interested and eligible, please add the separate ticket (for free) to your order. Some limited refreshments will be provided.

Marianne Gilchrist, ‘‘Made of Tougher Materials’: Patrick Ferguson’s Experience of Disease & Disability’

Tom Golding-Lee, ‘‘Finding my health much impaired’: The Experience of the British Army in Cuba, 1741’

Martin Howard, ‘An antecedent of Walcheren Fever: a ‘multi-disease epidemic’ in the British Army during the American Revolutionary War’

Chair: Samuel Dodson

Sam Wallace, ‘Bloody Battles, Bloody Battle Drill: Training and Lessons Learnt in Allied Force Headquarters during the Tunisian Campaign’

Megan Hamilton, ‘The British Empire and Training Liaison in the Middle East’

James Halstead, ‘Auchinleck and Senior Command Training in Middle East Command, January-July 1942’

Chair: Matthew Hough

Mark Shearwood, ‘We Choose not to Serve: Desertion and Mutiny in the Army of William of Orange 1688/89’

Isaac Crichlow, ‘The West India Regiments in the British Army: Discipline, Discrimination and Desertion, 1796-1816’

Katherine Quinlan-Flatter, ‘The British Military Press in Post-Second World War Occupied Germany’

Chair: Zack White

Gemma Shearwood, ‘The Commemoration of Major General James Wolfe: Revisiting Joseph Wilton’s Westminster Abbey Monument (1759-1772)’

Francis van Berkel, ‘Compensation or Commemoration? – The British Raj and the Memorialisation of the Indian Contribution to the First World War’

Harriet Beadnell, ‘Monty’s Men – British Second World War Veterans and their role in the Commemoration of El Alamein since 1945’

Chair: Séverine Angers

Sam Jolley, ‘Rations for Two: Pregnancy and Maternity in the British Army 1990 – Present’

Emma Newlands, ‘“In the battle and outside of it”: British Army medics in overseas service, 1939-45’

Louise Bell, ‘“We cannot afford to allow these men to sink”: Llearning to use prostheses in the aftermath of two world wars’

Chair: Martin Howard

Abstract

‘We WILL remember them’. This simple phrase has come to epitomise the spirit of respect and reverence held for those who have fought, bled and in many cases made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of their nation. This ethos of grateful commemoration has become a hallmark of Remembrance Day services across the world, and is often seen as synonymous with the efforts of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), which does admirable work in recovering veterans’ remains and affording them the quiet dignity of a well maintained, marked place in the earth so that these men can finally rest in peace.

Whilst the CWGC’s practices are well established for victims of the First and Second World War, those who had the misfortune to die in conflicts prior to the 20th Century are shown much less dignity. From remains being quietly ignored, to lying virtually forgotten in cardboard boxes, being used as political pawns, or even acting as curiosities to be placed on display for the public’s entertainment, victims of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars are subjected to a range of indignities which expose the inconsistencies in how we commemorate conflict.

In this talk, founder of the Napoleonic & Revolutionary War Graves Charity Dr Zack White discusses his first-hand experiences in trying to forge a more holistic, and consistent, spirit of dignified respect in the handling of veteran remains from this period. Drawing on recent archaeological and historical research, as well as exploring the legal status of remains, and the challenges raised by local stakeholders, it will be argued that we have sleepwalked into a system of inconsistency, where being killed in what amounts to the ‘wrong war’ can render a veteran’s body being regarded as a curiosity, rather than the remnants of a human being. Above all this keynote seeks to initiate a genuine and thoughtful discussion on how on we can resolve these discrepancies, and ensure that a double standard does not leave us forgetting the fallen.

About the speaker

Dr Zack White is a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at the University of Portsmouth, where he is currently working on a project connected with the East India Company’s Army and Navy. A two-time winner of the ‘Wellington Prize’, his research focuses on crime and punishment in the British military during the early-nineteenth century. In addition to being the host of the Napoleonic Wars Podcast, one of the world’s leading shows dedicated to the period, he has appeared on BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time and on Channel 4 talking about the Napoleonic Wars. In 2021 he founded the Napoleonic & Revolutionary War Graves Charity, serving as its inaugural chair until September 2024, in which role he travelled the UK and Europe, locating and cleaning veterans’ graves and negotiating with local stakeholders to secure the release of veterans’ remains for burial.

Chair

Andrew Bamford

Sadie Sunderland-Rhoads, ‘Utility and limitations of regimental identity: provincial recruitment of Irish Catholics in the American Colonies for service in the American Revolution’

Neil Blenkinsop, ‘A Reassessment of the Performance of British Military Government in Germany 1944-45’

James Goulty, ‘Information from a Distant Theatre: Battle Experience Questionnaires and the Korean War, 1950-1953’

Chair: Megan Hamilton

Samuel Dodson, ‘‘Unterricht für Officiere, die sich zu Feldingenieurs ausbilden wollen’: The duties of British and Allied engineers during the Seven Years War’

Mick McTiernan, ‘“Quite out of the question.” Foreign command of British troops in the international peace keeping force in Crete, 1897- 1905’

Jenny Grant, ‘‘Must football go on?’: Navigating the Impotence of the British Military Mission to Poland, September 1939’

Chair: Andrew Bamford

Sara Cooley, ‘The material cost of the Civil Wars: garrison-community relations in Staffordshire and Warwickshire during the 1640s’

Liz Preston, ‘The Career of Elizabeth Alkin: Spy, Publisher, and Military Nurse, 1642–1655’

Olivia Bennison, ‘Adapting to an Inaccessible World: Experiences of Disabled Veterans of the English Civil Wars’

Chair: Andrew Hopper

Mark Bennett, ‘Models of military innovation in the British army of the long nineteenth century’

Geoffrey Vesey Holt, ‘17th Tank (Armoured Car) Battalion: an Exemplar of the 1918 BEF’s ability to Rapidly Improvise and Use, with Success, Imperfect Equipment?’

Paul Knight, ‘So, what does the Army do with Historical Research?’

Chair: Jenny Grant

Philip Ball, ‘‘The scorn and laughing stock of friends and foes’: The British Army in the French Revolutionary Wars’

Séverine Angers, ‘Cured to Enthusiastic Expectations: Co-Constructing Felicia Hemans’ Experience of the Napoleonic Wars between Home and the Battlefield’

Simon Quinn, ‘Antiquarianism and collecting habits in the British army in Egypt, 1801’

Chair: Gemma Shearwood

Ruadhán Scrivener-Anderson, ‘‘Men of Moderate Means’: The Role of Wealth in Officer Selection in the Edwardian Army, 1902-1914’

Thomas Greenshields, ‘Leaders: The British Infantry NCO in the Great War’

Catherine Boylan, ‘The North Russia Relief Force: A Study of Military Motivation in the Aftermath of the First World War’

Chair: Mark Shearwood

Abstract

On 9th February, 1917, Cyril Newman, a volunteer signaller in the London Regiment, wrote to his fiancée Winnie that, when they were married after the war, ‘to bring an early cup of tea or breakfast to you will not be something strange and unknown. The art will have been learnt in the billets and trenches of France.’  Newman would go on to be wounded in 1918 and invalided out of the army, meaning that, like over 4 million British First World War servicemen, he survived the war. 

The civilian identity of the men who, like Newman, volunteered for the largest army of mass mobilisation to that point in British history has become an important point of analysis in the social and cultural history of British experience in the First World War. Helen McCartney and Michael Roper have both, for example, demonstrated how continued connection with their civilian identities shaped men’s experiences as soldiers throughout the war. Less attention has been paid, however, to what these identities meant for men who survived the war during demobilization and as they reintegrated into postwar society.

Drawing on my research for my current book project, The Return of the Soldier: The Intimate History of Demobilization in Britain After the First World War, this keynote will consider the ongoing importance of civilian identity for British servicemen from mobilisation through service to demobilization and their return to civil life. It will focus in particular on men’s return to the home and to work through the analysis of personal narratives, pension records and official policy documents. It will argue that men’s identities as civilian-soldiers of the First World War was as important to their return to civil society after the war as it was to their service during the war years.

About the speaker

Jessica Meyer is Professor of British Social and Cultural History at the University of Leeds. Her research interests lie at the intersections of the history of gender, medicine, disability and warfare, with a particular specialisation in the history of the First World War and its social and cultural legacy. She has published two books, Men of War: Masculinity and the First World War in Britain (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) and An Equal Burden: The Men of the Royal Army Medical Corps in the First World War (Oxford University Press, 2019), as well as numerous articles and book chapters. She is currently working on two book projects, Men and War: A Modern History and The Return of the Soldier: An Intimate History of Demobilization in Britain after the First World War. She co-presents 'Oh! What a Lovely Podcast' with Dr Chris Kempshall and Dr Angus Wallace.

Chair

Rory Butcher