History Departmental Newsletter, no.2, Autumn 2008
Welcome to the second issue of our departmental
newsletter. We extend our greetings also to all of our new
and returning students at the start of a new academic year.
We wish you all a successful and enjoyable year and time
here in Plymouth.
Please find inside news of events and exciting developments in our
lively and growing history department.
PUBLIC EVENTS
American history series
To mark the occasion of this year’s United States Presidential election, the University of Plymouth
and Peninsula Arts is running an exciting American History series, featuring lectures on selected
Tuesday nights at 6.30 pm in October and November in Lecture Theatre 2,
Roland Levinsky Building. Tickets are £5 (£3 for over 60s), and free to Friends
Plus, UoP students and staff. Events include:
Dr Simon Topping, 'Walter White and the Origins of the Civil Rights
Movement', 14 October
Dr George Lewis, 'Martin Lucifer King': Martin Luther King Jr and White
Resistance', 21 October
Dr Clive Webb, 'Freedom for All? How the Civil Rights Movement fought
and lost the Battle against Hate Speech', 28 October
Presidential Election Night ‘Question Time’, 4 November
Image courtesy:
www.freeimages.co.uk
Sylvia Ellis, ‘Lyndon Johnson, Presidential Power, and Civil Rights’, 18 November
For full details see: http://www.peninsula-arts.co.uk
Plymouth Historical Association
The University also proudly plays host to a lecture series organized by the Plymouth Historical
Association in October to December this year. All events are held in Lecture Theatre 2, Roland
Levinsky Building, and begin at 6.30 p.m. Events are open to all, and are free for national or local
members of the Historical Association and for UoP staff and students, and are as follows:
Dr Ann Wroe, journalist and author, ‘Who was Perkin Warbeck?’, 7 November
Professor Ilan Pappe, University of Exeter, ‘The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine: The Roots
of the Arab-Israeli Conflict’, 11th December
History and Humanities Research Seminars are also held throughout the autumn and spring
terms. All are particularly welcome when guest speaker for the MA in Social History Martin
Johnes of Swansea University will visit on 6 November. Dr. Johnes will talk on 'Sport and Identity'
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History Departmental Newsletter, no.2, Autumn 2008
from 3pm in the University’s new Rolle building, room 202. Dr. Johnes is a leading authority of the
history of sport and he has published works including Soccer and Society in South Wales (2002)
and Sport in Wales 1800-2000 (2003).
Future public events: the Darwin series
Next year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. Darwin departed with the
Beagle from Plymouth late in 1831 on the voyage that would take him to the Galapagos Islands
and inspire the publication of his ground-breaking On the Origin of Species (1859). As part of
University-wide activities to mark these events, the History department is organizing a series of
lectures by experts in the field of the history of science to take place in 2009. More details will be
announced via the history website.
Teaching events
The new academic year is an exciting one for History at Plymouth, since our
newly revalidated programme includes several new modules, representing
fields as diverse as early modern history, modern Japanese and Chinese
history, modern Irish history, British empire history, and women’s history and
the history of gender. These new modules complement our existing portfolio
and offer a wide range of historical subjects for current and future students.
For further details please contact the history staff.
As part of our new module in History, Gender and Identity in Britain,
1800-1918, we are hoping to offer students a tour of Ford Park cemetery
and a guest lecture from an expert in Victorian imagery this autumn.
Student Experience
I have just begun my third year at Plymouth and I can honestly say that choosing to come here to
do this course was the best decision I ever made! I am history mad, and enjoy all the resources
that are here for us to use and always manage to take out heaps of books from the library! The
staff in the History department have been so helpful and friendly from day one and they are always
at hand for advice, to answer questions or give any kind of assistance. One of the best things
about being a History student is the amount of opportunities you have to study topics you enjoy
and to let your curiosity become your tool. It was my curiosity and interest that led me down
various paths throughout my studies in these last three years and this has ultimately made me feel
much more enlightened and capable of tackling different challenges. Being a History student has
helped me to develop as a person; it has given me confidence, encouraged my interest in the
subject and allowed me to experience a fantastic method of learning.
My University experience has been quite a comfortable one due to commuting to campus every
day from home which is only 30 minutes away. Whilst some would argue this would have not
allowed me to experience the student lifestyle to its fullest, the support I have at home has been
beneficial to my studies. And I can honestly say I have often been out socialising-just like
everybody else!
I will certainly miss the student life when I graduate because I have enjoyed not only the
independent learning involved with coursework and portfolio research, but also the tutorials and
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History Departmental Newsletter, no.2, Autumn 2008
seminars where discussion and debate help to evolve ideas and attitudes. The vibe you get in a
tutorial after a particularly good session is fantastic and makes you want to go and find out more
and work harder! The skills I have learnt will definitely help me when I go out into the big wide
world, and being a student representative for the past two years on the History faculty committee
allowed me the opportunity to speak on behalf of my fellow students and suggest more ways to
make our learning experience enjoyable.
My degree has been hugely enjoyable – let's hope my future career will be just as eventful!
Charlotte Rockey, Year 3
Congratulations!
Congratulations to Dr Liz Tingle on her appointment as a
Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History, and to Dr
James Daybell on his appointment as a Reader in Early
Modern History. Congratulations also to Dr Daybell on
his election as a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
Congratulations to Jacqueline Bryon, a Ph.D. student
here at the History department, whose article ‘Migration
in Torquay during the 19th Century’ is to appear in The
Devon Historian. She writes therein:
Image courtesy of www.freeimages.co.uk
‘Migration is a complex subject, which has exercised the minds of economic and social historians,
historical geographers and population specialists. It has been defined as a residential change of a
permanent or semi-permanent nature. This definition, although limited, provides ample scope for a
variety of interpretations. Individuals usually relocate for economic, cultural or family reasons. The
aim of this study is to examine the reasons for the remarkable growth in the population of Torquay
in the mid-nineteenth century, by making particular use of data in the 1851 census and the local
trade directories ...’
The complete article will appear in The Devon Historian, vol. 77, 2008, pp. 5-15.
Congratulations to Ian Cooper, Tom Squire and Leo Galloway, on becoming the first students to
complete the department’s new postgraduate MRes in History. This group of students not only
maintained a 100% success rate in this new programme, but have completed it to an exceptional
standard. To inquire about applying to this new programme, or the new postgraduate MA Social
History, for the next academic year, please contact the Programme Leader, Kevin Jefferys, or
consult the university website.
Last, but by no means least, congratulations to all of the History Department’s newest graduates.
Many celebrated the attainment of their BA (Hons) degree in a fitting degree ceremony, held in
sunshine on Plymouth’s historic Hoe on Friday September 26th. Well done to all!
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History Departmental Newsletter, no.2, Autumn 2008
STAFF ACTIVITIES
Harry Bennett spent the summer of 2008 on
the trail of a dead man. Friedrich Jeckeln,
who served in the German Army in the First
World War joined the SS before Hitler came
to power in 1933. Holding a rank in the police
force, he was implicated in the murder of antiNazi political leaders in Hannover. He served
with the Totenkopf Division during the attack
on the Low Countries in May 1940 and was
implicated in the murder of British prisoners
of war in June. In early 1941
Obergruppenfuehrer Jeckeln was attached to
Heinrich Himmler’s staff and undoubtedly
played a role in planning the opening stages
of the holocaust. Following the invasion of
Russia he was appointed Higher SS and
Police Leader for South Russia. The creation
of the Higher SS was intended to ensure that
the SS followed Himmler’s bidding.
Copy of Himmler’s orders ...
Jeckeln was thus one of Himmler’s right hand
men. In late 1941 he initiated a series of
massacres of the Jews of the Ukraine,
Crimea and South Russia. Tens of
thousands of men, women and children were
murdered in mass shootings and organised
pogroms. Jeckeln began to pioneer new,
more efficient, methods of murder. He
developed the sardine packing system by
which victims were forced to take-up position
on the floor of execution pits before they were
executed in situ. The next victims would be
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forced to lie on top of the first level of the
murdered before they too were executed.
This system ensured that bodies would not
fall awkwardly into execution pits, creating
voids in the grave which would decrease the
number of bodies that could be
accommodated in the pit. Jeckeln declared
South Russia to be “free of Jews” before he
assumed a similar position in the Baltic
States and North Russia where he embarked
on a new campaign of murder. Later he was
engaged in anti-partisan actions in Russia
before commanding an SS Division in 1945.
He was captured in the Battle of Halbe in
1945, questioned by the Russians and
executed after a show trial in Riga in 1946.
Much of the research was done at the United
States Holocaust Museum in Washington
(pictured here) and at the US National
Archives at College Park in Maryland. Dr.
Bennett flew from Bristol to New York, and
took a connecting flight to Washington which
was marred by heavy thunderstorms which
are a feature of Washington in the Summer.
At one point the aircraft went into free fall,
complete with screaming passengers, as we
passed through some severe turbulence.
The holdings of the holocaust museum
include the so-called Osobyi archive (German
material captured by the Russians in 1945).
They also hold captured German material
copied from the Czech state archives.
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History Departmental Newsletter, no.2, Autumn 2008
For these purposes the most valuable
material came in the form of the Russian
interrogation reports of Jeckeln. They
showed a remarkably efficient intelligence
system at work. They also illustrated a
genuine desire to follow due process in terms
of the trial of men like Jeckeln. Every page of
his statements was witnessed, signed and
dated. The Russians clearly wanted Jeckeln
dead, but correct legal procedure was not
going to be sacrificed for the sake of a
speedy verdict.
From his interrogations a remarkable picture
of Jeckeln’s life emerged. His anti-semitism
appears to have developed out of a failed first
marriage to a woman called Charlotte Hirsch.
Her father owned a large estate in Poland
which Jeckeln managed after the First World
War. By the time that Jeckeln and Charlotte
parted company in the mid-1920s (the fatherin-law being blamed for the break-up) the
couple had had three children together.
Remarkably Jeckeln claimed that it was well
after his marriage to Charlotte that he
realised that his father-in-law was Jewish.
Jeckeln abandoned his family and in 1932
Charlotte wrote to Hitler to ask her to ensure
that his SS man honoured court decisions
regarding financial support to his children.
Jeckeln married again in the 1930s, but in
1941 Himmler wrote to Jeckeln to inform him
that one of his sons by his first marriage had
written to the Head of the SS to express his
disgust at the murder of Jews in Russia.
Four more children resulted from his second
marriage, but in 1943 Jeckeln fathered a child
with another woman as part of the so-called
Lebensborn project.
Despite his murderous career and fairly
bizarre personal life, Jeckeln was remarkable
as an SS “Liberal”. In the 1930s he lobbied
hard within the SS against “the blond hair and
blue eyed nonsense”. After 1941 he stood
up to both Himmler and Hitler in a debate
about whether to regard the Ukrainians and
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people from the Baltic States as “racially
acceptable”. With the German war machine
critically short of manpower Jeckeln
considered that it was necessary to dilute the
Nazi racial utopia in order to save it.
Jeckeln’s success was such that Hitler and
Himmler eventually accepted that there would
have to be an accommodation. The
formation of units such as the 14th (Ukranian)
SS Division were a sign of Jeckeln’s victory in
this key internal debate.
Nothing of any significance has been written
on Jeckeln. This, and the quality of material
which Dr. Bennett unearthed, is testimony to
the point made by some holocaust historians
that we know remarkably little about the men
in the field who carried out the holocaust and
that much more needs to be done.
Finally, one small story that came to light as
part of the research concerns an SA man
from Hannover, where Jeckeln headed the
police force. The SA man played a leading
role in the development of the Nazi
movement in Brunswick but when he applied
to join the SS it emerged, unknown to him,
that he was half Jewish. His reward was a
prison sentence. He emerged in time to be
shipped off along with the Jews of Hannover
to the Baltic States, where Jeckeln was now
Higher SS and Police Leader. Instead of
recognising the evils of Naziism, within the
camp in which he was held he occupied a
position between the guards and the Jewish
inmates. With encouragement and a certain
degree of protection he brutalised the work
details put under his command. When he
died as a result of natural causes the one
time SA leader was given a ceremonial
funeral in the camp with the guards paying
their respects. With some aspects of history
the word inexplicable doesn’t really cover
it.....
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History Departmental Newsletter, no.2, Autumn 2008
Simon Topping’s book, Lincoln’s Lost
Legacy: The Republican Party and the
African American Vote, 1928-1952 (University
Press of Florida) came out in June.
engaged in research for an exhibition on
Elizabethan Devon and Cornwall to be held at
the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter.
An early modernist at heart, Dr Daybell has
also written several small articles on medieval
topics, including The Fourth Crusade,
Richard the Lion Heart and on the Rise of
Medieval Universities. He was also elected a
Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2008.
Dr. Nick Smart is a historian specialising in
twentieth-century British history. He is
working on the final stages of a biography of
Neville Chamberlain, which will be published
by Routledge.
For more details of this book, see :
http://www.upf.com/book.asp?id=TOPPIF05
Recently Dr. Topping also gave the following
papers:
• “Why Barack Obama is not a Republican:
Race and American Politics,” Roosevelt
Study Center in association with the
Roosevelt Academy, Middelburg, the
Netherlands, September 2008.
Claire Fitzpatrick is a historian specializing
in modern Irish history. She also teaches
early modern British history and has
contributed to the teaching of sports history
module for the
• “‘The Politics of 1948’: Truman, Dewey and
the African American Vote,” ‘1948: American
Realignments’ conference, University of
Sussex, September 2008.
Display cabinet at the Melbourne Cricket Club Library
Over the last few months Dr James Daybell
has been working on several projects
stemming from his long term research for a
book on the Material Letter in Early Modern
England. He has completed an article on
Penelope Rich's letter to Elizabeth I,
delivered papers at the University of Oxford
and at the Annual Conference of the
Renaissance Society of America in Chicago,
and organised a conference on 'Material
Readings of Early Modern Culture' here at the
University of Plymouth. He has also been
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History department’s new MA Social History.
Last December she spent some time
preparing for this teaching responsibility at
the Melbourne Cricket Club library, working
on its extensive range of cricket journals and
autobiographies. The MCC library is one
of three libraries in the world that use the one
system. The others are at Lord's and the
Baseball library in the United States. If the
cricket is a bit dull, you can retreat to the
library to read.
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History Departmental Newsletter, no.2, Autumn 2008
The view from the Melbourne Cricket Club Library
on match day.
Next March 18th, Dr. Fitzpatrick will be
presenting a paper entitled ‘Flexing the
muscles of a fledgling state; the Irish Free
State and radical dissent, 1922-7’at the
History Department’s Research Seminar. Dr.
Fitzpatrick is a current reviewer for the Irish
Studies Review, and is contributing to The
International Encyclopedia of Revolution and
Protest.
At the Edinburgh International Book Festival
in August 2008, Professor Kevin Jefferys
gave a talk about his book Politics and the
People: A History of British Democracy since
1918. He also contributed a paper called
'Two cheers for democracy' to the History and
Policy group run by the Institute of Historical
Research in London. This group states its
aim is to 'work for better public policy through
an understanding of history'. It seeks to
connect 'historians, policymakers and the
media' by publishing papers on its website:
www.historyandpolicy.org.
Dr. Elizabeth Tingle’s summer vacation was
a busy time for research work and
conferences. In July, she spent a week
working on sixteenth-century published
pamphlets on purgatory and ghosts in the
Bibliothèque Nationale de France, in Paris.
This was part of a research project on
purgatory and the Counter Reformation in
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western France. The weather in Paris was
glorious and Dr. Tingle enjoyed working in the
late eighteenth-century Arsenale building, a
wonderful, marble-halled and high-ceiling
mansion house on the edge of medieval
Paris. This trip was shortly followed by a visit
to Galway, Ireland, for the annual conference
of the Ecclesiastical History Society, where
she gave a paper ‘The Sea and Souls:
Maritime votive practices in Counter
Reformation Brittany 1500-1750’, and in
August, she attended the European
Association of Urban Historians’ meeting in
Lyons, France, where she gave a paper
entitled ‘Police and Poor Relief in Nantes
during the French Wars of Religion, 15581589’. During the summer, a major research
article was published in French History (vol.
22, 2008), entitled ‘The Conversion of Infidels
and Heretics: Baptism and Confessional
Allegiance in Nantes during the Early Wars of
Religion, 1550-1570’. Finally, she went the
European Reformation Research Group
annual meeting at Bristol University in
September. Dr. Tingle has taken over as
chair of this group for the next two years and
hopes to bring this international research
event to Plymouth University in the near
future.
Dr. Sandra Barkhof will be presenting a
paper entitled ‘Who do we think we ought to
be? European identity and the history
curriculum in Germany and England’ at the
History Department’s Research Seminar on
10th December.
G.K. Peatling recently published two papers,
respectively in Safundi: The Journal of South
African and American Studies, and in
Enemies of humanity: the nineteenth-century
war on terrorism, edited by Isaac Land. He
attended and gave papers to three academic
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History Departmental Newsletter, no.2, Autumn 2008
conferences over the summer in Lincoln,
London, and Leicester.
CHICKENS ÜBER ALLES
History has many well-beaten paths and
some that are not so well-beaten. One area
that has been increasingly intriguing me over
the summer is the history of the domestic
chicken. With the assistance of Paul
Brassley, an agricultural historian based here
at the University of Plymouth, I became
fascinated by the possible insights into
agricultural and social history offered by the
chicken. I would like to emphasise that
chickens are not all the same, even when
covered in a blend of 17 herbs and spices.
Even if one doesn't go beyond 1945, making
no mention of battery-farming and Hugh
Fearnley-Whittingstall, it is interesting how
much history the humble chicken connects
with.

The Dorking breed was reputedly
wandering around the round houses of
ancient Britain when the Romans
landed.
Light Sussex

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Marans

The Derbyshire Redcap emerged in
the 18th Century and gained wide
popularity in the industrial North
because its dark plummage did not
show the grime and the coal dust quite
as easily as some breeds.

The Langshan was brought back to
Britain from China by a Major Croad in
the late Victorian period as one of the
spoils of imperialism.

American types like the Leghorn,
Rhode Island Red and Plymouth Rock
were nineteenth century
American breeds that demonstrated
how far ahead the Americans were in
developing their poultry industry.

The standardisation of the Sussex
breeds (light, speckled and red) in
1903 constituted an Edwardian
response to foreign competition. The
importation of millions of foreign eggs
into the UK to feed the industrial
working class was seen as a challenge
to the Empire and an opportunity
for middle class women to go into
business.
The Maran was brought to France,
where it was popularised, by Dutch
drainage engineers in the 1600s.
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History Departmental Newsletter, no.2, Autumn 2008
http://plym.facebook.com/group.php?gid=184
26409080.
Speckled Sussex and Vorwerk


After 1918, while disabled exservicemen were encouraged to take
up poultry farming in Britain, Dutch
breeders produced breeds such as the
Welsummer and Barnevelder to cater
to British tastes which increasingly
favoured brown eggs.
This term will hopefully be exciting and fun,
and we would appreciate any suggestions or
help from any who wish to give it.
OUTREACH
In Germany the Second World War led
to the virtual destruction of the
Vorwerk utility chicken breed which
had been raised just after the First
World War.
Harry Bennett
THE HISTORY SOCIETY
This year, we third years involved with the
developing history society would like to use
every opportunity to enjoy our last year at
university, and would be keen to make this
year memorable for not just us, but the
first and second years also. As we are
extremely busy with our finals this year, we
would encourage any interest in the
participation of the setting up of
socials/events and would eagerly welcome
anyone interested in taking the society further
after we have graduated. For more
information or to get in touch, please contact
us via email at:
historysociety.plymouth@yahoo.co.uk and we
will be happy to talk to you. Or you can join
our Facebook page:
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Our aim for this year is to have both a
Halloween and a Christmas social, and we
are in talks with author Philip Photiou
(Plymouth's forgotten war) to organise an
informal chat about his work. To find out more
about Philip, feel free to check out his
website:
http://www.thewrathofkings.com/index.html,
where you will find out about his excellent
debut book and his new work 'The Wrath of
Kings'.
School of Humanities Summer School,
2008
On the 14th and 15th of July, the School of
Humanities staged a summer school,
attended by 21 Year 9 students (aged 13 or
14) on the theme of “Journeys”. The local
schools represented were Lipson, Stoke
Damerell, and Launceston College. All of the
divisions of the School of Humanities – Art
History, English and Creative Writing,
American Studies and History – were
represented by relevant members of staff.
The history sessions of the school gave
students the chance to explore issues
pertaining to historical experiences of
invasion in a hands-on and participatory
mode. Students had the chance to
experience the learning facilities in the
University’s new Roland Levinsky building
and enjoy the hospitality of the University.
Feedback received from students included:
‘the English travel journal was good because
it helped me learn about what makes a good
writer and all the History lessons were good
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History Departmental Newsletter, no.2, Autumn 2008
because they helped me for GCSEs’. A
member of the teaching staff from a
participating school commented: ‘A really
valuable and enjoyable experience for the
students. Extremely positive comments
made to me after the two days.’
Future Outreach Events
On Saturday October 18th History will be
represented in the University of Plymouth’s
Open Day.
In November of this year the History team are
planning an Access day for local schools.
Also in November, Dr. James Daybell will be
lecturing on Elizabethan Parliaments at
Ridgeway School.
Details of further future events of interest to
local schools are available on request.
Useful contact details:
t: 01752 585100 e:
arts.admissions@plymouth.ac.uk
re: BA (Hons) History | MA Social
History
t: 01752 585030 e:
artsresearch@plymouth.ac.uk
re: MRes History | MPhil/PhD
History
The history tutors at the University
of Plymouth would love to hear
from you!
Please contact
gary.peatling@plymouth.ac.uk
www.plymouth.ac.uk/arts/history
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