CHEx past events and projects
Culture and Heritage Exchange, past events and projects archive
Past events...
Speaker: Professor Judith Rowbotham; Host: Dr Michael Kandiah
When first established in 1883, the Co-operative Women's Guild set out to break the bias against women's participation in the Co-operative movement as anything more than shoppers. As part of breaking that bias, the Guild set out to give working class women a voice that they could use to make an impact. The ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ Cultural and Heritage Exchange (CHEx) team, building on its role in the lottery-funded 100 Years of Plymouth Powerful Women project with the Hoe Neighbourhood Forum, has been researching the Plymouth branch of the Guild and the members' importance in shaping and developing women's activism in Plymouth and the South West. In this podcast, the CHEx team's Professor Judith Rowbotham discusses the Guild and Plymouth's branch, in collaboration with King's College, London, to celebrate International Women's Day 2022.
To Quarantine or Not to Quarantine? That was the Question!
The use of quarantine and other measures for controlling epidemic diseases is of long-standing, and has regularly been strengthened by legislation but that legislation (whether statute or under local bye-laws) has always the potential to be controversial because such strategies raise political, ethical, and socioeconomic issues. Implementation of quarantine, including lockdown measures, has always required managing a careful balance between what is identified as the public interest and a safeguarding of individual rights.
This event was held as a part of the 2020 ESRC Festival.
#CHITCHAT? at the ESRC Festival of Social Science 2019
The #CHITCHAT Research Initiative team will be back with full force at this year’s ESRC Festival with a number of events.
A Returned Pilgrim: Nancy Astor and Plymouth
The focus is on Nancy Astor’s impact on Plymouth – and, crucially, the impact Plymouth had on her. It explores this from her encounter with Plymouth in 1908, when (as Mrs Waldorf Astor) she was an active campaigner for her husband.
Documentary Screenings (6 and 8 November)
The Challenge of Dark Tourism in the South West: The Challenge Within
There is considerable complexity involved in the issues surrounding a popular wish for visiting sites which are either totally or partially focused on heritage stories involving death, disaster and suffering for consumption by visitors to museums, heritage sites and other visitor attractions.
Witness Seminar (7 November) part 1
Witness Seminar (7 November) part 2
Digitising Antonia Raeburn’s Suffragette Collection
Work has now started on cataloguing the private archive collection of Antonia Raeburn, local author of The Militant Suffragette published in 1973. This unique archive consists of a series of interviews conducted by Antonia from the 1960s onwards of surviving suffragettes with accompanying photographs, letters and other ephemera, which is now under threat. With Antonia’s permission #CHITCHAT? has been commissioned to digitize the material in order to preserve it for future generations.
Transportation from the South West, Labour and Servitude
In association with Professor Lucie Guibault and Dr Jerry Bannister at Dalhousie University the team are developing a research project to compare and contrast the transportation of convicts and migration patterns from the South West to Canada, the Caribbean and the Antipodes from 1847-1874. This project sets out to recover the life course histories of those transported to colonial destinations including Nova Scotia, Bermuda, Gibraltar, Western Australia and the Cape Colony.
Policing in Cornwall 2019
Wednesday 10 April to Friday 3 May
Bodmin Jail in association with ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ Time-Lock Productions presents ‘Policing in Cornwall’, the 2nd annual Easter Exhibition. Time-Lock is part of the University's iSPER #CHITCHAT? Research Initiative.
#CHITCHAT? at the
7 May 2019 – How do you Fix a Town like Plymouth?
#CHITCHAT? presents a screening of its acclaimed docudrama on Plymouth’s Chief Constable Jospeh Sowerby 1892-1917 in association with Plymouth Arts Centre.
16 May 2019 – 'The Woman is Sure to Get In' Nancy Astor – Poverty, Philanthropy and Plymouth
Judith Rowbotham gives a public lecture at Devonport Guildhall to celebrate the centenary of Nancy Astor taking her seat in Parliament.
100 Years of Plymouth Powerful Women
On 28 November 2019, the Hoe Neighbourhood Forum, together with the ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ’s Time-Lock#ChitChat team, RIO and The Box, hosted a Heritage Lottery-funded exhibition in Plymouth Guildhall to celebrate the contribution made by powerful women who, over the last 100 years, have promoted, protected and empowered Plymouth’s citizens.
How Do You Fix A Town Like Plymouth? An historical account of Chief Constable Joseph Sowerby 1892–1917.
Selected to be shown at The Dadasaheb Phalke International Film Festival in Mumbai on 20 February 2019.
#CHITCHAT? at the Plymouth History Festival 2018
5 May–3 June – Legal Tyranny: Conscientious Objection in the Three Towns 1853-1914
#CHITCHAT? presented this free exhibition in association with RIO at Devonport Guildhall
#CHITCHAT? presented this free exhibition in association with RIO at Devonport Guildhall
5 May – Temperance in the Three Towns of Plymouth, Devonport and Stonehouse
Kim Stevenson gave a public talk at the University, as part of local studies day organised by Plymouth City Council and The Box
Kim Stevenson gave a public talk at the University, as part of local studies day organised by Plymouth City Council and The Box
10 May – Objecting In Conscience - from Victorian Vaccination to Military Service, a historical exploration of Plymouth's part in the state's failure to persuade
Judith Rowbotham gave a public talk at Devonport guildhall linked to the exhibition.
Judith Rowbotham gave a public talk at Devonport guildhall linked to the exhibition.
A second associated project to interview and record the experiences of magistrates in North Devon is being led by Visiting Research Professor Malcolm Cowburn.
For more information about the project please contact Professor Kim Stevenson.
Conference: From Trauma to Protection: The Twentieth Century as the Children’s Century, 20 April 2018
Professor Kim Stevenson is co-authoring a book with Dr Kate Gleeson from Macquarie University and Dr Sinéad Ring from the University of Kent on responses to historical child sexual abuse, comparing England, Ireland and Australia.
They presented a panel together at the , held at the University of Warwick on 20 April 2018. The conference was in association with Sciences Po University in Paris and the Centre for the History of Medicine at the University of Warwick.
Cornerstone Heritage
#CHITCHAT? members are also involved in Cornerstone – an interdisciplinary research group that brings together staff from across the ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ working in the field of Heritage (or how we live with the past today).
Celebrating the strength of ‘ordinary’ women on International Women’s Day
"For International Women’s Day 2018, I want to remember and acknowledge the strength and achievements of women, particularly those in the South West (including Plymouth) during the Great War – not singling out the ‘heroic’ individuals, but instead appreciating the impact that a community of women who came together to work for their country had. In contributing to the war effort, ‘substituting’ for men, huge numbers of ‘ordinary’ women demonstrated quietly, and largely without fuss, that they were capable of doing well things hitherto considered ‘extraordinary’ for their sex. It was the impact of the mass of women that changed hearts and minds in government, and forced them to extend the franchise to include at least some women. Few of them thought of themselves as heroines, or extraordinary in what they achieved – but I do!"
Dr Judith Rowbotham
Witness seminar 12 April 2018 – Plymouth Policewomen’s Department
#CHITCHAT? held its sixth witness seminar capturing the fascinating memories and stories of seven former policewomen who served in Plymouth City Policewomen’s Department in the 1950s and 1960s, covering themes relating to the uniforms issued, training received, relationships with the public, operational duties and work undertaken. Their oral testimony will be transcribed and stored on the ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ’s Contemporary Oral History Archive.
Pirates, Police and Pasties 30 March–8 April 2018
Bodmin Jail in association with ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ Time-Lock Productions presented Pirates, Police and Pasties. Time-Lock is part of the University's iSPER #CHITCHAT? Research Initiative.
Conference: Union and Disunion in the Nineteenth Century, 22–23 June 2017
#CHITCHAT? is supporting the ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ Nineteenth Century Studies conference on the 22–23 June at the main campus of the University.
The #CHITCHAT team will be delivering a panel session on Plymouth: A Case Study of Unity and Disunity, which will include a specific focus on Union Street.
Further information about the event can be found on the .
Plymouth Past: Sustainable Future
#CHITCHAT? members participated in the
2016 ESRC Festival of Social Sciences
, a celebration of some of the country's leading social science research and its impact on society, the economy and politics.
As part of their participation members produced the video on the left which provides a fascinating virtual tour of Plymouth's past and how it influences its present and future in the context of ensuring sustainability.