Yes I am absolutely using this as an excuse to eat biscuits all day long (though do you ever need an excuse)

Sipping my morning coffee feeling vaguely sacriligeous I didn't realise it was National Tea Day

When Thomas Ellwood repeatedly flouted his father’s command in 1659 to stay away from the Quakers, his behaviour provoked bitter family quarrels and a beating, until his father eventually found a surprising solution: he confiscated all his son’s hats. Thomas became in effect a prisoner in the house, accepting that it would be unthinkable to go outside without a hat. However strange to us today, this made perfect sense to contemporaries, and such episodes remind us that the multifaceted conventions surrounding dress played an important role in early modern culture. When, where, and how hats were worn, and the gestures in which they featured, conveyed signals about identity and status, could sustain, display, or defy social hierarchies and relationships, and asserted political or religious loyalties.

📣Out now on #firstview

Bernard Capp @uni-of-warwick.bsky.social on 'The Cultural, Social, and Ideological Role of the Hat in Early Modern England'

#Hat #Identity #Social #Clothing #Religion #Family #History 17thc 🎩👒🗃️

👉Read open access: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

📣New SHS PGR Work-in-Progress sessions launched by our PGR reps @louisebell.bsky.social & @aayushigupta.bsky.social!

Informal, supportive space to share research & test ideas. Open to all history PGRs & ECRs working in and around social history. More info here!

socialhistory.org.uk/2026/04/09/s...

Jobs! Three jobs! I am hiring three full-time, three-year postdocs to research the long history of song at Newcastle, from any disciplinary background (within reason), starting 1 October 2026. Spread the news far and wide – all details in the link below...

jobs.ncl.ac.uk/job/Newcastl...

my first thought before I read the date was that it might be a version of a song about Napoleon (often called Bonney) but whoops! it's far too early - might be worth checking the online catalogue of the VWML?

Overly sincere social media posts give me hives but I couldn't let #tdov pass without thinking about how grateful I am to be surrounded by support and love (even if sometimes its the baffled but well meaning kind). At the moment the world and this government don't make it easy but still we thrive!

Really pleased to share my (open access!) article on immigration control in early modern England, feat. rights-bearing subjects, rightsless migrants, and experiments in immigration control

Six people standing in front of a large Georgian building, stained with the soot of years of pollution.

The Wills Project went to Bath!

Some gentle hillfort strolling from this weekend. I love it when the sky looks so flat and grey that the hills almost look like a cutout, it's otherwordly.

Mosaic floor that shows a close up of the figure of 'Spring' with a basket of flowers in one hand a small bird in the other. Decorative scrolling surrounds

This #MosaicMonday we're celebrating the new season. Here's a close up of the figure of 'Spring' with a basket of flowers in one hand a small bird in the other at Chedworth Roman Villa, Gloucestershire.

📷Ian Shaw

Alice Culpeper sold Aurum Potabile after Nicholas died to support herself and daughter.

Second hubby John Heydon, left her and spitefully published her recipe, the 🐍

Well, Alice got herself a midwifery license in 1665. Go Alice!

#WomensHistoryMonth #earlymodern
EEBO, H1670; LMA

LB Southwark installed a blue plaque to honour Una Marson at her former home in Brunswick Square, Camberwell in 2009 and a new library in Walworth was named after her in 2024

theyre so beautiful, I'm staring wistfully

A small dormouse curled up in a nest of dry leaves and twigs

Caution - cute content...

First Hazel dormouse found at Nymans, West Sussex.

📷 Kate Gould

Regret to announce that we’ve reached Wrong Coat season. Every coat you wear from now til mid April will be The Wrong Coat for the weather

It’s worth squinting to read the inscription on this one - a strong ending

Monument to Ann Gaderen (d.1699) at Whitchurch, Bucks

👇

You come to a fork in the shelving unit where two guards stand, one likes big books the other only tells lies.

How does that song go? I like big books and I cannot lie

☞ ☞ ☞ the index finger is a pointing gesture to be found in manuscript and print traditions. It was used to draw the reader's attention to a certain part of a text or image. This slow-moving thread highlight a few of them:

Oh, the grand old duke of york
He ██████████████████
He ██████████████████
And he ██████████████████

My photo shows the ruin of an eight-sided Roman brick lighthouse with four stepped levels. There is a central arched opening (doorway) at ground level. On the upper three levels, in line with the doorway, there are narrow rectangular window openings. The lighthouse stands 15.8 metres high and is 12.2 metres wide at the base. Roman fabric survives to a height of 12.5 m. The brickwork of the uppermost level was reconstructed for use as a church bell tower for the adjacent Anglo-Saxon church of St Mary in Castro, which can be glimpsed on the right-hand side of my photo. The lighthouse is dated circa 1st century to early- 2nd century AD. It was one of a pair originally built on each side of the Roman port of Dubris (Dover). The other does not survive. This lighthouse stands within the grounds of Dover Castle.

The Roman Pharos (lighthouse) at Dover, still standing after almost 2,000 years! 🤩

It is the tallest surviving Roman structure in Britain, and one of only three surviving lighthouses from the former Roman Empire! Dated 1st-2nd century AD.

📷 me

#Archaeology

Pleased to report some swan-tastic action over in the #palaeography realm of Bluesky today 🦢

Interesting will of the day 💌 in 1606 Thomas Williams of Camarthan remembered four "reputed daughters" and two "reputed sons" in his will, with at least two of his daughters having different mothers (both spinsters!). Both boys received property and money and each daughter got £5 and 20 sheep 🐑🐑🐑🐑

You too can learn a great many things by spending >1hour on a text based online game such as: the secret fish knowledge I didnt realise was in my brain, that the game's author thinks turtles and tortoises are the same thing, and how wrong your spellings of certain animals are

You know its time to give up on working for the day when you find yourself distracted for over an hour playing a online game you found about listing as many animals from memory as possible

anyway the consultation shuts tomorrow, one minute to midnight UK time: www.gov.uk/government/c... Amnesty have some good guidance here. Go on: media.amnesty.org.uk/documents/Am...

We've just reached another milestone - the 100th article in our Historian's Watch series! The piece is fascinating, too: it's an unflinching look at colonial anxieties about 'aggressive Black men' and how these fears became embedded in British immigration debates.

📢NEW POST: a report on Chris Hoban's recent performance of music inspired by our wills at a sold gig for Topsham Folk Club 📢

📜🎶🎻🪗🪕

@leverhulme.ac.uk @uniofexeterhass.bsky.social @uoearchhist.bsky.social @cemsexeter.bsky.social

lovely to run into you too!