Medway History Showcase and forthcoming events

I thought I would start with some extremely exciting news, Ben Cornwell who is designing the Medieval Canterbury Weekend 2026 website thinks that it will be ready to go live next week.

This History Weekend, from Friday 1 May to Sunday 3 May will be organised by the Canterbury Association for Medieval & Early Modern Studies (CAMEMS) and Kent MEMS and has moved to the University of Kent. In a sense starting again, this has been a steep learning curve from previous years, and at this stage I would like to thank Ben Cornwell, Kieron Hoyle, Robert Pay and John Manley (CAMEMS), and Dr Suzanna Ivanic (Kent MEMS). More on this when it goes live but I’m delighted to be welcoming back Helen Castor, Marc Morris, Rachel Koopmans, David Carpenter and many other great historians. And also as in the past, we will be raising funds towards in this case CAMEMS bursaries for postgraduates to study medieval and early modern history topics.

Before I come to brief reports on the Medway History Showcase and the Southern History Society’s conference, I thought I would mention that tomorrow (Thursday) night is the Kent MEMS Anselm Lecture in the Templeman Lecture Theatre at 6pm. This public lecture will be given by Dr Steve Tibble (Royal Holloway) and is entitled ‘Assassins and Templars: A Battle in Myth and Blood’, where he will explore the story of these two most extraordinary organisations in the medieval world. For one was a Shi’ite religious sect, the other a Christian military order created to defend the Holy Land. Yet, as he will discuss even though they had vastly different reputations, followings and ambitions, they developed strikingly similar strategies with their intertwined stories having uncanny parallels. The wine reception after the lecture is generously sponsored by CAMEMS.

Also tomorrow, Dr Heidi Stoner (CCCU) will be giving a FCAT talk at 7pm at CCCU in Laud Building, LG16. Her talk is entitled ‘The Archaeologies of Cnut: Kent’s Second Viking Ages’ where she will discuss her recent research. All welcome.

Another exciting development is that the book from the funded ‘Kent’s Maritime Communities’ project, which I undertook with Professor Craig Lambert (P-I) and Drs Robert Blackmore and Gary Baker (RA), is now out: Kent and Europe, 1450–1640: Merchants, Mariners, Shipping and Defence (Boydell).

As some regular readers of the blog may remember, the 2024 Nightingale Lecture was given by Dr John Bulaitis on the tithe war in Kent in the early 1930s. John has continued to research tithe disputes that took place in the county and earlier this month he spoke to the Smarden Local History Society about the case of George Cooper in the 1880s, who was one of the farmers and hop-growers who refused to pay tithe.  John is going to write up this case but for a report on his talk, please see: https://www.kentonline.co.uk/ashford/news/historic-clock-awarded-to-village-martyr-displayed-in-packed-331484/

So now to the Medway History Showcase on the 18^th and 19^th October which was once again at the Royal Engineers Museum at Gillingham. Although I wasn’t able to be there on Saturday being in Winchester, the stall for CAMEMS, Kent MEMS, Kent Archaeological Society in the form of Archaeologia Cantiana and the Maritime History Group was ably covered by Kieron Hoyle, Jason Mazzocchi, Christine Brandl and Connor Chering, as well as Dr Diane Heath who, as part of Saturday’s talks programme, spoke on the great results for SEND youngsters that have been achieved through her NLHF-funded Medieval Animals Heritage project.

Equally, many thanks to Peter and Jane Joyce, who, as in the past, ably managed the whole weekend, as well as to JJ their son who was busy helping people on both days. It must be said, the Mayor on Sunday had a brilliant time as he went round talking to all the stall holders before joining everyone at the end for various speeches (including his own), the vote of thanks and the raffle. For that it is worth mentioning that Jason, from the late Duncan Harrington’s collection, had donated a copy of Patricia Hyde’s, Thomas Arden in Faversham: The Man behind the Myth to the raffle and it was won by the Medway Archives, who will add it to their collection for public use. We feel Duncan would have approved because he was a fantastic researcher, working not only in archives in Kent, but equally for many years at TNA.

The beauty of the Medway History Showcase it that stall holders from a wide range of local history and specialist history groups, as well as organisations such as the Kent Archives, the Medway Archives, the Rochester Bridge Trust and the Huguenot Museum have the opportunity to talk to the public about their research and other activities. Moreover, it also gave them a chance to talk to other stallholders, something which Kieron, Jason and Christine took advantage of, while Jason and I did so on the Sunday.

Indeed, from my perspective it was great to have a conversation with Alison Cable, the archivist at Rochester Bridge Trust, because I don’t think I have had this chance since before she left East Kent Archives. Consequently, I am hoping we can develop this link because the archives there are fascinating and extensive, although I only touched on them briefly years ago when studying the medieval hospitals of Rochester and its hinterland, especially St Mary’s hospital, Strood.

To digress, two masters at the hospital were at various times in the later 14^th century appointed master of the king’s works, which included Rochester Bridge. Although it is worth noting that until the new bridge was completed in 1391, and certainly following the final disaster involving the old bridge a decade earlier, the ferry may have been preferable because the old bridge crossing had become notorious, albeit the hospital probably benefitted from alms given by travellers, especially pilgrims, who needed to cross the river. For anyone interested in the history of Rochester Bridge, an early volume in the Kent History series is devoted to it, and Kent Archives at Maidstone may still have copies for sale.

The talks on Sunday were equally wide-ranging, from Dr Martin Watts, who spoke on ‘Gallipoli 1915’ to Toni Mount, who took the opportunity to launch her new book, A Medieval Christmas. Other talks featured different aspects of the history of the region’s dockyards, I chaired Janys Thornton’s ‘Creatively writing women in local history’, Jason chaired Jeremy Thornton on ‘Sheerness dockyard and its Medway connection’, while Peter Joyce chaired Dr Chris de Coulon Berthoud’s ‘German prisoners of war in Medway 1944–48’. Thus, this was a successful event on a number of different levels.

The Southern History Society’s conference on ‘Poverty and the Parish’ in Winchester was equally successful, and special thanks should go to Dr Cindy Wood for all her work beforehand and then on the day to Kelyn Passmore and Diane Budden. As the opening speaker on responses to the poor through funeral doles across the Tudor period, thereby exploring continuity and change either side of the Reformation, especially how Protestants might be said to have appropriated and adapted the ideas of their forebears in Kent, it was interesting that chronologically the next speaker was looking at post 1650. Thereafter, all the other speakers, including Drs Carl Griffin, Tom Watson and Peter Jones, and Professor Stephen King considered a range of topics from the 18^th and 19^th centuries, while Nicola Johnson, the final speaker, explored charitable responses to the sinking of the Titanic, and how class and occupation affected how much or how little victims received. An appreciative audience offered a wide range of questions and comments throughout the day, and the intention is that these papers will form a focused edition of the Society’s annual journal in 2026.

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