ISSUE EIGHT The magazine for Durham University History alumni 2018 03 This year, Durham goes global! The History Department’s position as the locus of international networks has featured in previous issues, but the theme has come to the fore with this year’s articles. Our authors use Durham as a base to explore international phenomena, and to reflect on themes which are globally relevant. The History Department has always enabled vibrant exchanges, with historians travelling as far as Africa, North America and China for their research, and new students making the reverse trip to study at Durham University. Symeon captures a snapshot of this dynamic, intellectual, global network. This issue of Symeon features a range by over 150 years. On the far side of Movement and change are also evident of articles which demonstrate Durham’s this historical narrative, Ellen Paterson within Symeon’s editorial board, which place in a global community. Justin updates us about the successful year of has an entirely changed team of editors Willis’ piece on the moral economy talks and travels in the History Society. after the retirement of Mark Bennett, of elections in Africa, rising from Abigail Steed demonstrates the complex Caitlin Phillips and Alanna Freedman- his role in the ‘Impact of Elections’ conversations around the subject of Manke. Thank you for your amazing work project, demonstrates the ways in martyrdom in the case of the Anglo- and clear handover instructions! The which relationships are formed between Saxon Saint Ælfheah. On the hundredth new editorial team consists of Kathleen officials and local communities in anniversary of female suffrage, Henry Reynolds, Antonia Perna, Rhiannon recently formed democracies. Michael Miller and Ciara Stewart demonstrate Snaith, Grace Stephenson and Ryan Aspin describes the relationship between the significance of female petitions in Wicklund. Additionally, Sarah Davies Britain and the wider world through the an article originally published online in has taken the reins of the head of the case study of Parliamentary involvement The Conversation. Department and member of the Symeon with the ‘Bulgarian Horrors’ of 1876. editorial board. Clarissa Cahill, Durham Cathedral’s Our two alumni features strike a balance Marketing and Communications between international travel and building Our alumni community also demonstrates Officer, reflects on how the Cathedral’s a life in the North East. In ‘History Durham’s global impact, as you emerge digitization projects and new exhibitions Graduates: Where are they now?’, we from your graduation ceremonies ready to make history accessible to both the local reached out to Reetta Humalajoki, Ben take up positions across Britain and the and international communities. Pope and Lindsay Varner, all former world. We would love to hear where your postgraduate contributors to Symeon, history degree has taken you! Please get Our interest in local history remains about the path of their post-graduation in touch using the contact details on the vibrant alongside these international lives in Finland, America and Germany. penultimate page. projects. Adrian Green reveals a longer David Dougan provides a longer history history of education through the subject of the ways in which his Durham degree And, as always, we hope you enjoy this of ‘New College’, an Oliver Cromwell- has influenced his career and passions year’s Symeon! inspired initiative that predates the in English journalism, arts and history in establishment of Durham University the North East. SYMEON BOARD OF EDITORS: KATHLEEN REYNOLDS ANTONIA PERNA RHIANNON SNAITH GRACE STEPHENSON RYAN WICKLUND 05 CONTENTS The First Durham University 06 History Society 10 Revolting to the Consciousness of Englishmen, or Coffee-House Babble? The Parliamentary response to the 1876 ‘Bulgarian Horrors’ 14 Recent Graduates—Where are they now? 18 Department News 22 How 17,000 Petitions Helped Deliver Votes for Women 26 Alumni Reflections: Durham and beyond 30 Creating a Martyr: The case of Saint Ælfheah 34 Old Stories, New Technologies: Bringing Durham Cathedral to life in a digital age 38 The Moral Economy of Elections in Africa 42 Contact Us 46 FRONT COVER: This issue’s bookshelf belongs to David Minto, Assistant Professor of Modern British History. He studies histories of gender and sexuality in transnational perspectives, and his upcoming book is titled An Intimate Atlantic: The special relationship of transnational homophile activism. 06 SYMEON • Issue eight THE FIRST DURHAM UNIVERSITY Durham University was founded in 1832 by Bishop Van Mildert. This High Church initiative was intended to promote education in the North of England as a direct challenge to the evangelical Low Church movement active in the industrial communities of the Great North Coal Field. ADRIAN GREEN Adrian Green is an Associate Professor in the Department of History. His research concerns the social and economic history and archaeology of the period 1450-1750, with his main interests focusing on housing in Britain and its colonies. 07 whereby ‘scholars shall be accustomed Paris—the leading university of late and encouraged to propose to medieval Europe. questions’. Stipends for fellows were established, with a librarian In European context, the lack of a ‘learned in languages’. Exhibitions university in the North of England was were provided for poor scholars, with a glaring anomaly. Scotland like many students drawn from schools across European countries had established northern England. Under Statute several universities in the Middle 12, ‘Oath of the Elected’, Fellows Ages, but England focused on Oxford were required to ‘renounce all of and Cambridge, with the Inns of Popery, Socinianism, Arminianism Court for legal training in London. A & Superstition’. Socinianism university for the North was repeatedly presumably refers to Quakerism, proposed, and Durham was a favoured while Arminianism was the theology site with its tradition of scholarship Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the pursued by Archbishop Laud during and learning under ecclesiastical Commonwealth from 1653-1658. Charles I’s reign. Arminianism rejected patronage. Durham Priory was linked Calvin’s emphasis on predestination, to Oxford, particularly Durham College, Bishop Van Mildert gave Durham and the conflict between High Church and Oxford might have created an Castle, with its episcopal library and Arminianism and Calvinist Puritanism outpost at Durham. The nearest furnishings, to form the core of a new was central to the conflict over these proposals came to fruition was university. ‘Castle’ became University authority and worship in the Civil Wars. in the context of the Dissolution of College. This, however, was the second Puritan New College initially focused the monasteries under Henry VIII, attempt to found a university at on training in the learned languages when Thomas Cromwell supported Durham. One hundred and eighty years of Latin, Greek and Hebrew. This was establishing a university at Durham earlier, ‘New College’ had been created in effect a foundation programme, in the 1530s. The idea was revived in under Oliver Cromwell. The foundation equipping students with the skills the 1640s, as soon as the cathedral of a new university in the North of necessary for seventeenth-century buildings became vacant. Given England in the 1650s made use of scholarship. Further faculties of Law that the bishop’s palace was also the cathedral complex left vacant by and Physic were intended to be added vacated, Durham Castle would have the Civil Wars. The Dean and Chapter once the College was fully founded made a logical second college for of Durham Cathedral was abolished as a university. The university at the university. However, in 1660, the following Parliament’s victory over Durham thus envisaged a full range of bishops and cathedrals were restored Charles I. The first university at Faculties in Theology, Philosophy, Law with the monarchy, and the Dean and Durham was a Puritan initiative. It and Medicine. Its independence from Chapter of Durham Cathedral along was in many ways a mirror-image of Oxford and Cambridge is indicated with the Bishopric of Durham returned the 1830s foundation—providing a by planned links to the University of to occupy their historic architecture. university for the North of England that would equip clergy, scholars and gentlemen with learning, but with a Puritan rather than a High Church agenda. Proposed as a site for a new university as soon as the cathedral became vacant in the mid-1640s, the college was not established until after the civil wars ended. Famously, Scots prisoners from the Battle of Dunbar were marched to Durham to spend the winter of 1650-1 in the Cathedral. New College was established from 1653, and remained active until the Restoration in 1660. Statutes were drawn up in 1657, which survive in Durham Cathedral Library Hunter MS.47. These detail safeguards against maladministration, and set out a regimen of college life for scholars Detail of the document drawn up by Oliver Cromwell in 1657 to formally establish an and fellows. Methods of teaching institution of higher learning in Durham. © Durham Cathedral. involved lectures, and ‘disputations’ 08 SYMEON • Issue eight Intelligencer of Europe’, who from his house in Westminster tirelessly promoted learning and a ‘Great Instauration’ (or rebirth) of knowledge across England through his energetic correspondence. Hartlib was directly funded by Parliament in the 1640s, and had support at Oxford University.