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150 YEARS OF ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY PUBLISHING
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 November 2018
Abstract
The 150th anniversary of the Royal Historical Society offers an opportunity for an investigation into its publications over the longue durée. Its slow transformation from an association of literary dilettanti to a body of professional historians in the period 1890–1910 was accompanied by changes to its publication programme: the appointment of a literary director, an improvement in the quality of papers read, the merger with the Camden Society and the commitment to a programme of historical bibliographies established the basis of the Society's publishing programme for much of the twentieth century. The interwar years saw new initiatives including the launch of Guides and Handbooks, but the Society was already losing momentum, and an ill-fated foray into the publication of diplomatic records stymied its reputation. The 1950s and 1960s were a period of ongoing stasis, from which the Society was rescued in the early 1970s by G. R. Elton and his allies, who promoted a monograph series and the Annual Bibliographies. The momentum of change was sustained by the early commitment to an electronic version of its bibliographies, and still more recently by a commitment to open access monographs. The changing profile of the Society's publications by gender of author, period and area is charted, raising questions about future directions.
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References
1 The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography has proved helpful on the backgrounds, careers and values of key individuals. Rather than citing articles individually, I have adopted the expedient of identifying subjects in the Dictionary by means of an asterisk.
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17 RHS, Council, 15 Dec. 1904, 20 Dec. 1906, 18 June 1908, 17 Dec. 1908, 16 Mar. 1909.
18 RHS, Council, 12 Jan. 1907.
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29 See the illuminating correspondence folders on Bibliography projects, 1911–74, at RHS for negotiations with publishers and fund raising initiatives.
30 Bibliography of British History, Stuart Period, 1603–1714, ed. Godfrey Davies (Oxford, 1928); Bibliography of British History, Tudor Period, 1485–1603, ed. Conyers Read (Oxford, 1933).
31 Humphreys, Royal Historical Society, 35; RHS, Council, 14 Mar. 1935, 12 May 1945, 15 Dec. 1945, 15 Mar. 1947; Royal Historical Society, Writings on British History: 1934– (1937–86).
32 RHS, Council, 12 Oct. 1933, with report of Publications Committee, 21 Sept. 1933.
33 RHS, Council, 11 Mar. 1937. The series on diplomatic agents was first mooted in 1927 and was strongly supported by both Temperley and Sir Richard Lodge: Council, 8 Dec. 1927.
34 ‘Ellen Marianne Leonard – President of the Students’ Union, 1907’, http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsehistory/2016/03/24/ellen-marianne-leonard/.
35 The swipe at J. P. Kenyon, The History Men: The Historical Profession in England since the Renaissance, 2nd edn (1993), is intentional.
36 I am grateful for help with the Alexander Prize and women in Transactions to Katy Cubitt and Simon Baker respectively. For Lubimenko, my research student Mikhail Belan has provided invaluable assistance. The archivists of Somerville College and Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford and Girton College in Cambridge have been helpful on the careers of women scholars.
37 RHS, box 3, folder 143/2, Hall was writing to Miss Curran at least twice a week.
38 Joy McCarthy, ‘Jean Chapman, 1934–2015’, Newsletter, Oct. 2015; Peter Mandler, presidential letter, Newsletter, Dec. 2016.
39 RHS, Council, 18 Feb. 1915.
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41 RHS, Bellot papers, memorandum of 20 June 1950.
42 See the helpful summary of Council resolutions in letter from R. H. C. Davis to Ian Christie, 8 Sept. 1968, Bodleian Library, K. V. Thomas papers, box 21. I am grateful to Sir Keith Thomas for permission to consult his papers.
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44 RHS, Bellot papers, T. F. Plucknett to Bellot, undated, ?1949.
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49 RHS, file of returns to survey on publications, 1973. See also Elton papers, presidential correspondence, P. Chaplais to Elton, 2 Feb. 1974, J. C. Holt to Elton, 17 Dec. 1973, for the notion of the ‘reformed Camden’.
50 RHS, Council, 8 Feb. 1974.
51 RHS, Council, 20 Sept. 1975, 21 Nov. 1975, 5 Mar. 1976, 18 Sept. 1976.
52 RHS, Council, 8 Mar. 1974, 21 Sept. 1974, 18 Sept. 1976.
53 RHS, Council, 12 Dec. 1992, 28 May 1993, 21 Jan. 1994. Boydell and Brewer continued to publish Studies in History.
54 Reports of Council.
55 The paragraphs which follow draw on the author's personal recollections, but the story can be followed through the successive reports of Council in TRHS, as well as the reports to AHRB/AHRC as archived in the Publications Committee papers. There is a considerable amount of information on the BBIH project website. See also www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/resources/articles/RHSB.html.
56 Paper by Andrew Pettegree, ‘The Studies in History Monograph Series’, RHS, Publications Committee, Apr. 2014. The proposals were initially quite contentious.
57 S. Newman and P. Summerfield, ‘New Historical Perspectives’, Newsletter, May 2016.
58 See the author's paper ‘Towards a Closer Union: European Historical Bibliographies’, RHS, Publications Committee, 23 Nov. 2007.