Summer Conference, University of Southampton, 8-11 July 2010
The Fourth Wellington Congress
The BCMH 2010 Summer Conference was a joint venture with the Special Collections Division of the University of Southampton Library — which holds the papers of the first Duke of Wellington as part of the events dedicated to the Redcoat Years.
As well as promoting work on all aspects of the career of the first Duke, there was a special emphasis on this occasion on the wars in the Peninsula and their bicentenary. The Congress included keynote lectures by Professor Alan Forrest, Professor Bruce Collins and Professor Chris Woolgar. In all, there were some forty papers running in parallel sessions over four days.
Other activities included:
- a truly entertaining reading of von Kotzebue’s one act comedy, The Uniform of Field Marshal Wellington, in a translation by Lord Stanhope
- a choice of excursions — a visit to Portsmouth Historic Dockyard or to the Duke of Wellington’s country house at Stratfield Saye — followed by a special performance by the Madding Crown, a local group of singers and musicians who research and perform the music of English village bands and choirs of the period 1660-1861
- a private view of the exhibition "'Victory searches for her son': defending Spain and Portugal against Napoleon, 1810", followed by the Congress dinner.
We are very grateful to Chris Woolgar and his team for organising and co-ordinating this event and are delighted to have had the opportunity to participate in and contribute to it.
Clearly it would be impossible to publish copies of all the papers and so I have concentrated on the activities of BCMH members. We have a very comprehensive overview of the Conference from Charles Messenger which is followed by a paper by Bruce Collins, adapted from his keynote paper. I am most grateful to Mark Thompson and Ed Coss for copies of their papers on the Royal Engineers and the British soldier respectively. Finally there is list of the abstracts of papers from BCMH members.
Chris Woolgar tells me that it is hoped to publish Proceedings in due course so watch this space.
Andy Grainger
BCMH Editor& Web