Blog Archive for January 2026

This article details, for the first time, the number of under 5 child deaths in Pennine Lancashire in the year following the 1826 Lancashire Rising (April 1826-March 1827). The figures are based on the counting of names in 58 burial records. As well as detailing this quantitative evidence, the article also names some of the children who died at this time. Most, if not all, of these names have not been spoken for some two hundred years and have never been widely known. They are the names that did not appear in the newspapers.

Heidi is a second year PhD student at The Open University, funded by the Grand Union Doctoral Training Partnership. She is supervised by Dr Isla Masson (FASS) and Dr Francine Ryan (FBL). In this article, Heidi reflects on her experience of visiting a women's prison in Nevada. She questions what (and who) women's prisons are for and makes the case for why we should care about them.