The Recording Angel and the expression of English Welsh identities during the First World War
- Event type
- Seminar
- Series
- Parliaments, Politics and People
- Address
- Hybrid | Online-via Zoom & IHR Wolfson Room NB02, Basement, IHR, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU
- Speakers
- Wendy Ugolini (University of Edinburgh)
- Event dates
- Contact
- [email protected] Email only
This paper explores the mobilisation and multi-stranded performance of English Welsh identitiesduring the two world wars and discusses why, at times of global conflict, some English men opted to enlist on the basis of their Welsh antecedents. It uses the Recording Angel memorial in St Stephen's Porch, Westminster Hall, as a vehicle through which to examine the wartime articulation of these identities.
Inaugurated in the aftermath of the conflict, the Recording Angel memorial names three English-born sons of Welsh MPs - William Glynne Charles Gladstone (1885-1915), himself an MP, William Pugh Hinds (1897-1916), and Iorwerth Glyndwr John (1894-1916). This paper uses these three case studies to illuminate expressions of English Welsh dualities within Westminster’s political iconography in the aftermath of the First World War and the wider functioning of English Welsh identities within constructions of wartime Britishness.
Professor Wendy Ugolini is a cultural-military historian, specialising in identities and ethnicities in the British Armed Forces. She is Professor of Second World War Studies at the University of Edinburgh and co-founder of the RSE-funded Second World War Studies Network (Scotland). Her award-winning book, Experiencing War as the ‘Enemy Other’: Italian Scottish Experience in World War II, reflects her wider interest in notions of duality, belonging and Britishness. Her most recent book, Wales in England 1914-1945. A Social, Cultural & Military History, was published by Oxford University Press in 2024 and long-listed for The Society for Army Historical Research's Templer Medal.All welcome- this seminar is free to attend, but advance booking is required.
