Impact case study database

Simplistic readings of history underpin sectarianism, but historical research that explores the complexities of the past can help break down such divisions. Communities in Belfast believed they were divided because their ‘tribes’ were divided in the past. However, Grayson’s book Belfast Boys helped to show people that this was not the case. It has empowered local communities to challenge sectarianism at a time when Northern Ireland continues to navigate a process of peace and reconciliation; and it informed the work of national agencies in developing and delivering their WW1 commemorative projects.

1. Belfast Boys changes local understanding of Belfast’s war, inspiring five new murals and five community projects in Belfast

Belfast Boys, influenced a series of murals (‘The Poppy Trail’) funded by the NI Housing Executive in Belfast’s Loyalist ‘Greater Village’ area (now part of South Belfast but was ‘West’ in 1914-18) which have been cited as a highlight of the UK’s First World War Centenary in a House of Commons Select Committee report.[S1] The displays are radically different to other sectarian murals in the area because they focus on service beyond the 36^th Division and depict Protestant-Catholic soldiers side-by-side. Between 2015 and 2018, five new murals inspired by Belfast Boys have been erected in the former West Belfast area. Each mural depicts a different year, (1914, 1915, 1916 and 1917 respectively) with the 5^th marking the sinking of the HMS Hawke.

Those not familiar with Belfast’s murals must understand that these artworks are not produced by individuals or detached groups. Their existence denotes significant community buy-in to their meaning. These visual displays are the product of in-depth local debate and are crucial to territorial demarcation as communities use murals as potent signifiers of who they are. New mural sites are hard fought over (sometimes literally ‘fought’) and discussions often involve former prisoners and/or paramilitaries. This means that Belfast residents can be reluctant to voice their reasons for displaying certain murals and the significance of new murals must be judged by the fact that they exist at all.

[ Image: ‘1914 – Kitchener ‘Your Country Needs You’ (Egeria Street) and enlargement of text (bottom left of mural) which acknowledges impact of Belfast Boys]

As part of his research for Belfast Boys, Grayson established a longstanding connection (since 2007) with the 6^th Connaught Rangers Research Project (a broad nationalist group including former Troubles-era Republican prisoners) and the Fellowship of Messines Association (a cross-community body of former Troubles’ combatants). One member of both organisations, commented in 2019 on the adoption of Grayson’s data and methods to discuss First World War commemoration:

‘The research carried out and the publication of Belfast Boys had a significant influence in supporting changes to the research efforts of both the 6^th Connaught Rangers Research Project and The Fellowship of Messines Association, in compiling accurate records of Belfast men who had served. The listings compiled by Prof. Grayson opened up new sources of information that helped us to turn the regimental numbers into the human stories of local men who had enlisted and served. The impact of this had, and is still having, positive results in the work of both groups both within and across communities here.’

The data collected for Belfast Boys also informed Grayson’s work with the Shankill Area Social History (SASH) a leading social history group with a strong local influence. Grayson first met SASH members in 2009 at the launch of Belfast Boys and worked with them to co-produce ‘The Shankill Great War Project’ website launched in November 2019 which is about the history of this unionist/loyalist area. In 2019, a member of SASH said that the launch of Belfast Boys directly ‘inspired’ SASH ‘to research, compile and educate ourselves and our community around the same subject’ and that the book ‘led to a better understanding of our history, how at that time, against a common enemy, the division within Ireland was put aside.’ In reference to SASH’s activities, he also says that Belfast Boys expanded his community’s,

‘knowledge of the complexities of that time, and about the role the Catholic Nationalist Community played in the Great War too. Something we never truly grasped, or learnt about, given recent history […] everything we have done, we have done so because of the interest gained through that book launch. All those men, all those names, but nothing anywhere about them until reading that book, & meeting Richard.’

The Shankill and the Great War website endorses this testimony: ‘S.A.S.H. would like to thank Professor Richard Grayson of Goldsmiths, University of London, who has given many valuable hours over a number of years, and without whom we could not have achieved this outcome.’[S2]

Grayson’s work contributed to other local community projects between 2014-2020. Doing for East Belfast what he did for West Belfast, the ‘East Belfast and the Great War’ project would not have been possible without Grayson’s research methods. As the project website confirms, ‘The research methods that are used by East Belfast & The Great War are modelled on those developed by Professor Richard Grayson in the research for his book Belfast Boys’. Project creator, Jason Burke, said, ‘Belfast Boys fundamentally changed how I approach the writing of history. It led me into a world of history by numbers, a scientific approach to the craft which is underpinned by statistics.’[S3]. Other examples of community projects that use Belfast Boys as a case study and promote Grayson’s methods in training volunteers (from twelve community groups) include the NI Community Relations Council’s Decade of Anniversaries Toolkit and in Mid-Antrim and Causeway Museum Services’ ‘On the Brink: The Politics of Conflict, 1914-16’ [S4, S5].

2. ‘Military history from the street’ methodology influences commemorative projects in the UK

The centrality of Grayson’s research to any NI discussion of WW1 is recognised by the UK government, the Imperial War Museum, The National Archives, the BBC and The Centre for Hidden Histories who have sought his insight and advice on commemorative works.

Grayson became an Associate Member of the NI Centenary Committee (a sub-group of the UK government committee) because his; ‘research is vital in terms of our preparations for the Centenary’ (Jeffery Donaldson MP, 2014) [S6]. His expertise meant that overlooked aspects of the war, such as the deployment of the 10^th (Irish) Division at Gallipoli in August 1915, were included in the commemorative programme and marked through a memorial service held at Lisburn Cathedral in August 2015. He also chaired the Imperial War Museum’s’(IWM) digital projects experts’ panel from 2012, who stated in a press release at the time: ‘We invited Richard Grayson to chair the group because his book Belfast Boys pioneered using large quantities of digital and other sources to analyse the war experience of one area.’ Grayson’s expertise ensured that Lives of the First World War (launched in May 2014) included community dimensions based on the ‘military history from the street’ approach. More than 8,000 community sections were created in five years by over 160,000 volunteers who also contributed to a database containing 7.7 million ‘life stories’. Operation War Diary (run by IWM with The National Archives from January 2014 to 2019) also drew on Grayson’s ‘military history from the street’ approach and engaged over 15,000 volunteers who worked on approximately 134,000 pages of war diaries over five years.

As a member of the academic group advising the Department for Education on English schools’ battlefield visits and the Belfast Somme 100 advisory group, Grayson offered counsel on ways of engaging the public in hidden histories using ‘military history from the street’. As historical adviser on the BBC’s 2018 Armistice Day website (which had over 600,000 users for an average of 9 minutes each) he ensured that pages on Ireland included the latest research, selected examples which covered the breadth of Irish service and corrected errors on the time soldiers spent in trenches [S8]. Grayson is a regular speaker at public lectures (such as Belfast City Council’s Messines centenary lecture) and as a media commentator (extensively, but most notably on location on the Somme with BBC Radio Ulster on 1^st July 2016, BBC 1 NI’s 2015 two-part Ireland’s Great War, and the RTÉ/BBC 2020 production Hawks and Doves).

In 2019, The Centre for Hidden Histories, one of five World War One Engagement Centres funded by the AHRC, chose two schools that use Grayson’s ‘military history from the street methods’ (The Hemel Hempstead School (HHS) and Bishops Grant School in Streatham) as the sole representatives of the East of England and London in the national ‘Young People’s Learning Hub on World War One’ [S9, S10]. Leanne Williams, Head of History at HHS, said in 2019,

‘Over the past decade, Professor Grayson's excellent approach in enabling students to see the links between international and local history has been so important in changing our students' views of the war, helping them to understand how the World Wars affected their local area in a way that they had not done before.’

Watson’s ** Ring of Steel and ** **The Fortress have had significant impact on public understanding of the First World War, mainly in Britain but also beyond. The books’ research shaped the key British state centennial educational initiative – ‘The Great War Debate’ – and influenced media coverage at the period of peak public interest in WWI. Through the prizes the books won and were shortlisted for, and the critical acclaim they received, Watson’s research became well-known and sold widely, informing and changing the opinions of a large readership and engaging organisations as diverse as the US National WWII Museum and the WWI computer games developer Blackmill Games.

Shaping the UK government’s centennial education initiatives: ‘The Great War Debate’ was a flagship government centennial programme in 2016-18, funded by the Department for Education (DfE), linking scholars, media and other experts with teachers and A-Level students to raise knowledge of the First World War. Twenty-three debates were held across Britain, with 114 schools and 3,001 schoolchildren – nearly double the official target. Watson’s Ring of Steel captured the attention of the educational consultancy which ran the programme, Hopscotch Consulting, and he was commissioned to design the first series of debates. As Hopscotch testifies, Watson’s ‘extremely valuable’ work shaped 12 debates run ‘from June 2016 – March 2017 … across the UK, featuring panels discussing the very topics Professor Watson originally recommended’. Surveys prove a tangible impact on pupil participants: 89% confirmed the debates had broadened their knowledge of WWI and 75% reported increased motivation to study history in the future. Typical testimony affirmed the debates ‘brought the subject to life … [and] left me wanting to find out more about the war’. [S1]

Influencing the BBC’s coverage of the centenary: Watson was invited to present at a BBC creative session in December 2016, which shaped that organisation’s centennial programming for 2018. The former BBC Head of Specialist Factual Commissioning, Martin Davidson – who was the lead TV and digital commissioning editor at the BBC for its First World War coverage – has evidenced the ‘important impact on our own broadcasting plans’ of Watson’s presentation and writing, especially ** Ring of Steel. The creative session ‘played a key role’ in communication with production teams and in the sharing of ‘key historical background and priorities’. Ring of Steel’s** impact was reflected most clearly in the BBC’s ‘imperative that the German/A-H dimension be NOT simply side-lined, or taken for granted’. [S2]

Informing public views through centennial commemoration: The exceptional impact Ring of Steel exerted on public understanding of WWI in the centenary is affirmed by the AHRC-funded study, ‘Bringing the Marginal into the Mainstream: “Hidden Histories”, Public Engagement and Lessons Learned from the Centenary of the First World War’. The project canvassed British media, museums and local community groups to trace how centennial commemoration had altered public views of 1914-18 and identified *Ring of Steel as influential in its November 2018 report, ‘Highlights from the Centenary Commemorations of the First World War’. Notably, it was the only book selected for inclusion on this list. [S3]

Prizes, publicity and book sales indicate widespread popular appeal: Both **Ring of Steel and **The Fortress achieve direct impact on the public by garnering considerable prestige, and therefore publicity. The books’ appeal far beyond academia is evidenced by the composition of the prize judging panels which honoured them. The judges were not only scholars, but also popular writers and serving soldiers in the British and US Armies. The prizes won by Ring of Steel, and the juries awarding them, are:

1. Wolfson History Prize – Britain’s premier history prize. All academic jury.

2. Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize – the top US prize for military history. Mixed jury of academics, popular history writers, senior US servicemen.

3. British Army Military Book of the Year – jury of active British servicemen.

4. Society for Military History Distinguished Book Award – jury of academics and senior US servicemen.

**The Fortress was a finalist for the Gilder Lehrman Prize (the renamed Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize), the British Army Military Book of the Year award and the popular magazine Military History Matters Book of the Year award.

The prizes amplified the attention already drawn by favourable press reviews to the books. Ring of Steel was the Sunday Times’ ‘History Book of the Year’ for 2014. **The Fortress was a BBC History Magazine and Financial Times ‘Best Book of the Year’. It was also chosen by Paul Lay, editor of one of Britain’s two major popular history magazines, History Today, as one of five ‘Best History Books of 2019’. The books were reviewed in the mainstream press and literary supplements, including The Times, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Financial Times, Literary Review and The Wall Street Journal. The plaudits helped achieve a wide readership. Sales testify to the books’ reach by 31^st December 2020: Ring of Steel has sold 40,013 copies and *The Fortress has sold 12,777 in the UK, US and Commonwealth. *Ring of Steel has been translated into Hungarian and Mandarin. Translations into Spanish ( Ring of Steel) and into Hungarian, Polish, Italian and Mandarin ( The Fortress) are underway. [S4, S5]

Altering public understanding of WWI: Feedback from critics, readers and audiences evidences that the core arguments of the books and outreach activities were internalised and altered public understanding of WWI. Thus, for example, influential editor of BBC History Magazine (Britain’s best-selling history monthly), Rob Attar, praised Ring of Steel for telling ‘the story of the war from the German and Austrian point of view’, highlighting its importance as a ‘challenge [to] how British people understand the war’. Political commentator Simon Heffer, who named it a New Statesman ‘Book of the Year’, made the same point, declaring the book’s Central European narrative ‘revelatory to most British readers’. *The Fortress’s core arguments linking WWI and WWII similarly were seen as significant by critics: ‘the road to the Holocaust began with the pogroms of this all but forgotten campaign’ (Lawrence James, The Times). Readers understood and absorbed key points too. Among readers’ reviews on goodreads.com and amazon.co.uk and amazon.com, two-thirds of reviews (164 out of 246) for Ring of Steel and three-quarters for The Fortress (36 of 47) explicitly named one or more of the books’ key arguments. The books changed readers’ views as evidenced in their comments: ‘Does an excellent job of upending comfortable Anglocentric preconceptions about the First World War’; ‘Really opened my eyes to the German / Austro Hungarian viewpoint’; ‘I was intrigued … Far from being another account of a forgotten battle, the book is an incredibly well-written account of the mind-set of phantoms haunting Europe’ are typical reader testimony. [S3, S5, S6]

International impact, unusual collaborations and atypical audiences: The Fortress drew the attention of the US National World War II Museum, and influenced its 2020 programming on WWII’s Eastern Front. The Museum’s Senior Director of Programs, Dr Edward G. Lengel, was excited at how the book’s link between WWI and WWII ‘changes scholarly thinking’, and he invited Watson to launch the Museum’s education drive on WWII’s Eastern Front with a public webinar and online article on 1914. Watson also teamed up with Blackmill Games, the computer games developer behind best-selling WWI titles Verdun and Tannenberg, on a promotional / historical YouTube film on Przemyśl Fortress in 1914. The developers reaped significant reputational and marketing benefits from the collaboration: ‘Working with Professor Watson’, they testify, ‘was a great chance to … demonstrate our company's commitment to historical authenticity. It enhanced the appeal of a major content release [a new battlefield map of Przemyśl Fortress] and drew extra community and press interest in the release.’ Gaming news platforms like Gamasutra, IndieDB and Gamingcoffee reported on the collaboration. The film introduced The Fortress’s ideas to an audience which, although historically interested, engages with the past primarily through war games. Gamers’ feedback was extremely positive, with nearly 7,000 views in just four months. [S7, S8, S10]

Watson’s other outreach, whether presentations at high profile public events (e.g. Chalke Valley History Festival (Britain’s largest history festival); Wells and York literary festivals), YouTube talks, podcasts or webinars (e.g. the Western Front Association; YouTube’s Great War Channel (with 1.25 million subscribers) podcast), radio (e.g. New York’s WNYC Leonard Lopate Show) and essays for BBC History Magazine (Britain’s best-selling history monthly – circulation: 98,000) and US Jewish genealogical society Gesher Galicia helped spread the books’ ideas to diverse audiences. In total, Watson’s YouTube and webinar talks have attracted 18,000 viewers, and over 2,000 people have heard him speak live. Up to a quarter of listeners bought copies of the books at live talks. All of this strongly indicates wide engagement with the books’ research. [S7, S8, S9, S10]

**Ring of Steel and The Fortress demonstrate that well-researched and originally argued history is able to ‘impact’ on and benefit the public, and does change opinions about the past. The last word goes to a teacher who assigns his A-Level students Ring of Steel. The book’s discussion of Britain’s WWI naval blockade as a war crime caught their imaginations, and by pushing pupils to think beyond the curriculum specification and question standard narratives of WWI, he writes, Watson’s history – as all good history should – ‘provoke[s] deep thinking and help[s] develop reasoning skills’. [S10]