Event Details

An online afternoon event in association with the Centre for War and Diplomacy. This study afternoon features contributions from two expert speakers, as well as an opportunity to ask questions. It is an online event, to be held Saturday 5 December. Details of how to access it will be provided to everyone who registers.

Lancaster Castle has a very long history as a site of imprisonment, trial and punishment, but the twentieth century saw a great change in the uses of the building, as well as some continuity. In particular, the Castle’s role as a prison was significantly interrupted during the years around the two World Wars. By 1917, tribunals were being held in the courts but the only inmates at the Castle were German prisoners of war; the Castle would not revert to prison use until October 1954. In the 1930s the Castle had a period as a police training college, and the Second World War brought new occupants to the Castle, including the Royal Observer Corps and the West Lancashire Territorial Association.

Dr Corinna Peniston-Bird, Senior Lecturer Gender and Cultural History at Lancaster University, will introduce the developing roles of Lancaster Castle in the Second World War, in terms of its specific uses broader context of life in Lancaster at the time. Corinna’s research on gender focuses on femininities and masculinities at war, recently represented by a co-edited collection (with Dr Emma Vickers) Gender and the Second World War: Lessons of War. She also researches oral testimonies, centred on the relationship between memories and cultural representations. Corinna is one of the lead educators on the History Department’s Massive Open Online Course Lancaster Castle and Northern English History – the view from the stronghold.

Our second speaker, John Gedge, volunteered for 11 years with the Royal Observer Corps in Lancaster and has made a special study of the history of the organisation and its links to Lancaster Castle.

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