• Inactive for Year: 2024/25

• Module Leader(s): Professor Matt Perry

• Owning School: History, Classics and Archaeology
• Teaching Location: Newcastle City Campus

Semesters

Your programme is made up of credits, the total differs on programme to programme.

Aims

The Jarrow Crusade is hailed as a defining moment in the ‘hungry thirties’. It was the protest of the people of a Tyneside town against the closure of their shipyard and the blocking of a new steelworks. More than any other protest it is held up as a model for others to follow. Its rejection of politics and its courting of respectable opinion are seen as the reason for its success; this is at least the version of events with which many will be familiar. Yet the Crusade did not secure jobs for Jarrow and a series of myths and folklore have come to surround the event. This course will attempt to delve beyond the myths to the real history of the Crusade and in so doing discover insights into the context of contemporaneous events and British society in the 1930s. In order to do so it will use a wide range of primary materials and cultural representations of the Crusade. It will also consider the implications for different types of history: labour history, the history of protest, public history, the heritage industry as well as the history of events.

This module aims:
•To examine the social and political history of the Jarrow Crusade, and to contextualise it in terms of the history of Britain in the 1930s.
•To identify and evaluate a range of relevant primary sources, contemporaneous literature.
•To identify and evaluate a range of cultural representations and discourses concerning the Crusade.
•To examine and evaluate a range of historiographical perspectives.
•To provide an opportunity to acquire a sound general knowledge of the subject, reading widely and critically the primary and secondary literature associated with it and to develop the capacity for independent study.

Outline Of Syllabus

Intended as a guide only; week by week topics may be slightly different from the following:

Britain in the 1930s
Social conditions in the Special Areas
Protests of the unemployed
The myth of the Jarrow Crusade: not like the other marches?
The leaders of the Crusade: Ellen Wilkinson and the ‘four ladies’
Jarrow Crusade as an event in context: Spain, Appeasement, Abdication, Cable Street
Jarrow Crusade: art, drama and landscape
Jarrow Crusade: memory and identity

Teaching Methods

Teaching Activities

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Seminars encourage independent study and promote improvements in oral communication, problem-solving skills and adaptability. They will encourage students to select and prioritise from a range of source material and will enable students to raise and discuss issues themselves. All students will also undertake the presentation of a specific theme in both written and oral form.

Assessment Methods

The format of resits will be determined by the Board of Examiners

Exams

Other Assessment

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

Exams test acquisition of a clear general knowledge of the subject plus the ability to think and analyse a problem quickly, to select from and to apply both the general knowledge and detailed knowledge of aspects of the subject to new questions, problem-solving skills, adaptability, the ability to work unaided and to write clearly and concisely.

Documentary commentary exercises and examinations test knowledge and understanding of the texts set for the module. The ability to compare and contrast related source texts on a common subject. The ability to expound and criticize a textual extract lucidly, succinctly and with relevance in a relatively brief space, and, in an exam, under pressure of time.

Work submitted during the delivery of the module forms a means of determining student progress.

Submitted work tests intended knowledge and skills outcomes, develops key skills in research, reading and writing.

This module can be made available to Erasmus students only with the agreement of the Head of Subject and of the Module Leader. This option must be discussed in person at the beginning of your exchange period. No restrictions apply to study-abroad, exchange and Loyola students.

All Erasmus students at Newcastle University are expected to do the same assessment as students registered for a degree unless they have compelling reasons not to do so. If this is the case, they are offered the alternative of writing one 3,000 word essay to be handed in by 12.00 p.m. of the Friday of the first week of the assessment period. This will replace all assessment work required of other students on the module. In order to take up this option, students need to discuss it with the Study Abroad Co-ordinator and their module leader, having checked with their home university that the new assessment will be accepted by them. The Study Abroad Co-ordinator will have the final say on such issues.

Study-abroad, non-Erasmus exchange and Loyola students spending semester 1 only are required to finish their assessment while in Newcastle. This will require the provision of an alternative assessment before the end of teaching week 12. The alternative form of assessment for all semester 1 non-EU study abroad students will be two 1,500 word essays in addition to the other coursework assessment. The essays should be set so as to assure full coverage of the course content.

Study-abroad, exchange proper and Loyola students spending the whole academic year or semester 2 are required to complete the standard assessment as set out in the MOF under all circumstances.

Reading Lists

• HIS3222's Reading List

Timetable

• Timetable Website: www.ncl.ac.uk/timetable/
• HIS3222's Timetable