What are the aims and activities of the IRHRG?
- To promote further discussion and research by holding regular seminars at regional venues in the UK
- To foster the development of new post graduate and other researchers studying aspects of interwar rural Britain
- To disseminate the findings of the Group at conferences, and by published material
What has the IRHRG achieved?
Increasing interest in the interwar period has led to date to two national conferences and a number of smaller, more informal meetings around the country where new research is presented
National conferences
- Regeneration or decline? The British Countryside between the Wars Dartington Hall, Devon, 2001. The findings of this conference are to be published by Boydell and Brewer later this year (see news ) .
- Constructing Communities; place and people in the countryside 1918-1939 at Greg-y-nog, Powys in 2004. This meeting identified new research possibilities for comparative and international approaches on interwar rural history, with particular reference to the role of the state. Thus, the IRGHG will hold an International Conference at Royal Holloway, London, between 4-6 January, 2007 on Rethinking the rural: land and the nation in the1920's and 1930's (see conference).
Research seminars
The IRGHG holds three annual 'work in progress' seminars at universities and other regional venues, often where archival material relating to interwar studies is available. Examples of papers given over the past five years include:
- envisioning England's geographies: B T Batsford and dust jacket art in the 1930's
- game conservation and pest control in the interwar countryside
- the history of the early WI movement
- recreating the countryside; tourism and early counter urbanisation in Berkshire
- 'petit bourgeois' farmers and Englishness in the interwar period
- rural council housing between the wars
- agricultural output, costs, incomes and productivity in the United Kingdom 1919-1940
