Beth Gaskell and Sport in the British Army

Sport and the military in this week's podcast brought to you by the British Society of Sport History in association with the Institute of Historical Research with Beth Gaskell, who is a postgraduate researcher at the University of Greenwich where she is completing a PhD on the British Army in the nineteenth century. She has also been active in HistoryLab, the postgraduate network for historians run by the Institute of Historical Research, as well as working as a curator of newspapers at the British Library. Beth talks about her work on the depiction of masculinity in regimental publications in the long nineteenth century and the way in which sport played an increasingly important role in the institutional memory of military institutions. She also talks more personally about juggling the demands of doing a PhD while working and being a mum, as well as the role that HistoryLab played in helping her to find her voice in academia. Beth Gaskell's research, funded through a Vice-Chancellor's Scholarship, investigates military writing, military-media relations and the professionalisation of the British Army in the long nineteenth century, with a particular focus on the rise of the professional periodical press. She is a qualified Librarian who has undertaken project work at the Royal Astronomical Society, and has previously held posts at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, the National Army Museum and the International Institute for Strategic Studies. She has won two grants from RSVP (2015 and 2016) and a Cardiff University vlogging bursary to attend BAVS 2016. Her chapter on "Bibliographic Issues: Titles, Numbers, Frequencies" appeared in Researching the Nineteenth-Century Press: Case Studies (Routledge) in July 2017. She is currently curator of newspapers at the British Library.